After curating a fascinating blog or setting up a professional-looking store, the next thing you need to figure out is how to get more eyeballs on your website. We all know that this is important. All the tips that you need are right here in this post.
This article will provide you with all the tools that you need to increase website traffic, from traditional methods to newer ones. You’ll also learn about how some experts managed to do this with their specific techniques. Plus, I’ll give you the traffic tools that I use, so you can track how much traffic you’re getting and where it’s coming from.
What Does Website Traffic Mean?
Website traffic is the number of users that visit a website. Most analytic tools can break down this traffic in the number of:
Pageviews – the total number of times your site has been visited
Unique Pageviews – the total number of people who have visited your site, counting repeat visitors as one
Naturally, the more traffic your website gets, the more chances for you to make sales and conversions. However, you’ll often see that higher traffic doesn’t always equal higher conversion rates. Why? Because the people who find their way to your site aren’t qualified leads, meaning they’re not likely to buy your products or subscribe to you.
It turns out that the goal is not only to drive traffic to your site but to get traffic that is targeted to the right audience.
How To Increase Website Traffic
1. Optimize your website for search engines.
Improving the visibility of your website should be one of the highest items on your priority list. You’ll need to zero in on popular keywords within your niche and base your pages on those keywords.
Ideally, you want each webpage to contain one or two main keywords. By using SEO tools like Keywords Everywhere, you’ll find the best keywords and eliminate the need for guessing games.
When you’re first starting out, it’s a good practice only to use keywords that have a search volume of fewer than 10,000 searches per month. Why? You want to establish a good foundation of content and not bite off more than you can chew.
After you create content containing the most basic and relevant keywords, you’re free to use higher volume keywords because you have the necessary groundwork to back up your new posts.
Richmond from Meal Prepify prioritizes keywords that have at least three sites ranking on the first page that have a Domain Authority (DA) less than 30. This is a good sign that smaller sites can make their way onto the first page for that target keyword.
2. Put up your site on search engines.
This one should be obvious. You can put your website on the map by submitting it to popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Let’s say you write a guide helping beginner affiliate marketers, Google will eventually find this guide on their own. But if you create a sitemap and submit this to the search engines, they can more easily find your pages. Each time you create a post, you can also submit it to the Google search console to be indexed. It’s like asking them nicely to have a look at your new posts to make sure they know about it. By letting them crawl and index your web pages, you increase the chances of your sites appearing for users when they put in relevant queries.
3. Update your content frequently.
I would say that the backbone of SEO is content freshness. You can’t expect more traffic if your content is outdated. To avoid this, you need to keep up with the trends in your niche, create new content, and update old ones. Managing a website requires a lot of upkeep to keep it relevant to viewers.
A good trick for product pages is to add a product review addon, which allows customers to leave feedback on your product pages. This activity lets Google know that your site is constantly being updated, and there is activity on it.
Another trick once you have this going is to use the most common phrases in your reviews in your product descriptions.
4. Take a look at what your competition is doing.
You can always learn a thing or two from people who have been in your niche for longer. Check out your rival sites and figure out their primary traffic sources. When you know what’s working best for them, you’ll know what’s going to work best for you. What are they doing with their design? Are they using things like custom infographics or custom graphics like the brand here at Bounce Mojo?
You might also want to analyze their website traffic. A great tool for competitor analysis is Alexa, not the Amazon AI assistant, the website. Just open your competitor’s website there and look at “Upstream Sites.” There, you’ll find where your competitor’s traffic is coming from, what sites they’re visiting first.
In a lot of cases, Google seems to be the primary source of traffic. What are you supposed to do with this statistic? Prioritize Google Ads and SEO. If your competition is getting a lot of traffic from Facebook, then it’s time to make some snazzy Facebook ads yourself.
What if most of their traffic comes from a well-known site in your niche? When you get your bearings, and you gain enough of a positive reputation in your community, you can reach out and collaborate with that site too.
5. Make a strong backlink network.
When a lot of external sites link back to yours, this tells Google that your site is popular and trustworthy. Google weeds out irrelevant and shady sites. The more relevant anchor texts you have leading your site, the more traffic you’ll get.
In his in-depth guide to starting a profitable blog, Adam Enfroy says that obtaining backlinks should be just as big of a part of your strategy as writing content itself. Growing your Domain Rating is a crucial component of getting search engines to trust you (and rank your content).
Think of it this way: it couldn’t hurt if you put up many portals for more visitors. It’s like leaving many trails of breadcrumbs for them to find you.
6. Make a consistent update schedule and follow it.
Nothing looks worse on the internet than a site that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. To avoid being a part of the sea of dead and ignored sites, make sure you keep updating yours on a regular basis – daily, if possible.
A consistent update schedule encourages people to check in to your site more frequently because they come to expect new stuff from you. When you give your audience more chances to discover further information or products, you urge them to visit your site more.
