There is no single way how to drive traffic to your website. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to this question. There’s a myriad of ways how to effectively do this and some ways may be more effective for your website than others.
At the end of the day, we all want more traffic to our websites. We’ve worked hard for it and we would want people to visit it. Other than that, especially for businesses, websites are a great way to drive revenue. The more people who see your business and find it useful, the more revenue a business gets.
So what are the different ways how to drive traffic to your website?
Let’s find out.
12 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website
1. Be Social on Social Media
Creating great content is not as useful if people don’t see it. Being proactive about advertising your content on different platforms is a great way to drive traffic to your website. It just so happens that social media platforms are the perfect place to do so!
Each platform has its own niche and target population. It’s best to be able to study each platform carefully so you can choose the right one for you.
As great as having a presence on each of these platforms is, it might not be optimal. Your business will flourish more on some platforms than others. This is because the niche and target are more suited to your business. This is why it’s important for you to identify which platform you should focus on.
Let’s discuss some of them to give you a better idea of which platform fits your needs.
Are you wondering how to drive traffic to your website through LinkedIn? Well, as it turns out, LinkedIn isn’t just for finding a job anymore. It’s a great platform if you’re looking to establish connections with B2B companies.
Posting content on a platform filled with professionals can bring in lots of traffic to your website. You’re exposing your content to the right people after all. Aside from that, all the high-profile professionals are also here. That means you have the chance to attract the attention of managers all the way up to CEOs and COOs.
Upon establishing an online presence, you will also establish your authority in the field. When people see that the information you publish is reliable and useful, they’ll see you as an authoritative source. In the long run, this can be an opportunity for you to be linked to their blog posts as well.
This platform is flexible. Almost all kinds of businesses can make the most out of this platform because it can connect you with similar businesses. But B2B businesses will benefit most from this platform.
Instagram is a platform that is dominated by photos and short videos. Some businesses have built themselves up merely through this platform. Even influencers have started out by just posting content here.
Despite being very simple and straightforward, Instagram is a powerful way to drive traffic to your website. This is especially true if you’re able to capitalize on producing awesome photos that can accompany your content.
Aside from that, creating an Instagram account for your business is free! You can then link your content to all of your posts so users will be directed to your website. Don’t forget to mention your website on your profile in case people want to check you out.
If you have the budget to spare, Instagram also offers an easy way to promote your posts. With this feature, you can customize your target audience, the budget you’ll allot, the duration of the ad, and much more. Instagram calls it Promote and it’s also a good way to drive traffic to your website.
YouTube
YouTube is a platform that specializes in videos. It’s been around for such a long time, it’s now teeming with information and content creators. The platform is so huge, it’s actually considered as the 2nd largest search engine on the internet. It would be a waste not to publish your content on this platform because the reach is enormous.
On this platform, businesses can publish content in video format. It’s a great opportunity to share content because people are more receptive to information if it’s in videos. It’s so effective, 68% of marketers say that compared to Google Ads, videos have better ROI.
YouTube brings so much value to your business and your website. Don’t forget to link your content in your YouTube videos so they know where to go to learn more. You should also include your YouTube videos on your actual website. This is helpful because when people search for the right keyword, they’ll either go to your YouTube or your website.
If you have the budget to spare, you can also try advertising on YouTube. A lot of users might be interested in your business and all they need is to see it. Millions of active users are on YouTube every day so it’s a great platform to advertise. YouTube ad cost may vary depending on the ad but it’s a worthwhile investment to drive traffic to your website.
Twitter is more of a short and sweet platform. The characters used for a “tweet” are limited to 280 characters. Given the said limit, it’s a fast-paced platform that reaches millions of users. According to statistics, Twitter has 186 million active users daily.
Generating short but impactful content is the name of the game here. Images and videos perform better on this platform so it’s good to include them in your tweets. These tweets receive more retweets, interactions, and impressions. You should also link your content so users know where to go if they want to learn more.
2. Maximize Google My Business
Google My Business is a tool that helps you manage a business profile on Google. With this tool, when people search for your business online, Google can help them out by showing your profile. If you’re wondering how to drive traffic to your website for free, then Google My Business is the answer.
Statistics show that 49% of businesses on Google My Business receive more than 1,000 average views. 33% of these businesses also receive 1,000+ views on Maps. These statistics show that maximizing your Google My Business profile will drive great traffic to your website.
