Advertise
Paid search, social media advertising and display advertising are all excellent ways of attracting visitors, building your brand and getting your site in front of people. Adjust your paid strategies to suit your goals – do you just want more traffic, or are you looking to increase conversions, too? Each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think carefully about your objectives before you reach for your credit card.
If you’re hoping that more traffic to your site will also result in more sales, you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your paid search strategies. Yes, competition for these search terms can be fierce (and expensive), but the payoffs can be worth it.
Get Social
It’s not enough to produce great content and hope that people find it – you have to be proactive. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to use social media channels to promote your content. Twitter is ideal for short, snappy (and tempting) links, whereas Google Plus promotion can help your site show up in personalised search results and seems especially effective in B2B niches. Ever better, Google My Business helps your website’s SEO greatly and creates your presence in Google Plus as well as Google Search and Google Maps. If you’re a B2C product company, you might find great traction with image-heavy social sites like Pinterest and Instagram.
Mix it Up
There is no magic formula for content marketing success, despite what some would have you believe. For this reason, vary the length and format of your content to make it as appealing as possible to different kinds of readers. Intersperse shorter, news-based blog posts with long-form content as well as video, infographics and data-driven pieces for maximum impact.
Domains
People need to be able to find your website easily. Having a domain name that is both easy and simple will add credibility to any small business, it ensures that your site is easy to find and will do wonders for repeat business. Having a domain as close to your business name is key, which also stresses the importance of a unique name for your brand. On top of this simple domain names can be extremely beneficial to search engine optimisation too, this’ll also help your business to rank higher in search engine results within your industry.
Search Directories
People search online for products and services locally – in fact 1 billion local searches take place on the major search engines every month. If your business is listed on web directories, you will show in the search results, for people searching for the products and services you sell. Google also uses directories as a source of information on your business and has a number of directories that it trusts. Being on these directories gives Google more confidence that your business is a bonafide local business and is great for SEO.
Don’t Neglect Email Marketing
So many businesses are focused on attracting new customers through content marketing that they forget about more traditional methods. Email marketing can be a powerful tool, and even a moderately successful email blast can result in a significant uptick in traffic. Just be careful not to bombard people with relentless emails about every single update in your business. Also, don’t overlook the power of word-of-mouth marketing, especially from people who are already enjoying your products or services. A friendly email reminder about a new service or product can help you boost your traffic, too.
Make Sure Your Site is Fast
Ever found yourself waiting thirty seconds for a webpage to load? Me neither. If your site takes forever to load, your bounce rate will be sky high. Make sure that your pages are as technically optimised as possible, including image file sizes, page structure and the functionality of third-party plugins. The faster your site loads, the better.
These are just a few tips to get started, but if you have any more, we’d love to hear them!