7. Don’t neglect long-tail keywords.
Yes, you’ll mostly get shorter keywords when you do your research, but this doesn’t mean that you should neglect longer ones. Long-tail keywords lead to more specific traffic, and you wouldn’t want that to slip through your net.
Everyone in your niche is using the common keywords, so grab the audience that has specific searches because it’s less competition. You zero in on their intent, and you climb up in the ranking for long-tail keywords. It’s a win-win.
When you make content that matches searcher intent, you have a much better chance of keeping that audience. If you give a searcher precisely what they’re looking for, this drives in more organic traffic. Naturally, you can do this for different groups of users.
Adarsh, Digital Marketing Executive from CallHippo gives us an example. If your page is about call center software, don’t go with a short tail keyword like call center software. This is also considered an exact match. Try avoiding this. Instead you can go with long tail keywords like software for call center, best call center software, or call center software for small business. These long tail keywords help you get more specific traffic and they are more likely to get converted in leads.
8. Have exclusive content.
Exclusive content can be in the form of courses, locked posts, Slideshare presentations, webinars, etc. Make sure that the majority of your content is free, though. You have to lure visitors in and make them realize you have a lot more to offer in the form of exclusive content.
For those visiting your site just to view exclusive content, make sure you always have something for them. Maintain a regular publishing schedule and never give them a reason to keep coming back for more.
9. Throw contests and giveaways.
Regular contests and giveaways are a viable part of a strong eCommerce strategy. Not only will it “force” your audience to engage with you, but you also take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing. If you encourage sharing in your campaign, more people will find their way to your site.
10. Use Medium.
Medium is a popular publishing platform where individuals and companies can post articles. It would be very useful to jump on this platform because its community is made up of like-minded individuals who follow and promote each other.
Introducing your brand and website to the community will gain you some traction from its loyal readership. You can also direct eyeballs from Medium back to your site by using backlinks.
Overall, it’s a free and helpful community that can help you establish your reputation and make use of an existing reading pool.
11. Learn and practice YouTube marketing.
YouTube is a robust platform that gets heavy traffic on the web. If you’re into it, you can start a YouTube channel and promote your website by adding links to your descriptions and adding annotation links to your videos.
If you consistently post great videos that stand out on YouTube, you’ll notice that it’s a traffic generator. If you’re not interested in starting a YouTube channel or your channel is just not at the level you’d like it to be, you can reach out to other YouTubers.
Ask other YouTubers with bigger audiences to become affiliates. Of course, this requires a fee, but it works well in the short term. It allows you to ride on the fame of others for a while. However, it’s still a good idea to get your channel off the ground and start generating traffic on your own to avoid paying anyone else.
12. Start your own podcast.
Half of the American population has listened to a podcast at some point. It’s not exactly a new medium anymore, but it’s now gaining more popularity than ever. Why? Most people are on the go these days and don’t have the time to plop down in front of a TV or computer to get their information and entertainment.
With podcasts, you get your info and entertainment fix just by listening. It’s an excellent tool for multitasking. So how are you going to use a podcast to drive traffic to your site? First, use it to boost brand awareness.
Your listeners can discover you through your podcast first and then eventually visit your site for more content. You can also use it to personalize your brand and give a voice to your business, so to speak. Podcasts feel much more interactive than texts on websites.
Lastly, it can be another avenue for SEO. By transcribing your podcasts and posting them along with the audio version on your web pages, you give people more chances to find you through the keywords that you mention.
13. Be a guest on someone else’s blog.
There are two types of guest posting. First, you can submit posts to other sites. Second, you can accept posts from outside contributors. Either way works, and using both methods is beneficial.
When you study up on your niche, it’s pretty easy to pinpoint the most popular publications and blogs within it. These sites get a lot of engagement and attention on social media platforms. Huge sites encourage submissions, and they usually have guidelines to follow.
Most of the time, these larger sites will require you to submit pitches. What’s a pitch? A pitch is an idea for a post, sometimes a general outline. They need pitches to assess whether your style and thoughts are worth pursuing.
If you allow others to post on your site, make sure the information is complementary to the content you already have. Allotting time and effort for collaborations on both ends will be fruitful for you when it comes to gaining more traffic.
14. Learn and practice Instagram marketing.
Instagram is not just a platform where individuals can curate pictures from their lives. It’s now also a booming marketing channel for online retailers and creators with unique ideas. The first way you can use Instagram to increase website traffic is by linking it in your bio.
If people like your Instagram posts, there’s a high chance that they’ll want to find out more about you, hence check on your site. You can also take advantage of affiliate programming. You can ask people in your niche to market your products for a commission.
You can also reach out to prominent influencers on Instagram to promote your feed and website for a fee.
