Everyone wants more website traffic, right? While generating traffic can seem like a grueling uphill battle, there are some tried and true tactics you can use, and even some with near-immediate results. Here are 10 proven ways to increase traffic to your website – and, bonus: they’re all easy to implement, too.
1. Make your website responsive (& fast)
In this day and age, a responsive website is a must. Responsive websites adapt to the user’s screen, meaning your site is just as easy to navigate on a mobile device as it is on a laptop or desktop. It’s so important, in fact, that Google made it a ranking factor back in 2015. Today, 84% of multi-screen experiences involve smartphones for either the first or second interaction, according to Google, and 90% of users switch between devices to complete tasks. 65% of multi-screen consumers say they’ve started a shopping experience on a smartphone, and 40% of consumers say they’ve gone to a competitor’s website after having a poor experience on mobile. As such, Google recommends creating mobile-first destinations to cater to the growing mobile audience.
Likewise, a fast-loading website is increasingly important for Google rankings – and for users, with more than half (53%) leaving web pages that take more than three seconds to load (just 3 seconds!).
The takeaway: Your website must be mobile-responsive and fast-loading for desirable SERP rankings and, even more importantly, to keep users on your site.
2. Get active on social media
An active social media presence is a must for today’s brands, but that doesn’t just mean posting your blog content on Twitter and Facebook. The social media universe is vast, so find out what platforms your audience hangs out on (and when) and spend your time there. You might find value in answering questions on Quora, engaging in discussions in LinkedIn groups, and joining in the conversation on Reddit. All of these social media activities can drive traffic back to your website if you’re doing it right – meaning actually providing value to the discussion rather than posting generic responses and spamming links to your website.
After researching the social media platforms your audience spends the most time on and the best times of day to post on those platforms, create a social media calendar to manage your efforts and maintain a consistent presence. Use a social media management tool to plan and schedule your content in advance – but don’t forget to follow up and stay engaged in the discussion.
The takeaway: Build an active, engaging social media presence by providing value and engaging in meaningful interactions with your audience.
3. Install social share buttons
Good news: There’s more than one way to build an engaged following on social media, and this one is practically effortless. Install social media share buttons on your website or blog to make it easy for your readers to share your most informative, engaging content with their own social networks. It only takes a few minutes to install social share buttons for all your favorite social media platforms, and the payoff is well worth it – you’ll get more traction from your content marketing efforts without having to lift another finger.
Social share buttons offer another big perk, too: 83% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family. So, when your readers share your content with their social media networks, you reach an even more receptive audience.
The takeaway: Make it easy for your loyal readers and fans to do some of the marketing legwork for you by installing social share buttons.
4. Target long-tail keywords
The majority of web searches today involve long-tail keywords, or low-volume, highly specific keywords. Long-tail keywords tend to convert well, too, because users who are searching for highly focused search terms are typically clear in their intent vs. users who are simply searching for broad terms. Generally, consumers start with broad search terms – like “toaster” or “social media marketing” at the top of the sales funnel when they’re just beginning to research a product, service, or topic. As they move through the buyer’s journey, web searches get more specific and focused as they know what they’re looking for – with terms like “affordable four-slice smart toaster” or “social media marketing agencies for musicians in Nashville.”
The benefit of long-tail keywords for marketers is multi-fold: Not only do you have a better opportunity to rank in the search results for these less-competitive search terms, but you can also create more specific content focused on addressing the user’s intent for these highly specific searches.
The takeaway: Create valuable content and target easier-to-rank-for long-tail keywords to engage your audience at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
5. Advertise
Image via Pixabay by Launchpresso
Advertising is one of the most fool-proof methods for driving traffic to your website, but it’s not free, nor is it as simple as some of the other traffic-driving tactics on this list. That said, advertising – whether Google AdWords, Bing Ads, or social media advertising – can be highly effective when done right. If you’re not experienced with pay-per-click advertising, hiring an agency with expertise in your industry will often get you a bigger bang for your buck.
