10 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Traffic is king and one of the biggest obstacles we all face – you can have a great product, awesome customer service team, slick delivery but no customers! Particularly for new sites, getting traffic is the very first hurdle that you’ll face.
To give you a helping hand getting started, we’ve listed 10 simple ways that you should be utilising to drive traffic.
Remember: traffic doesn’t build itself and it’s important to allocate time every week to follow your marketing plan and ensure you are spending enough time actively driving traffic to your website.
Ensure your website is search engine friendly
Ensuring you website is search engine friendly is the first stop, pages should be indexable and easily read by search engines or all future efforts will be disappointing.
You should have Google Search Console setup and verified and this will inform you of any major issues i.e. blocked pages, html structure etc.
Ensure all of the relevant information is provided; meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags are all completed and then submit to Google and Bing along with an up-to-date sitemap.
-
Awesome content
Spend time on your product descriptions, your about us page and any area that can differentiate you from your competitors, well written descriptions can not only increase your conversion rate but also improve your search ranking for your website and inner pages.
The most important thing to remember is not to just copy and paste existing content, this will do you no favours at all!
-
Get Blogging!
If Traffic is King then content is certainly queen and there is no reason for any online business not to have a blog and to be regularly updating it with the latest news and commentary within their sector. All of this content builds your website as an authority within your chosen sector and can heavily influence the traffic your website receives.
Of course make sure that your content is good quality, unique, and not content written for the sake of content.
For those customers who like to build a relationship prior to making a purchase, a blog is a great way of doing this. By informing your customer of industry news, latest company events, tips and tricks, you’ll build yourself as a trustworthy authority who customers can rely one.
-
Mini Sites
If you business is in a particular niche then it might be worth considering a stand alone website that focuses on a particular topic, if you have your own brand it might be a branded website on a particular key phrase.
These sites are a great way to expand your online search visibility and also drive traffic to your ecommerce website.
-
Active Social Media Presence
Having a strong social media presence will build your online presence and drive traffic to your website. Ensuring your profile is fully complete on all of the platforms you have selected to work with is a must i.e. Facebook, Twitter…
It is important to post content that is it relevant to your audience on each platform and not to post the same thing on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.
Your website should also have the ability for users to easily share your content via social media platforms.
-
Competitions
This is a great way of building a new audience, everyone loves a freebie! Once you have determined what your competition is for it is time to share on social media profiles and also any bloggers or influencers you might have a relationship with.
If you are fortunate (and your giveway is worthwhile) people will share this with their friends and family, increasing your brand presence online and driving additional traffic to your website.
Word of warning: this is a great way to drive additional traffic but should not be overused or you will end up building a profile up of competition hunters who are unlikely ever to convert into real customers.
-
Multi Channel Platforms
Ebay and Amazon are great for reaching new customers and together they have a lot! When selling on these platforms it is always a good idea to include a promo flyer in the packaging for the customer. This will nudge them in the direction of your site rather than Amazon, effectively converting them from an Amazon customer to your customer.
A lot of businesses decide not to use Ebay or Amazon due to the selling fee’s or the effect it could have on their business but if implemented correctly it can only serve to complement your existing online offering rather than cannibalise it.
-
Email Marketing
Still the (marketing) weapon of choice for many businesses thanks to it’s cost effective method of marketing with a clear ROI.
You should have clear forms throughout your website (and blog) with strong calls to actions explaining why should they give you their email address. By capturing someone’s email address it does give you the ability to sell to your customer but more importantly it allows you to build and strengthen your relationship with them.
Emails should always have a purpose and if you have asked for any preferences while signing i.e. topics/interests then the email content should match this so that they will always be relevant.
It is important that all emails are designed with mobile in mind as this has now become the first point (device) of call to skim through all emails, both personal and work related.
-
Google Pay Per Click/Google Shopping
A quick way to drive traffic to your website but at a cost, using Pay per Click advertising is a quick way to ensure you are at the top of page 1 for your chosen search terms without a huge amount of work.
You bid for each keyword setting a max cost per click and have access to an easy to use dashboard to stay on top of your marketing at all times.
Should you decide to experiment with Google Adwords then you should ensure that you have tracking setup on your website to measure all conversions and that your ad spend is profitable. It is always a good idea to work out what is an acceptable cost per sale prior to activating your campaigns.
Google Shopping is a great way for online merchants to display the core details of their products online i.e. images, product title and price on the front page of Google.
The setup of Google Shopping can be slightly more complicated as you be required to create a feed of your products and submit to Google, however once this is done your feed should refresh and your campaigns should benefit from increased click through rates and lower cost per acquisition.
-
Re-Marketing
A follow on from number 9, re-marketing should be setup on every website, as it provide the ability to continually remind your users and potential customers of your presence as they browse the internet.
When visiting your website a small cookie is placed on the user’s computer and as long as all rules have been met they will start to see your adverts on other websites (mainly content led) with the aim of reinforcing your brand and attracting them back to you website.
This is relatively easy to setup and if you have ever thought you were being followed throughout the internet then you were right and this is how!