Ask any marketer what they want for their website and they’ll likely tell you more traffic and more leads. Because you need more traffic in order to gain leads, we’re going to focus here on how you can use content marketing to increase web traffic.
So how do you actually do it?
There are lots of strategies out there for increasing web traffic, and we suggest you test out many of them. Some strategies work better than others depending on audience, brand niche, area of expertise, or competition in your space. It’s up to you to know your brand and what aligns best with your content strategy.
We’ve compiled a list of 25 proven strategies to increase web traffic. Let’s take a look!
20 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic
Facebook and Twitter Remarketing
We know that social media is a great marketing tool for both B2C and B2B brands. You can take your social media ROI a step further by installing a tracking pixel on your website to set up remarketing audiences. You can do it for both Facebook and Twitter to keep engaging with your web visitors on those platforms after they’ve left your site.
Why is this important? Here’s a startling statistic: 95% of people who visit your website will not return again. While this number can vary across brands and industries, a quick look at your new vs. returning web visitors will tell you that the majority are not returners.
Remarketing through social media is an important way for you to continue driving interest and return web traffic that may ultimately convert into leads and sales.
Custom Audiences on Facebook and Twitter
Ready to throw out your email list? Give it a second chance with Facebook and Twitter! Upload your lists to Facebook and Twitter and they’ll capture the social accounts attached to the email addresses you upload. This is a great way to connect with your customers on their mobile devices, where most people are spending 5-6 hours every day.
Email List
Having an email list is one of the best ways to drive return traffic to your website. This is because you’re marketing to a group of people (your subscriber list) who are already interested in your brand. With the right approach, email marketing can be one of your top sources of web traffic.
Here are some simple best practices to get started:
We recommend building your subscriber list as soon as possible. Make it easy for web visitors to subscribe to your email list with a prominent button, link, or form. Use an email marketing tool like Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, or Constant Contact to help you track performance metrics from your email marketing efforts.
Most of all, remember that your email newsletters should aim to be mini curated versions of your content for that week or month. While promotional messages can certainly be included in your emails, they shouldn’t be the sole or primary focus. Always think about what your subscribers will find valuable (your content) vs. what they will likely dismiss as spam (solely promotional content).
Twitter Cards
Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets, 89% more likes, and 18% more click throughs than those without them. It goes without saying that you want to include images on your own social media posts, but what about visitors who share your content? Twitter Cards are a way you can ensure every Twitter share of your web content automatically includes an image.
Killer Headlines
Did you know that 8 out of 10 visitors to your website read your headline only? That means only 20% of your web visitors are actually getting to the content you worked so hard to craft for them! Great headlines are the key to fighting back against this statistic.
This applies to every one of your content promotion strategies: social media ads, SEO rankings, sharing content in email newsletters — you name it. Regardless of the channel you’re using, irresistible headlines that grab attention and leave your audience wanting more are essential for getting them to read your actual content.
Publish a Blog
Duh! If you haven’t started blogging, you really need to start today. There are about a million reasons why we think you should be publishing a blog on your website, so we’ll pick a few of the most important.
Today, 93% of online experiences start with search engines. Your blog is the main source of SEO content. Without one, you’re missing the biggest opportunity out there to increase web traffic. Your blog establishes your brand personality and expertise in your industry. It’s more affordable than any paid advertising tactic and much more effective.
Finally, your blog content is where many of your web visitors will find the most value. If you’re covering topics they care about, they’re more likely to stick around on your page. You then have opportunities to convert them to leads with tactics like lead magnets and strong CTAs.
If you aren’t creating customer-focused content (like a publisher) on your website, then we can not be friends. #SorryNotSorry
Blog Promotion
Writing your blogs is only half the job. You also need to promote them to maximize potential for brand visibility and driving web traffic.
So how do you do it? Some tried and true blog promotion tactics include:
- Sharing your posts on social media – This is an easy one. Get your blog posts on social media to give them more visibility and potential to be shared.
- Make your content shareable – Creating shareable content is one of the most effective ways to get your blog promoted by visitors who enjoyed it.
- Include blog posts in your email newsletter – Be sure your subscribers are seeing your best content by sharing it in emails.
- Repurpose old content – Take your most popular blog content and repurpose it into an ebook, video, infographic or other engaging form of content.
Blog Syndication
Syndicating your posts on other sites is another great way to drive traffic to your blog or site. Search for top sites your target audience may visit frequently and reach out to the editors to see if they would be willing to feature your content.
Just be careful. Some sites will take an unrestricted license (and even sell) your content. I’ve been burned using this approach but I’ve also benefited greatly. Think carefully about the audience (and the ethics) of the site owners where you want to syndicate. For most authors, syndicating your content can provide access to a new audience and help you build authority.
Guest Contribution
Many sites today accept blog contributions, and it helps drive more traffic to your site and build your credibility as well as brand awareness. Look for sites that have strong readership or the target audience you are trying to reach.
You can also invite industry thought leaders and influencers to guest blog or interview them for blogs. The name recognition will not only increase traffic to your site but boost your credibility as well. You can even build an entire army of volunteer contributors to your own site by asking for guest contributors.
SEO Optimization
Optimizing your site for search engines is the best way to boost your organic traffic. Don’t forget that statistic — 93% of web experiences are starting with search! Be sure you’re using SEO best practices for all of your content and paying attention to Google ranking factors as they evolve over time.
Some of the most important places to focus:
- High-value content – It’s not just about hitting keywords anymore. Google AI is smarter than that, and they’re analyzing your content to make sure it’s actually high-quality and relevant to the topic and audience.
- Keywords – But keywords are still important. Use a tool like SEMRush to get a huge list of keywords you can cluster and organize into topics you know your audience wants.