15. Use Facebook.
While some people might dismiss Facebook as a platform where older people connect with family and friends, that definitely isn’t the case. Many successful website owners use Facebook to gain more traffic by utilizing Facebook groups, ads, posts, and business pages.
Do you ever notice that when you’re on Facebook, you get ads from random stuff you previously bought or looked up? Those ads could be promoting your website to other users as they peruse timelines.
16. Give readers the ability to share with quick social buttons.
Pages with blog posts, products, and images should always be accompanied by social share buttons and not having them is definitely a mistake. Adding this feature every time will encourage your current audience to spread the word about what they like on your site. Remember, folks are much more likely to click on something when it’s been shared by a friend or family member.
17. Use Twitter.
Twitter is a realistic source of traffic as long as your posts don’t fall under Twitter’s spam policy. In fact, Twitter is a great way to practice SEO even with minimal experience because your reach is based on relevant hashtags. Your follower count doesn’t dictate how many people your tweets can reach.
When it comes to marketing posts from your site, it’s best to share a “click to retweet” link to people you mention or are featured in the posts. Doing so will boost those particular posts’ visibility.
18. Use LinkedIn
When we think of LinkedIn, we think of traditional networking. Its primary purpose is not as a source of website traffic. However, it is still possible to get a steady stream of traffic from this platform.
For example, a lot of online sellers use LinkedIn for promotional purposes. How? When your company reaches a milestone, or you want to highlight the excellent work of your employees, it’s wise to share posts about these things on LinkedIn. The same goes for charity work and team-building activities. You may not be able to share products on LinkedIn unless it’s a novel invention or something.
Think of LinkedIn as your company’s way of flexing. The more you impress the folks on that platform, the more clicks you’ll get back to your site.
19. Use Pinterest.
Pinterest is one of my favorite marketing tools because it’s easy to use and effective at the same time. To most people, Pinterest is just a mood board. But for the rest of us, it’s an avenue to promote our products and content.
Make sure to make pins that link back to your site. These pins have to be eye-catching, concise, and intriguing. You’ll never know; it might take one viral pin to gain a steady flow of traffic to your site.
Let’s say you just published a blog post. How do you use Pinterest to promote it? You need to pin all of the images that you used in the post, giving it multiple chances to be clicked on and seen. It’s best to do this with more than one image because one might outperform the other.
20. Use email marketing tools.
Remember fliers, newsletters, and billboards? Those used to be the only way to advertise products and services. You have the power to spread information by sending out newsletters and email blasts. By letting people opt-in to your email list (use the best CRM to organise your contacts and schedule bulk email), you can communicate with an already interested audience that is likely to engage with your content.
Bulking up your email list can take a long time, but luckily there are plenty of great email list building tools that you can easily add to your website. Email allows you to turn one-time traffic into repeat visitors and fans. Send great follow ups, and remember, you only want to send emails to people who want to hear from you. If you send out emails blindly, they’ll likely end up in people’s spam folders anyway..
21. Work with influencers.
Collaboration is a big thing on the internet. All the money is up for grabs, so everyone is just trying to help each other out. Influencers are a dime a dozen these days, and you can get in touch with the most popular ones in your niche to do the following:
- Pay them to post about your site or products, share your links, or give you a shout-out on social media.
- Get yourself featured on their email newsletters.
- Build friendships with them so that they might promote your site for free.
- Send them free products and encourage them to do honest reviews.
- Tag them on social media networks with links to your web pages where you mentioned or referenced them.
When you make it big, smaller website owners may want to work with you. Please pay it forward and give them a shout-out when you become a niche leader.
22. Spend time in forums yourself.
Aside from the forum on your site, you might want to stay active on other digital communities like Reddit, Quora, and Yahoo Answers. People usually post questions on these platforms and usually get helpful responses with links to relevant sources.
Because this happens so frequently, a lot of responses tend to be inorganic and sales-y. You must do your best to avoid this practice and answer questions like a regular person who’s not trying to trick you into anything.
Write helpful responses and post one or two links to your website pages that are relevant to the question.
23. Join Facebook groups.
At first, you may want to join Facebook groups in your niche not to promote your blog but just to be a consistent presence in the community. Just like I said with forum posting, you can’t be overly promotional; otherwise, people are going to distrust you.
Join Facebook groups to establish relationships with people in your niche. Contribute to conversations where you have valuable information and expertise. Build an overall helpful and genuine persona so that people are more likely to flock to your content in the future.
24. Use Snapchat.
Snapchat is particularly useful for online stores, especially those that target younger audiences. If you’re trying to promote an online resource like a blog or a site, you can experiment with Snapchat ads. These ads show up occasionally in the middle of the app’s operation. There’s no way around it, and users are forced to look at these ads.
I’d say using Snapchat is a viable move because it has around 190 million active daily users. Your traffic will soar even if you get a tiny percentage of that population to click on your ads.
