“How do I get more visitors on my website? I just made an awesome website for my business, but I’m not getting enough customers. What should I do?" As someone who works in digital marketing, I get asked questions like these over and over. It's pretty hard to answer them when I'm at a party or travelling by subway. So here I am, answering these pressing questions once and for all. Well, maybe not.
As you know, increasing your website traffic requires patience and effort. I can't do much about the former, but I can definitely help you with the latter. After all, it is what I've been doing for a living. Here's your seven-step game plan to drive more traffic to your web business.
1. Long-tail keywords could be your best bet
Everyone wants to rank first for keywords with the highest search volumes. However, it can be remarkably difficult to do so. That's why you should focus on long-tail keywords and target them as much as possible.
Long-tail keywords are keywords that have low competition due to their specific niche terms and generally comprise of more than three words. Such keyword targeting might not give you thousands of visitors, but it'll surely give you the niche audience you’ve been looking for.
Do proper long-tail keyword research or get it done by an SEO company that knows what it does. Getting this part right is pretty crucial from the SEO point of view.
2. Overshare your content
Content generation is one part, and marketing it is the other. If you’re producing quality content, it deserves proper promotion through which you’ll get it to your targeted audience. For that, you need to identify where your potential customers are spending their time. Is it Facebook? Instagram? Reddit? YouTube? WhatsApp? Twitter? You need to get your content wherever they are. And I'm not telling you to post once or twice on your social media channels. I’m telling you to go all in. Set a schedule to post 6-7 times a week, post in groups and channels, send it to random people, tell your friends to share it, jump into the comment section of a forum, tag the industry influencers. In short, do everything to overshare your content. This is the part where most businesses lag behind, and you shouldn't.
3. Don’t try to sell yourself, share value instead
One of the biggest mistakes you can commit when it comes to social media is selling yourself. Yes, you read that right. People are not going to be interested in your posts that tell them to buy. And even if they are, why should they buy from you or subscribe to your services? As you can imagine, there’s a big gap of trust between you and them. You need to fill that through your posts. Don't try to post things that will make them click. Instead, post things that will make them think, things that they may find useful, things that can make them smile. This way, you start building the bridge of trust without even realizing it. This is what people call “content marketing.”
4. Give calls to action
Crafty use of calls to action could be the trick you're missing out on. When posting on social media, your goal should be to take your audience to your website. Otherwise, there’s not much use in social media, even if you have millions of followers. What matters is how many of them you can manage to land on your website and convert them into leads or customers.
The way you do it is pretty simple: give them incentives. The incentive could be full-text of an article or a blog post; it could be a discount offer, a coupon code or an e-book. Such techniques have proved to be pretty useful in not only in driving traffic to your site, but also in generating more leads and getting more customers.
5. Guest blogging
Let's bust another myth: guest blogging isn't dead. So, why do many people say that it's dead? They must have a point, right? They do, however, saying that guest blogging is dead is a massive overstatement. The correct word to use for the state of guest blogging is "evolved."
There used to be a time when SEO "experts" used spammy guest blogging to achieve the desired results. That time is long gone, as Google has gotten way smarter. You shouldn’t guest post on spammy websites through spammy links. Google could penalize you severely. Check a website’s backlink score before getting into business with them.
Another thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to guest blogging is that it's a two-way street. Getting your post published on an excellent platform can give you good traffic and so can inviting bloggers to post on your site. You can get new visitors if they share their post with their audience.
6. Love the process
Whether you’re producing content, promoting through social media, doing SEO or running ads, the element you need at every point in the process is patience. The only way you can have patience is by loving the process. You want a million site visitors and a thriving business, but it's not going to happen overnight unless you're really lucky. What you need to do is love and embrace the process of getting to a million visitors. Yes, the outcome is the thing that matters, but it won't happen unless you’re patient, consistent and persistent. Disappointments come, they always do. But if you love the process, you can deal with them.
7. Consider your customers
When you’re not getting visitors, you know two things. First is your website address. And the second thing is the people – your customers – you want on your site. How do you get the latter to the former? Your marketing strategy should revolve around this question. Find where they are, tell them your story, share something valuable, generate leads and offer them a world-class experience on your site. If you manage to do all these things, your visitors are bound to increase.