5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Looking for ways to increase traffic to your website? It’s not enough to create a website and publish content on it from time to time. While it’s an important first step, having a website by itself is not enough to grow your business or create a community online.
If you want people to actually visit your website…
If you want people to actually return to your website again…
If you want people to actually purchase your products or services when they return…
You’ve got to jump through a few hoops. In this post, we’ll show you exactly what you need to do to increase traffic, both first-time and returning, to your website. Let’s get started.
1. Churn Out Fresh Content
You can’t drive traffic to your website if there’s nothing there in the first place. Your website needs content that will attract and interest your prospective visitors.
The easiest way to create content is with a blog. Sure, you’ll have your standard static pages (such as About Us, Contact Us, etc.), but those pages don’t really attract traffic to your site. You also need to develop content that answers the questions that your potential reader may have. Here’s a hint: Your potential visitor isn’t concerned about you as a company but rather what your company can do for them.
Create content that solves a problem for that reader. Let’s use this post as an example. This post is not about us, but rather about you: Helping you drive traffic to your website. On your website, you should create content that helps your reader do something that’s important to them.
How do you know what type of content to create for your reader? Ultimately, if you’re a business, you want your reader to become your customer. What questions might they have before buying your product? What would stop them from buying your product? What peripheral problems could you help them solve so that you can build trust with that reader? How can you help the reader use your product?
2. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines
Let’s talk about search engine optimization (aka SEO).
SEO is a list of tasks you complete to make your website attractive to search engines. If a search engine likes your site and believes its content will provide a satisfactory answer to the user’s query, the search engine will list your website in the search engine results page (SERP).
[bctt tweet=”Don’t let the idea of performing on-page SEO intimidate you. Here’s what you need to know:” username=”beacon_by”]
It sounds fancy, huh? Don’t let the idea of performing on-page SEO intimidate you. While we don’t know all of the elements that influence where your page may be ranked on a SERP (that’s part of Google’s secret sauce), we do know that the following elements matter.
Consistency – Create and publish content on a consistent basis. Search engines don’t like to send their users to websites that are dormant. Publishing consistently signals to the search engine that your site is alive and here to stay.
Title – Your titles reflect the actual phrase that a user has typed into the search engine (for example: “How to Make Cake Batter”)
URL – Your website address is short and repeats the keyword (for example www.YourWebsite.com/how-to-make-cake-batter
Keyword Repeat – Your target keyword is within the first paragraph (or 100 words) of your blog post.
Internal Links – You link to other posts within each post. This keeps visitors on your site (which reduces bounce rate) and it also helps the search engine understand what your page and site are about.
Anchor Text – Anchor text is the text that you use for the link. Be descriptive with your anchor text (i.e. “learn more about our buttercream cake batter here”) instead of mysterious (i.e. “click here”).
Write Longer Posts – Search engines favor lengthy posts (1000 words or more). Instead of writing several 300-word posts, consider combining them into one massive post.
Break Up Your Text – When writing long blog posts, be sure that your posts are easy to consume. Do this by breaking up text with headers, bullet points, images, and plenty of white space. Not all paragraphs need to be five sentences in length.
3. Revisit Your Oldies But Goodies
Don’t forget about your older posts! If you already have content on your site, and it’s pulling in traffic, you should optimize those pages as well. These pages can be improved upon and bring in even more traffic.
Audit your current content. Decide what to scrap and what to refresh. Simply adding new data or figures can help you breathe new life into outdated posts. Also, consider combining some of your older content together to create a more useful blog post (especially if those posts are shorter in length). Remember that search engines favor quality over quantity.
4. Get Active on Social Media
Post on social media, but be strategic with your posts. You shouldn’t just post whenever the mood strikes you. Your social media posts should be done on a schedule to guarantee engagement with your audience.
While there’s no one size fits all answer to when you should post, here’s a general guideline to the best times to post on social media (according to Sprout Social):
Wednesdays at noon and 2 pm
Thursdays at 1 pm and 2 pm
Any weekday between 10 am to 3 pm
Don’t post on Saturdays
Fridays between 9 am to 10 am
Any weekday between 10 am to noon
Don’t post on Sundays
Wednesdays between 3 pm to 5 pm
Don’t post on Friday through Monday
Wednesdays at 3 pm
Thursdays between 3 pm to 4 pm
Tuesdays through Fridays between 9 am to 6 pm
Don’t post on Sunday
Pinterest (according to CoSchedule)
Fridays and Saturdays between 8 pm to 11 pm, 1 pm to 4 pm, and 2 am to 4 am
Don’t post in the early evenings
5. Get Active on Quora
Quora is a Q&A site that enjoys high rankings on SERPs. One of the best strategies to drive traffic to your site is to get active on Quora.
Start by creating a profile on Quora. Optimize your bio by filling in everything that you can. Be sure to link back to your website, too.
Next, pick a category that relates to your business or passion. Then simply answer the questions in that category.
Your goal on Quora is three-fold: help your target audience, build a name for yourself, and drive traffic back to your site. Get active on Quora and post answers that are valuable and not just salesy. The Quora audience doesn’t want a pitch, they want a thought-provoking discussion. You won’t sell a product on Quora, but you can open the door. Look for questions that allow you to link back to your website in a natural and non-forced way.
Additional Resources
You’ve made it to the end of this post, but we have plenty of resources to share with you. Check it out: