7 Cost-Effective Tips on Increasing Traffic to Your Website

Publishing a website already brings you one step closer to achieving online success. The next step you should focus on is how to get people to visit your website. 

Increasing your website’s traffic greatly impacts your business trajectory. The more people you have on your website, the greater your conversion scores will be.  

 So, let’s say you own an ecommerce store. If you get an average of 100,000 visitors a day, the chances of a surge in enquiry and sales are high. Thousands of users will be able to scan your products or services and ultimately decide to make a purchase.  

 So, how do you bring traffic to your website? 

 There are two primary ways to drive traffic; organic and paid. Let's first learn about both. 

Differences Between Paid and Organic Traffic 

 What is Organic Traffic? 

Users navigating your website purely by entering a query on search engines and not by clicking a paid ad is called organic traffic. It’s the preferred way of driving traffic since it speaks volumes of your website's authenticity. Also, it generates higher conversion rates compared to paid ads since it answers users’ search intent better. 

You gain organic traffic by implementing a strong SEO strategy that puts you on top of search results. 

What is Paid Traffic? 

As for paid traffic, these are users that found your website after clicking an ad link on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). And to create and publish an ad on the search results, you need to bid and pay for the keywords that you want to target. So, it can be detrimental to your budget for a prolonged duration, especially for small businesses.  

Hence, sticking to organic traffic can blossom some benefits for a tight budget. The question now is, what strategies can you use to drive organic traffic to your website? Scroll down to learn more. 

Cost-Effective Tips to Draw Organic Traffic to Your Website 

 Set up your Google My Business profile  

Whenever we want to search for anything online, we turn to Google. At present, this powerhouse search engine still holds an 86.19 percent desktop market share among its competitors. 

With that title, it’s obvious why brands are registering their business to Google My Business listing. 

You can set up your Google My Business profile for free and add your business information like address, contact, business hours, products/services, and customer reviews. It helps boost your online visibility, giving your target audience a chance to learn about your business. 

How to Set Up a Google My Business Profile 

Step 1: Visit Google Business Profile Manager. You'll automatically log into the profile manager if you have an existing Google account. If you don't, create one. 

Step 2: Next, add your business name. However, if it doesn't appear, go to Add Your Business to Google and proceed. Just pick the right category and go ahead.  

Step 3: If your business has a physical location, add its address by selecting Yes. You may have to position a market on your site.  

Step 4: Add your contact information. 

Step 5: Verify your business. 

Step 6: Finally, you can customise your profile by adding business hours, business descriptions, etc.  

Once you’re done, you can further increase your search visibility by listing to other business directories – which we’ll talk about next. 

List your business in online directories  

Just like Google My Business, there are other online business directories that help boost your online presence and reputation. These directories group businesses according to category or industry to make sure it reaches their corresponding niche markets. All you need to do is to input the correct business information and you’re good to go. 

Your presence on multiple platforms lets your target audience find your website easily. And the good news is, there are several online business directories, apart from Google, that you can list for free. 

Here are some top Business Directories to List Your Business 

• Yelp: With 178 million users monthly, Yelp is still up for the game in helping businesses boost their online presence and gain new customers.  
• Yahoo: A basic listing on Yahoo is free. But you can choose to list your business on 40 more directories for $30 per month.  
• Facebook: With more than 200 million users, no doubt Facebook is the best place to attract and engage new customers. 

Leverage SEO  

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of boosting the quality and quantity of your site’s traffic through different optimisation methods.  

These methods can be divided into off-page, on-page, and technical SEO. 

Off-Page SEO 

Off-page SEO refers to activities on the internet outside your website that help improve your search engine rankings like link building and forum mentions. In short, it tells search engines how people perceive your website and its products/services. 

On-Page SEO 

Meanwhile, on-page SEO is the process of optimising your web pages to bring traffic and rank higher on SERPs. This includes creating relevant content, using the right keywords, and optimising images, title tags, and meta descriptions.  