With this in mind, you have to help Google show them the best part of your business. These are the following things that you should include in your business profile:
- Photos of your business
- Link to your website
- Review and ratings of past customers
- Category of your business
- Address of your physical store
- Business hours
- Multiple channels to contact you
- Frequently asked questions
Having a complete business profile helps people understand your business at a quick glance. It also gives them enough information to want to check out your website to know more.
3. Optimize Your Website for SEO
Search Engine Optimization is a great way to drive free and organic traffic to your website. Unlike paid ads, SEO works slowly and steadily. It may not bring you instant results but when it comes, it steadily grows and grows.
SEO aims to advertise your content on SERPs or Search Engine Result Pages. Do you know how results come up on Google when you search for something? SEO aims to put you on top of that list. So if you want to rank higher on Google, SEO is the way to go.
But how?
Search engines have an algorithm to determine the relevance of your website to the searches of users. They want to give users content that is relevant, trustworthy, authoritative, and most of all, helpful.
There are different types of SEO and all of them are worth studying. One type may fit your needs more than the others so it’s worth exploring all of them.
4. Long-Tail Keywords are Worth Targeting
Long-tail keywords refer to highly specific keyword phrases. Since they deviate from the generic keywords, they target a more niche demographic. An example of a long tail keyword is this “How much does wisdom tooth extraction cost?”
These keywords are less competitive compared to generic keywords. It’s because it’s designed to reflect more on how users make queries online. With queries that are as specific as this, you’ll be able to attract high-quality traffic that is more likely to lead to conversions.
As a user goes deeper into the customer journey, long-tail keywords become more important. As they learn more about what they want, their searches become more detailed and specific. With long-tail keywords, you’ll be able to target exactly what they’re looking for.
5. Build Backlinks
To keep things simple, a backlink is a link to your website from another website. Think of it as an advertisement on another’s website. It’s important to note though, that these backlinks should be complementary. Be it the same type of business or in the same industry, these are good websites for backlinks.
In finding backlinks, you should aim to get high PR backlinks. These are the links to your website from a high-level authority or page-rank website. In the backlink world, these links are considered to be the most powerful type of backlink.
With backlinks, you’ll be able to reach a larger audience because your links are featured in someone else’s content. In the process, you will also drive qualified traffic to your website.
In addition to all of this, backlinks are great for SEO. Google picks up on these backlinks and will see your business or website as trustworthy. After all, if other trustworthy sites point back to you, you must be trustworthy. With quality backlinks, you’ll be driving free and organic traffic to your website.
6. Practice Internal Linking
Internal linking is the process of linking one page of your website to another web page. For example, you’ll link a blog post that helps explain another blog post.
In creating content for your website, it’s important to keep your eye out for opportunities for internal linking. Adding internal links have the following benefits:
Creates website hierarchy – it helps content pages have relationships and a clear hierarchy of importance. With this, users and search engines alike get directed to your most important content.
Increase traffic – if your visitors get directed from one page to another, they’ll end up bringing more traffic to your website. They will also end up spending more time on your website as they learn more and more through your content pages.
Increase Crawlability – it helps Google and other search engines crawl through your pages. Website crawling is the process where software like search engines index the content of your website. Adding internal links helps software discover the pages you have. Ultimately, this helps with SEO and showing up more often in SERPs.
Improve user experience – internal linking helps your visitors find relevant content to what they’re currently reading. It’s like giving them quick access to material that they might like to read if they want to learn more. It will also help users discover things that might interest them too. This leads to more traffic and time spent on your website.
7. Make Sure that Your Site is Responsive
When a user finds your link and clicks on it but finds that it’s unresponsive, chances are, they’re not coming back. Imagine this happening for a full hour. How many users have stumbled upon your website but didn’t find it responsive? How many users did you lose?
Making sure that your website is responsive is one of the basics of driving traffic to your website. Users give so much value to the user experience. They’re delighted if things load quickly and the interface is convenient to navigate.
8. Focus on Optimizing Your Website for Mobile Users
It’s also important to make sure that your website is optimized to be viewed across multiple devices. People nowadays don’t just use their computers and laptops to access the internet. It’s more convenient to use their tablets and mobile phones.
According to statistics, in 2020, there are 4.28 billion unique mobile internet users. This is 90% of the total global internet population. With this, we can therefore conclude that more people access the internet via their mobile phones.
