All websites want more traffic. Regardless of your industry more traffic will mean reaching more potential customers and ultimately more sales.
In this article we cover the ways to deliver more traffic to your website. We will look into traditional PR, free advertising with search listings and social media and finally paid advertising on search engines and social media.
Depending on the nature of your website some of these might work better than others so we always recommended to keep an open mind and try them all out.
Traditional PR
This is still a very good method to increase awareness around your organisation even in a time where we are all thinking digital getting your news and story out there is still a great way to increase traffic. Having a PR company work to get your organisation in the press and on other websites is great to spread your name but also to get incoming links to your website. Which ties closely into ranking well on search engines as they will rate your website higher if you are being linked to by authoritative websites such as national and regional press websites, industry websites and popular blogs.
Organic Search Listing
Website owners will see search engines as the main way to increase traffic and it’s only natural to want to rank first for your particular keywords. Ranking highly in search listings can be extremely competitive and takes time and effort to climb the rankings but it is worth it in the long run as there will be no ongoing costs.
You might hear this as free advertising but for many companies serious about doing well in search it does take a focused campaign to achieve long lasting results. This campaign revolves around optimising your website (some technical changes might be required), generating regular content on your website and finding ways to attract incoming links to your website. This work can require several different skills and be time consuming.
But the key thing to remember is that as you make the changes to your website all the content that you write will continue to work hard for you for years to come. So the upfront effort does pay off.
Social Media
Another crucial tool that can help you achieve free traffic is social media. Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram can help you achieve this goal.
The great thing with social media platforms is that it will ‘push’ your content to customers rather than waiting for them to visit your website. So once you have got your potential customers to connect with you on social media you then have a direct method to send them information.
Knowing which tool to us will depend on the type of content you want to publish. We’re seeing many clients move their ‘news’ off the website and onto something like Facebook or Twitter as it is much easier to keep updated and customers who follow you will see it instantly.
If you have a regular gallery of images then Instagram is a great tool. It’s one of the fastest growing platforms too.
Another social media platform to use is Yelp which shows prospects reviews of your business. When you gain positive reviews, these will translate into referral and repeat business.
We do urge customers not to discount social media, a common thing we hear is “my customers are not on Facebook”. There are 1.8 Billion active users on Facebook so your customers will be among them, they might not be in buying mode but they might just spot you if you present the right message and remember you when the time comes to buy.
Paid Tactics
Paying for advertising can be a very effective and instant method for increasing traffic. Paid Tactics can provide you a solid ROI (or return on investment), if you plan correctly. This is generally referred to as ‘pay per click’ as you pay only when a visitor clicks on your advert.
Google Adwords is the most popular advertising platform but you can also pay for listings on Bing and other search platforms. To use Google Adwords proficiently, you must do proper keyword research and find relevant keywords to your industry that aren’t too expensive nor over saturated. Once you find these keywords, you can test a variety of adverts to entice prospects. Thus, it is important to practice your copywriting skills and learn to sell with words.
As the name implies, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad so you want to make sure you are attracting the right visitors. Fortunately, you can activate and deactivate ads any time you want. While it is important to get traffic, it is more important that the make sure you are spending money on the right adverts. Free software like Google Analytics can be setup to monitor your adverts and conversions from this traffic. You can use this data to go back and improve your adverts. It is an ongoing effort that no-one gets perfect in one go.
Paid Advertising on Social Media
Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook offer paid advertising on their platforms.
There are a couple of advantages that advertising on Social Media has over paid search listings:
- You can setup highly targeted campaigns based on your customers exact demographics
- Once a user follows your company you have the ability to continue to communicate with them after that initial paid action
- Generally the costs per click are lower.
Conclusion
Traffic is a vital backbone to the success of any business online, it is important to plan properly and constantly measure results. We highly recommend trying out all options but track the results so that you have data to go back and improve your campaigns.