Advertising doesn’t have to be incredibly expensive, either. In fact, advertising on some social media platforms, like Instagram and even Facebook, is still quite affordable. The key is to target the right users on the right platforms with compelling ad copy and irresistible offers to generate clicks that convert.
The takeaway: Dip your toes into the pay-per-click advertising world to target your niche audience with compelling offers they can’t resist.
6. Write guest blog posts
Guest blogging, once thought to be dead thanks to a Google crackdown on spammy backlinks and questionable practices, remains a worthwhile tactic for increasing website traffic. Like most of the strategies we’ve discussed in this post, though, it has to be done right to avoid potential penalties and – more importantly – to drive relevant traffic.
In terms of guest blogging, doing it right means researching high-quality, authoritative websites relevant to your niche, crafting a compelling guest blog pitch, and creating valuable content that’s relevant to a) the target website’s audience (where the post will be published) and b) your own audience. In other words, a guest post about how to unclog a toilet won’t be even remotely intriguing or relevant to the audience of a digital marketing blog.
The takeaway: Identify authoritative websites in your niche and submit high-quality guest posts with mutual relevance to capture a broader audience.
7. Publish high-value, long-form content
Speaking of high-value content, you don’t want to give all the fruits of your labor away to other sites in the form of guest posts. Long-form content, sometimes called pillar content or skyscraper content, is content that’s at least 1,200 words in length, although experts recommend aiming for 1,500 or 2,000 words or more.
Long-form content tends to rank well, provides value to readers by taking an in-depth approach to the topic, and it’s share-worthy due to its inherent value – all of which can bring more traffic to your website.
The takeaway: Create in-depth long-form content for better search engine rankings, to build trust with your audience, and encourage social sharing.
8. Repurpose your content
Repurposing your content in other formats and for other channels – such as posting other versions of blog posts on LinkedIn and Medium – is a great way to increase website traffic while getting more traction out of your content creation efforts. While you may not want to post your content in its entirety on LinkedIn or Medium, the minimal effort required to rework an article to create unique content for cross-posting is often time well spent. Another way to repurpose your content is to create an infographic highlighting key statistics or data points from an article, or even creating an informative YouTube tutorial based on a how-to article you’ve created for your blog.
The takeaway: Repurpose your content in a variety of formats for different channels to get more bang for your buck.
9. Interview industry thought leaders
Industry thought leaders are considered experts in their respective fields, and they typically have large niche audiences. Identifying influencers in your niche and interviewing them is a smart traffic-boosting tactic that can expand your reach to a broader, yet relevant audience. How? Reach out to industry thought leaders and conduct interviews – either one-on-one interviews or in a roundup format – about a topic of interest to your audience. After publishing the interview, send your expert(s) a link to the live interview and ask them to share it with their audience.
Because thought leaders tend to have highly engaged followers (and a lot of them), this simple tactic provides a traffic boost while getting your brand in front of a relevant audience.
The takeaway: Interviewing industry thought leaders is an easy way to reach a broad, relevant audience.
10. Collaborate with influencers
Speaking of influencers, influencer marketing is a popular strategy that can increase traffic to your website. 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after seeing a product or service referenced on social media, and in some cases, influencers are trusted more than traditional celebrities (70% of teenage YouTube subscribers trust YouTube influencers more than they trust traditional celebs, for instance). Tap into that built-in trust and engaged audience by collaborating with niche industry influencers, either through partnerships or via traditional influencer marketing campaigns (in which you pay influencers for talking about your brand on social media). When an influencer’s audience sees a recommendation for your product or service, they’re more likely to visit your website to learn more than consumers who see a traditional ad.
The takeaway: Collaborate with influencers through brand partnerships or paid influence marketing campaigns to reach relevant, engaged influencer audiences.
While many of these tactics are easy to implement and most don’t cost a lot of money, installing social share buttons is easy – and free! Install social share buttons today to reach a larger audience and increase traffic to your website from all the popular social media channels, effortlessly.