- Headlines – We talked about this, but it’s worth mentioning again. Without an awesome headline, you likely won’t even get noticed. Focus on writing headlines that readers can’t resist!
- Include Visual Content – Content marketing is all about visual content these days. Including images and videos in your content makes it more engaging, increases shareability, and helps it rank higher on SERPs.
- Pay Attention to Technical Stuff – Meta descriptions, image alt-text, tags — it all plays an important role in helping your content rank. Don’t forget the little things!
Interactive Content
We’ve all been there — we go on the internet with a specific goal in mind only to realize 10 minutes later we’re taking a quiz about what kind of cat we’d be based on our zodiac sign.
The thing is, people will take fun quizzes, surveys and the like on just about anything. It’s part of the internet experience in 2021. So why not use them to make your content more fun and interactive? To boot, interactive content can also create more value for your customer because it can help them learn something about themselves.
What we mean is that we don’t recommend you use a cat quiz (unless you’re Buzzfeed). Think instead about what you want your audience to discover as it relates to your content, and create something interactive to help them do it. So, if you’re writing an article about blogging best practices, maybe you include a quick test your readers can take to score their blog as it exists today. This helps them understand how your content is going to help them improve.
There are many types of interactive content. Here are some that perform well:
Webinars/Webcasts
Share your expertise with your target audience by offering free webinars or webcasts. Find topics that your target audience is most interested in, then take the time to create an engaging and informative presentation. This is a great way to share your industry expertise and drive traffic to your website by putting a timestamp on the event (i.e. join us LIVE at X date and time).
But don’t make it boring! We all hear the word webinar and (let’s admit it) stifle a yawn. Don’t forget about your killer headline, great description, and interesting topic.
New to webinars? Check out this step by step guide.
Podcasts
If you’re not ready to do live presentations just yet, podcasting is a good way to practice your presentation skills and still share your insights with your target audience. The key to driving traffic to your site is to make sure you are consistent and are promoting your podcasts on social media. Over time your audience will grow and you’ll build a repeat audience.
Quick tip: boost your podcast audience by inviting guests who are influencers or experts in your industry or who have a large following themselves. This will help you generate interest, gain more listeners and increase web traffic.
Partnerships
Brand partnerships are a pretty well-known growth hacking strategy and can be an excellent way to increase web traffic and build your audience. You can start by thinking about brands in adjacent markets who, when coupled with your brand, bring added value to your customers.
Partnerships have compounding growth effects by exposing your brand to new audiences and building your brand reputation at the same time. When done well, they create a virtuous cycle of growth for your brand with both partners and customers.
Community Building
People like to weigh in and share their ideas on topics they are passionate about. To increase traffic, build community by engaging directly with your audience. You can do this in a few easy ways.
Always leave the comments open on your blog and social media posts. Respond to comments and questions quickly and thoughtfully. Encourage conversation between customers, too! On social media especially, you can ask specific questions to generate a high number of responses and create discourse around topics.
The more you engage directly with readers who are commenting on your content, the more it will happen. Don’t forget, too, that posts with lots of comments and engagements also show up more on people’s feeds. Building community gets your direct audience more engaged but it also helps generate new interest, too!
Comment on Other Brands’ Content
Contribute your insights and comments regularly on other blogs and sites that are relevant to your business. Doing so helps get your name out there, which can drive more traffic to your site in the long term. Just like with guest blogging, you want to make sure your comments are relevant and insightful to build your credibility and establish relationships with other readers.
Adding genuine thoughts and insights to the conversation on other brands’ content also increases the likelihood that they’ll do the same for you. It also creates potential opportunities for formal brand partnerships as you build relationships with other brands you respect and get value from.
Timely Content
Creating content around timely news and events shows your brand is knowledgeable and on the pulse of what’s happening in your industry. Don’t shy away from writing blog articles and social media posts about trending topics. Providing unique opinions shows your brand personality and keeps your content relevant and fresh.
Join Social Media Groups
We know that building community, commenting on other brands’ content, and seeking brand partnerships are all ways to increase web traffic. One vehicle for accomplishing these goals is through social media groups. Looking for groups relevant to your business and industry and staying active in their groups helps you make new connections and establish yourself and your brand with other industry professionals.
Facebook and LinkedIn are the primary social media platforms for group membership and activity, so look there first if you’re taking on this strategy. Once you’re there, don’t be afraid to share your content in an insightful way (steer away from straight promotion which can come off as tone-deaf and self-serving). Industry groups are mainly made up of peers looking to share insights and learn from each other, not scroll through ad content.
Mobile Optimization
Today more than half of all web traffic is generated via mobile devices, and Google’s share of search engine queries is at 96%. Google has also implemented mobile-first indexing, meaning that mobile versions of your website may be considered even more important than desktop.
All of this is to say that if you want to rank higher on SERPs and increase web traffic you must optimize your website for mobile. This is slightly different from creating mobile-friendly content, which works for mobile users but is really built for desktop. Mobile-optimized content is designed with mobile users first in mind.
Experimentation
One brand’s secret sauce for success may not necessarily work for you, and for this reason you want to experiment to find out what works best for your brand! Don’t be afraid to try new strategies and put your own spin on them, too. People are drawn to brands that are authentic and unique, so copying exactly what another brand does isn’t likely to bring you success.
Taking a metrics- and data-driven approach to measuring your content’s performance is the best way to understand which tactics are working best for you. This makes it possible for you to capitalize on the strategies that are driving results and phase out those that aren’t.
Ready to increase your web traffic today?
Your content strategy can be built to continually drive web traffic and increase your marketing ROI. Marketing insider group has SEO experts and writers who can help you build the best strategy for your brand and deliver publish-ready content every single week.
Check out our Content Builder Services to learn more or schedule your free consultation today!
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