Your website is your main source of online revenue. Don’t expect much of a return on your investment, however, if you’re not directing traffic there. The process of achieving this goal can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be such a challenging task if you take the right steps to attract the attention of browsers.
1. Get Social
Your website is not meant to stand alone and catch the attention of random searchers. Appropriate social media platforms can effectively direct visitors already interested in your brand to your site with carefully placed links. Social posts also allow you to remain engaged with your audience, which tends to entice followers to check out your website.
2. Consider PPC
Pay-per-click allows you to choose where to place ads with a link back to your site. The ability to target your preferred audience can increase traffic to your site quickly. However, it’s a temporary solution with certain stipulations, and it can be expensive to sustain PPC efforts.
3. Optimize Your Site
SEO is the key to driving traffic to your site and achieving a respectable ranking on leading search engines such as Google and Bing. In order to comply with the ever-increasing list of Google guidelines, keywords and terms need to be included naturally throughout your site, along with any related social media pages and blog posts that direct visitors back to it.
4. Make It Mobile-Friendly
More than half of all consumers access the Internet from a mobile device. Consequently, your website needs to optimize for mobile viewing and functionality. You can either create a separate mobile site to accomplish this goal, or do things such as minimizing bells and whistles in the site’s design and enlarging buttons for easier clicking.
5. Keep Content Fresh
While there are certain elements of your website that should remain static, fresh content needs to be included to engage visitors. Such content can come in the form of featured weekly or seasonal specials on the homepage, access to new blog posts, or new video clips sprinkled throughout your site.
6. Fine-tune Your Headlines
Visitors to your site are likely to skim the headlines first before getting into any of the content. Headlines should be clear, concise, and relevant to the featured content. Avoid filler words and focus instead on descriptive words and phrases.
7. Use Relevant Visuals
Online searches are more visual than ever. Relevant visuals with accompanying captions can be an effective way to direct browsers to your site. Visual elements on your website can include customized images, photos, and short video clips with the auto-play feature turned off to avoid annoying repeat visitors.
8. Target Long-Tail Keywords
The purpose of long-tail keywords, or three or four specific keywords strung together, is to target customers late in the buying cycle. Such keyword phrases are designed to attract customers at a point when searches are more detailed and they’re ready to take action. Using long-tail keywords effectively throughout your site, or within content that links back to your site, has the potential to generate more conversions.
9. Go Local
Going local with your website can include targeting potential customers within your specific physical business location or within preferred geographic areas. Making your site-local involves a mix of local SEO with geo-specific keywords and submitting your website to local directories. Review sites can also direct local traffic back to your site.
10. Seek Referral Traffic
Referral traffic, i.e., visits to your site from an outside source, accounts for about one-third of all website views. See where your referral traffic is coming from in Google Analytics to get an idea of the type of content driving visitors to your site. Referral traffic can be generated through direct ad placement, partnerships with influential bloggers, and social media.
Getting more traffic to your website takes more than just a one-time effort. In addition to fresh, engaging content, generating a steady flow of traffic to your website requires paying careful attention to available data, identifying patterns, and recognizing the potential for growth.
