Traffic is essential to a website's success, whether it is a stand-alone ecommerce store or a complement to brick-and-mortar operations. Web traffic creates exposure for your brand and in many cases, it also drives revenue.
The elusive piece of this puzzle, however, is how you should go about attracting visitors to your site. There are countless ways to do this, some of which are not always ethical or productive. So before you purchase website traffic or consider any other similar desperate measures, give these tried-and-true methods a try:
Use your blog to attract and retain your audience.
Blogging is a great way to improve your site’s traffic. By creating catchy headlines that appeal to your audience and generating valuable content that is easy and fun to read, you can build long-lasting relationships with your target audience. Share insight into your brand, provide solutions for some of their most common problems, offer your input about current events, or publish content that is simply entertaining. Diversity is key as far as blogging is concerned. It keeps your audience on their toes and prevents blogger burnout.
As an added bonus, frequent blogging is extremely beneficial to your search engine rankings. By posting fresh content, you are giving the search engines more pages to index, which gives your brand a better chance at standing out among your competitors who may not be posting quite as often.
Do your research and use relevant keywords.
One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is the idea that you should always use keywords effectively. Rather than randomly placing keywords throughout the content of your site and blog posts, integrate these search terms naturally. Remember that oversaturating your content with keywords (often referred to as “keyword stuffing”) is something that the search engines pick up on easily, and it will cause your website to plummet in search engine rankings.
If your website is fairly new or operating in a highly competitive niche, choose long-tail keywords that will give you a better chance of being found. Choose wisely, because these terms will also be used in your article’s headline, tags, and meta description. Google’s Keyword Planner is one of the best tools available for helping you decide which search terms are best for your particular business, and the benefits of adequate research are well worth the time it takes to sort through all of the options.
Get social with your audience.
Social media has become one of the top “go-to” means of attracting visitors, because marketers and business owners have seen just how effective it can be.
Every social media platform that is available today has its ideal purpose, pros, and cons. In order to avoid wasting your team’s time, make sure that you know how each of the social networks operate and how they can be most effective for your business.
In today’s extremely competitive digital environment, it is not enough to simply post on social media. None of these platforms are designed for you to “set it and forget it”. Instead, join Twitter discussions that use hashtags that are relevant to your business, or engage with others by commenting on their posts and photos on Facebook. As with anything else, the benefits of social media are directly proportionate to your commitment level. Shameless plug—remember that if you don't have time to create, manage and post to your social media channels, you can always hire Flair to do it for you.
Create something that they won’t find anywhere else, and then give it to them for free.
Yes, we understand that you are trying to run a business, but sometimes it actually does pay to give things away for free. In this case, we’re referring to items such as ebooks, how-to guides, and functional items that they can use (for instance, a free editorial calendar template or business plan outline). Many times you can create these items once and then use and promote them for months (or years!), and the time, effort and cost involved is minimal compared to other marketing tactics that don't work as well. (Would you rather pay a few hundred bucks to create an awesome ebook that goes viral again and again or $10,000+ for a one-time trade show that doesn't bring in any revenue?)
Not only will you attract more site visitors with these works, but you can also use them as a tool to build your email marketing list by gating the content behind an opt-in form.
Why does this “premium content” tactic work so well? It has proven to be so effective because of what it provides for both marketers and consumers: shared value. This is also the very basic principle behind a successful website. When your audience perceives value, they will continue to visit your site, and they’ll probably invite their friends, too.
Want to learn more about attracting visitors to your site? Contact us to learn how we can help, view our online marketing packages or download our free "25 Must-Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads and Sales" ebook now.
Image courtesy of Hubspot. Used with permission.