Boost your digital presence with a professional website
Like most web agencies, one of the most frequently asked questions we get is how to boost website traffic. The primary answer we give to this question is that you don’t want to increase traffic from everyone online, but you want to get the right visitors coming to your website. We define the “right” visitors as:
those who have a use for your product or service
have an interest in it
and may become a customer.
With those people in mind, let’s take a look at four ways to increase traffic numbers to your website:
1) Paid Search
Also known as Search Engine Marketing or SEM, paid search results are placed on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) when people run queries that trigger keywords related to your business. Tests run by Google itself indicate that just seeing the ads above search engine results can result in an up to 80% increase in brand awareness. (Google) Beyond heightened awareness of your business, WordStream found that shoppers who search with high commercial intent click on the resulting ads up to 65% of the time, compared with 35% for organic search results. (WordStream)
2) On-page SEO
There are a lot of basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) adjustments you can make to your website, some on the backend and some you’ll need to keep in mind for each post. The backend (read “non-visible to your readers”) changes include making sure your website loads as fast as possible (Moz); that your website is responsive (Google); and that images are optimized for the web, including captions, image names, and Alt text. (Search Engine Journal)
For each post, you’ll want to define a keyword that you’ll use in the URL, the page title, and in the first 100 or so words of the post. This helps search engines understand what each post is about, and gives your site more weight overall for your product or service.
3) Create a guest blogging strategy for your site
It’s easy to think of a guest blogging strategy as inviting people to blog on your site but you should also consider pitching blogs for other sites. Having a guest blogger write for you helps build “trust by association” for your website. This is a way of extending your expertise and getting backlinks from the sites that your guest usually blogs for. It may be assumed that they will share their post on your site on their site and social media, but make sure you get reciprocity worked out ahead of time because backlinks from trusted sites are important SEO tools that can help boost your site’s ranking.
Guest blogging on another site builds your authority as a thought leader in your industry and exposes you and your business to another audience. Consider the example of Alex Turnbull at Groove. He’s the CEO of a support software company that has relied almost exclusively on content marketing to grow their business. His post about guest posting on other sites explains how getting your writing on other sites introduces you to an exponentially larger audience than you would normally reach. In the case of Groove and Alex, he reached over 1 million other subscribers by posting on the blogs of Shopify, KISSmetrics, Buffer and others. (GrooveHQ)
4) Build your own subscriber lists
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of seeing your e-mail subscriber list grow. The best way to get more traffic on a regular basis is to use your e-mail list to send out an e-newsletter that contains links to your blog (both new and older posts that are still relevant), information about your services or products on your website, and upcoming webinars. Don’t take our word for it, though - Foundr reports $40 of ROI vs every $1 spent on e-mail marketing. (Foundr) That’s 20x the ROI of the same amount spent on banner ads!
Be careful when building your e-mail list, however. It might be tempting to buy an e-mail list of people who are unfamiliar with your business but when people start unsubscribing from your list in droves, it will negatively impact your e-mail deliverability reputation with mail providers. The best way to grow your subscriber list is to use CTAs on your site and on social media for e-newsletter signups, eBooks, and webinars. If people are interested in your product, requesting their e-mail address in exchange for the valuable information you provide isn’t that much of an ask.
Follow these tips and you’ll see your digital presence start to grow. Slowly at first, but you’ll be establishing your company the right way which helps build trust among your readers, visitors, and customers. Contact Bigfoot Web and start the conversation of how we can help you set these tips into motion.