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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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
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:
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.
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
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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