Technical SEO  

As for technical SEO, its main goal is to optimise and audit the structure of your website to allow search engine spiders to crawl and index its content efficiently. Here’s a checklist of some of Technical SEO’s best practices: 

• Make your website mobile-friendly 
• Keep content unique for each web page 
• Speed up loading time 
• Create a site map 
• Check for dead links 
• Compress web page size 

SEO requires time  

Just like any digital marketing strategy, it takes time for a brand to experience the effects of SEO. All things considered, it takes approximately four to six months before you see results.  

But with a consistent strategy in place, you can expect to see your traffic spike in no time. No time to plan and implement SEO campaigns? You can always outsource the work and let the experts do the heavy lifting, so you don’t have to. 

Read: 5 Surefire SEO Techniques That Supercharge Rankings

Enhance online credibility  

Brands that appear on the first-page signal users that Google finds these websites relevant and trustworthy.  And as discussed earlier, you can find yourself on top of SERPs if you’re consistent with your SEO. 

However, you can still build credibility even if you’re not yet ranking on page one. Besides, improving your online reputation would eventually lead to bringing traffic to your website.  

Below are some strategies you should consider: 

• Do online reputation management or ORM 

ORM is the process of finding and addressing negative comments about your brand on social media and websites. So, if people see you acknowledging and taking action with their concerns, you’ll have a better chance of winning their trust back. 

• Be transparent and authentic  

Don’t make any false claims and promises. Write the truth about your business, products, and services. Also, be transparent with your pricing. Especially with services, make the scope clear and inform the customers beforehand if there are additional charges 

• Enhance your presence on social media  

Another way to boost your brand credibility is by being present on significant social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Doing so makes your brand more human giving them the impression that you’re willing to engage with customers. And if you can manage to get verified marks (blue ticks) for them, the credibility of your brand is bound to increase.  

Use the power of Content Marketing 

Content Marketing is a strategy that involves creating various forms of content to boost brand awareness and customer engagement. Its main goal is to distribute relevant content that encourages users to take profitable action. Content can be distributed through blogs, videos, social media captions, and ads. 

And the best thing about content marketing? It can intertwine with SEO, especially with its on-page strategy. Because for one, SEO needs content to optimise keywords for search engines. 

Below are some tips you can apply to complement both your content and SEO goals: 

• Write relevant topics 
• Create short and concise titles 
• Optimise blog images by using alt texts 
• Optimise keywords in your content 
• Do link building or link to other websites in your niche 
• Provide keywords on meta titles and descriptions 
• Utilise H1 to H6 tags properly 
• Make your content readable and easy to digest 

Earn more backlinks  

From an SEO perspective, a website's popularity and credibility are exhibited through backlinks. A backlink works like a vote of approval on a search engine like Google.  

That means that if you link with a high domain authority website, your credibility gets a push. Additionally, your website's ranking also improves on SERPs, thus driving increased traffic.  

Below are a few backlinking strategies you should try:  

• You can spy on or follow your competitors to create the best backlinks. 
• Create quality content and get it published on a high domain authority website. 
• Use creative infographics and post them on Pinterest. 
• Get influencers of industry leaders to talk about your brand. 
• Join conferences and other events in your niche to build connections. 

Reach a wider audience with social media 

Social media marketing (SMM) has changed the course of digital marketing through its wider reach among the masses. 

And as of January 2022, 3.96 billion people are on social media. These numbers are enough to demonstrate social media's power to drive online traffic. To add, it can be another avenue for users to sign up for a webinar, subscribe to your mailing list, and even make a purchase. 

Sounds amazing, right? 

Here are quick tips to drive traffic to your site with social media: 

• Be on social media networks your target audience is on.  
• Optimise your social media profiles and pages using relevant hashtags and keywords to boost reach.  
• Pick the right time to post your content. Determine the period when maximum users are available online. 
• Engage with your audience and reply to their concerns.  
• Post positive brand reviews and feedback. 
• Create or share relevant content. 

Start driving organic traffic 

You don’t really need to spend a fortune to get people to visit your website. With consistency and a passion for learning, you’ll eventually get more people on your page naturally. 

Use these cost-effective tips to set up an effective online strategy that gets you more quality traffic.