25. Use ad networks.
If you have the funds or you’re skilled in graphic design, create digital ads to promote your website and target your ideal audience. Then spread your creation through Google Display Network, Microsoft Advertising, Taboola, or Outbrain. There’s not much of a learning curve to this process. All that matters is that you have a budget for it, and it doesn’t even have to be substantial.
26. Join an affiliate network.
An affiliate network is a bunch of companies that offer paid advertising opportunities to influential people on the internet or affiliates. These affiliates then earn a commission from every sale that they direct and convert. Affiliates can get more sales if they increase their traffic.
You can reach out to affiliates, tap into their existing traffic, and increase your sales if what you’re trying to promote is an e-commerce site. You get these people to advertise for you, and of course, you have to pay them a fee.
27. Go on Help A Reporter Out and make connections.
Many journalists and writers use HARO to find sources for the pieces that they’re working on. Some brands even use it to find pitches for specific posts.
If you sign up for HARO’s emails in your niche, you can look for matters that you have expertise in. When you make your pitch and get accepted, writers will refer their readers to your website.
28. Collaborate with other companies.
If you’re trying to promote your brand through your site, it might help you to build partnerships with other companies in your niche. A more established company will be able to validate your brand and introduce it to its following.
Collaborating with another brand doesn’t have to be complicated. Cross-promotions can be done on social media platforms or even just emails.
29. Make retargeting ads.
If you’re trying to sell products on your site, did you know that only 2% of visitors will make a purchase upon the first visit? Does that mean you’ve lost the 98% who clicked off? Not exactly. With retargeting ads, you can round up lukewarm visitors for follow-up visits to drive in more sales.
Retargeting ads should be based on user behavior to get the best results. For example, ads will be triggered based on the visitor’s activities on your site. This way, they’ll get a more personalized experience.
30. Put your wares up on Product Hunt.
If your website doesn’t fall under the e-commerce category, but you’re still trying to sell products, you can use Product Hunt. When you create an account on Product Hunt, you have to wait a week to get posting privileges. When you have it, you’re free to post a listing for your products. Make sure you include high-quality images and descriptions to get traffic.
31. Analyze your traffic sources.
At some point, you’re going to want to know where you get most of your traffic. You need to know what you’re doing right so that you can do it better. Go through your analytics and pinpoint the highest traffic that you get in terms of volume, conversions, and engagement.
When you find out which sources are effective, double down on your efforts to get even better results. If you do this wisely, you can actually make passive income from traffic that you worked hard to gain through great content.
32. Promote your site in person.
I’m not talking about handing out fliers. That would be far too inefficient. If you have a physical store or you distribute products to physical retailers, you have the chance to convert in-person shoppers to online traffic.
Think about it. You get sales even outside of operating hours, and you don’t have to pay extra rent for commercial space. How do you go about converting IRL shoppers? Ask for their email during checkout and include a link to your website on the receipts.
Create visual displays all over your store, stating your website URL and the conveniences offered there.
33. Make a press release on syndicated sites.
If you’re dealing with something revolutionary on your site and you think your content is newsworthy, you can publish a press release about it. Aside from spreading the word across your accounts on all platforms, share the news with a syndicated site like PRWeb.
Getting this kind of attention from a reputable source will put your site in front of new audiences, which will then make it even more popular.
Bonus: 3 Tools To Check Website Traffic in 2021
Don’t know the first thing about tracking website traffic. These websites are great for beginners.
SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb will be able to tell you your total number of page views, top traffic sources, and how long visitors stay on your site. SimilarWeb will also give you the top referring sites within your niche so that you can plan your collaborations accordingly.
Best of all, you’ll know how much of your traffic is organic and paid for. Naturally, you want most of it to be organic, so you can make adjustments here and there to find the right balance.
Shopify
Traffic analytics is not just a matter of knowing how many visitors your website gets. With Shopify, you get detailed results of “sessions over time,” so the traffic for each date is accounted for. Keeping track of highs and lows will help you adjust your current efforts to drive in more traffic. Tweaking is always necessary, and traffic generation is never going to be a won-and-done deal.
Alexa
Alexa (not Amazon’s) will give you the skinny on your competition. With Alexa, you can learn all about your competition’s traffic and where they get it from. Of course, you’ll want to get in on the action, so a bit of learning is in order. Learning from the competition and reverse engineering their efforts will help you surpass their level.
Best of all, Alexa is free, which makes it perfect for those starting out in traffic generation. Alexa also tells you how you measure up against your niche leaders and whether their traffic is trending upward or downward.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to generate more traffic for your site. It takes a little bit of imagination, willingness to learn, and the patience to wait for long-lasting results. You have to pick out the appropriate methods from what I listed above. What might work for you might not work for the next person. It all depends on your content and target audience. Remember, this is going to take some trial and error, but the payoff is rewarding. Best of luck!