Making your website optimized for mobile phones and other similar devices opens it up to this market. They’ll be able to enjoy your content as much as their PC counterparts.
Aside from that, Google also favors websites that use mobile-first indexing. This means that the mobile version of a web page is preferred due to the number of mobile users. Google then acknowledges this with mobile-first indexing. It’s great for SEO so it’s worth the investment.
9. Optimize Your Website for Speed
Have you ever visited a webpage and it took forever to load? So you go to another app or website to see if it’s your internet acting up. But then you discover, your internet is fine. So it must be the website. Because of this, you’ll close the website and go look somewhere else.
This is a very common situation that a lot of users experience. On their end, it’s just a minor inconvenience. After all, they can just go look somewhere else. But on your end, when users do this, you’ll end up with a high bounce rate and that’s not good for SEO.
A fast website is important because it will keep your bounce rate low and improve the overall experience of your visitors. This in turn will help boost your SEO. All the other ways on how to drive traffic to your website will be for nothing if users instantly bounce away.
To optimize your website for speed, you have to take note of things like image file sizes and the structure of your page. You also have to keep in mind that your third-party plugins are always updated and don’t make your website slow. If it does, it’s smart to find a different plugin for your website.
10. Practice Email Marketing
Email marketing has been around for a while. Because of this, some marketers tend to overlook it because they feel like it’s not as effective as the newer ways to advertise.
It’s so effective that according to statistics, for every $1 that you spend on it, you’ll expect an average of $42 in return. Email marketing, when utilized properly, is a powerful tool that can generate not only traffic to your website but also overall ROI. You’ll just need to understand how to use it.
In creating emails, it’s suggested that you make them personalized. According to statistics, a personalized subject line has 50% higher open rates. Aside from the subject line, it is also preferable that you also personalize the content.
You can categorize your email list according to where they are in the buyer’s journey. Their personalized content will correspond to where they are on that journey. For example, it’s smart to tailor an email for customers who haven’t visited your website for a while. Maybe they just need reminding that you exist.
It’s also smart to tailor an email, especially for people who just signed up. Statistics show that welcome emails have an 82% open rate compared to normal emails.
As much as email marketing is effective, it should also be regulated. It’s only going to be annoying to your subscribers if you send emails about every little update your business has. An email per week or twice a month would be a good and reasonable pace.
11. Consistently Produce Evergreen Content
Evergreen content means that the information is valuable all year round. It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean that seasonal content should be ignored. After all, seasonal content can drive good traffic to websites because there are lots of excited people to see it.
Be that as it may, evergreen content never goes out of style. It’s going to drive consistent traffic to your website all year long. It may not peak as much as seasonal content but at least it’s consistent.
But what exactly can be considered evergreen content? Here are a few ideas:
- Guides and tutorials
- Frequently asked questions
- Product reviews
- Training guides
- Tips and tricks
It’s also important to note that these guides should also be updated from time to time. Things can change pretty rapidly so this content must also be updated. For example, for your FAQs, store hours might have changed because of the pandemic. It’s good to update your customers on any changes in the business.
12. Pay Attention to Your Headlines
A lot of people don’t give headlines the credit it deserves. Creating headlines that captivate the curiosity and imagination of the reader is an art form in itself.
Take BuzzFeed for example. They’re able to create attention-grabbing headlines through multiple strategies. They’ve mastered how to appeal to people’s curiosity and emotion.
These headlines are some of the first points of contact for users on the internet. If it doesn’t grab the attention of the user, no matter how good the content is, they’re not likely to open it. It’s worth considering if a headline piques the curiosity of a user before publishing your content.
Key Takeaway
Driving traffic to your website can be achieved in multiple ways. Each of these ways has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some are more effective for certain websites and businesses than others. Some of these ways are also more feasible for businesses than others.
What’s important is that you get to explore all of them to find the one that best fits your needs, skills, and resources.
As a quick recap, here are the ways how to drive traffic to your website:
- Be Social on Social Media
- Maximize Google My Business
- Optimize Your Website for SEO
- Long-Tail Keywords are Worth Targeting
- Build Backlinks
- Practice Internal Linking
- Make Sure that Your Site is Responsive
- Focus on Optimizing Your Website for Mobile Users
- Optimize Your Website for Speed
- Practice Email Marketing
- Consistently Produce Evergreen Content
- Pay Attention to Your Headlines
Good luck with driving traffic to your website!
