Before we start, this isn’t a blog to talk you out of search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is a fantastic long-term strategy for generating high quality traffic to your website. And, it shouldn’t be ignored. All businesses should follow best SEO practices to avoid being penalised by Google and get indexed in search.
We’re here to tell you that there are many ways to send traffic to your website to grow your brand and your business. Ideally, your digital marketing strategy will consist of several tactics that work together in harmony to drive traffic. Avoid relying on SEO alone to drive visitation. Because, if Google changes its algorithms or a competitor steps up their search strategy, and you don’t have a specialist on hand to combat it, your business may slow.
In this blog, we’ll share effective strategies to grow your website traffic — with or without SEO. You’ll get practical tips you can start using now to win back traffic if you’ve been quiet for some time.
Top strategies to increase website traffic
Content marketing
If you know LEP Digital you may have noticed that we talk a lot about content marketing. Content marketing is a modern way to organically advertise your brand by producing high-quality content that serves your target audience. As opposed to traditional ‘outbound’ advertising, content marketing is an ‘inbound’ marketing strategy. Meaning that prospective customers will get in contact with you as a result of engaging with relevant and valuable content. You can read more about inbound vs outbound marketing here. Some examples of content marketing include blog posts, downloadable PDFs, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and webinars.
When considering options, choose content that can be easily housed on your website to add value for your ideal customer. By producing helpful content, you can also streamline business operations. For example, if you notice that prospects are continually calling your business to ask about a particular product, service, or troubleshoot a topic, find ways to produce information on that topic to serve others in the future. Through finding your information, some of these prospects will become your customer. Your business will also benefit through increased brand awareness, trust, advocacy, and exposure.
Paid ads
Content marketing is a proven strategy but, like anything worthwhile, you’ll need to wait for results. It could take weeks, or even months, to really understand its performance, uptake, and to see your efforts pay off. If you’re in a rush, you can fast-track your content marketing and traffic generation efforts by investing in advertising across search (Google Ads), social media, and publishers (native). We recommend advertising strategies for businesses that have recently launched and therefore have low domain authority, digital presence, and brand awareness, and for businesses that are showcasing a new product or service.
Some businesses choose to invest in advertising on an ongoing basis, known as ‘always on’ marketing. However, you always have the flexibility to dial your spending up or down depending on the seasonality of your business. It’s important to note that paid search strategies will not improve your organic search rankings, but they will instantly increase your website traffic. You can also be more targeted in who sees your advertising, and how often they see it, giving more control back to you as the brand owner.
When choosing advertising platforms, stay laser focused on your audience. Ask yourself, where do they hang out? You might find that lesser known ad platforms may be more affordable and deliver better results for your target audience when compared to mainstream advertisers.
Social media
One of the best ways to increase your website traffic is to meet your customers where they like to spend time. Social media usage among all age groups is high, so ramping up your social media marketing efforts can help you reach new people, build brand awareness, and increase website traffic.
Remember that social media is designed to be social. The number one reason that people visit social media channels is to be entertained. So, don’t pepper your feed with straight sales content or ask your audience to immediately visit your website.
Think about why you visit brand pages on social media. Think about how you can add value to your followers, and soon-to-be followers, to create positive interactions. This might be to share how-to videos, or create day in the life content where your audience can see what it’s like behind the scenes of your business. For more tips, read our blog on how to create a social media strategy.
Above all, it’s important to ensure that someone in your business is responsible for community management on your social media pages. Your community manager should not only be responding to comments in a meaningful way and directing people to your website where appropriate, but also leaving thoughtful comments and sharing helpful articles and videos on other social media pages. This will open up your brand’s reach, and encourage followers and likes on your page, and ultimately drive website traffic.
Guest blogging
Do you, or someone else in your company, write for your business regularly? Consider sharing your content. Guest blogging is an effective traffic-driving strategy that works by leveraging another company’s audience to widen your brand’s reach. It works because everyone is looking for fresh, high-quality content. If you can provide well-researched, on trend, and engaging content for free, many publishers will be open to receiving your submission for their website.
It may get you in front of thousands of new people who are looking for your product or service. Look for blogs and media outlets that publish content relevant to your business or area of expertise and have a readership that you’d like to reach. If you want to find blogs in your industry that are accepting guest posts, use the following search queries to see more specific results. Starting with the name of your niche, type in:
- “write for us”
- “submit guest post”
- “sites that accept guest posts”.
Remember to include backlinks to your website in your content submissions.
Email marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective tools to get in front of customers and increase website traffic. It is a direct and intimate form of contact. This means your reader is focused on your content with little distractions. It’s an ideal way to build long-term relationships and improve customer loyalty.
As always, the key is to create authentic content that provides high value to your audience. You may wish to give your readers more than what you’d share on your website so that they feel like a valued customer. Consider ways that you can lift the hood on your business. By sharing real stories you may help readers to do their job better, or improve their lives, through articles, downloadable content, audio, and videos. Your emails should always include links back to your website and provide ways for your readers to interact with you. Whether that be to provide feedback, get help, participate in a competition, or follow you on social media.
Most email platforms will allow you to track clickable content. Ensure you study which content is most appealing to your audience and tailor your future communications accordingly.
Start increasing your website traffic
Using these tactics will help you to create a well-rounded digital marketing strategy. This will increase your website traffic and result in more leads and sales for your business. If you want to drive more traffic to your website, contact us by emailing hello@lep.digital or call our office on 9064 1768.
