Tips & Guides — 02 Feb 2023
15 Ways to Increase Website Traffic
Starting a blog or business website these days is very easy. But driving traffic isn’t.
Back in 2010, getting traffic was easier compared to today. And, it’s becoming ever more difficult and challenging for marketers to drive quality traffic to their websites.
However, if you’re struggling with increasing website traffic, you are not alone. Ahrefs shows that 91% of websites don’t get any traffic from search engines like Google.
But don’t lose hope.
You can still drive organic traffic to your website if you follow and implement the right strategies.
In this post, we will share only proven methods that will help you to increase website traffic and generate more leads, resulting in more money.
Ready? Let’s get started.
Before you start creating content, take some time to understand your target audience and what they’re looking for.
Target audience refers to a specific group of people likely to buy your product or service. They share similar demographic traits, including age, gender, interests, income, etc.
As a marketer, understanding your target audience is crucial. Identifying your target audience helps you focus your brand marketing efforts in the most cost-effective way possible, resulting in more revenue.
Let’s take an example from the Affise website.
Affise is a partnership marketing platform that helps brands and advertisers automate and scale their partner relations.
In order to maximize their marketing effort and revenue, they specifically publish affiliate and marketing-related content that targets a specific audience.
Keyword research is essential for creating a content strategy for your website. This will give you an idea of what people search for on search engines.
It’s common to see that most newbie bloggers and marketers don’t do keyword research; instead, they publish content based on their guesses or whatever they can think of.
If you wrote something that no one searches for, then obviously, you wouldn’t get any traffic.
In contrast, if you create content about the most searched or demandable topics such as “influencer marketing,” “social media marketing,” “digital marketing,” etc., then there’s a higher chance your page wouldn’t rank well in search engines because the keywords are too challenging to rank for.
So, what’s the solution?
The solution could be performing keyword research. By doing that, you can find the following:
There are several keyword research tools available on the market that you can use. Some of the best are Google Ads, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Buzzsumo.
If search engines don’t know your site exists, your web pages won’t appear in the organic search results pages, which means no search traffic.
You can manually submit your site to search engines to help web crawlers find your content faster to increase site traffic.
The process isn’t apparent for everyone, as search engine web crawlers regularly index all of the pages on the web. But, in some cases, you need to manually submit your website, for example, if your site is brand new or you frequently make changes.
To submit your website on Google, go to Google Search Console.
Similarly, to submit your website to Bing, head to Bing Webmaster Tool.
Evergreen content is SEO (search engine optimization) content that stays relevant or fresh for readers for years or decades. It helps your brand keep rolling in more traffic and social shares, and build authority which can attract links naturally.
Some examples of evergreen content are “how-to guides,” for example, “how to tie a scarf,” or “how to lose weight,” which wouldn’t change in the next 20 years.
However, it’s also vital that you keep your existing content up-to-date because Google prioritizes fresh and quality content rather than old.
You may have hundreds of high-quality articles, but if no one finds them on the web it’s the same as having no content.
It’s like manufacturing a brand new product, but no one knows it exists. Generally, you couldn’t make any profit.
You need to build backlinks to your targeted pages to increase website traffic.
Backlinks, also known as outbound links, are created when a website links to another website. Search engines like Google consider backlinks as a ranking signal.
The more backlinks are pointing to a particular page, the higher chance that page will rank in Google and other search engines.
Additionally, backlinks help to bring referral traffic and build your brand authority.
However, not all backlinks are created equal. In other words, some backlinks can harm your website’s SEO, resulting in negative rankings. And, some backlinks can boost your website’s ranking. So, it’s crucial to pay attention when building links.
Here are some link-building techniques we recommend:
Guest blogging is writing articles on someone else’s website. It is an effective way to build high-quality backlinks and boost search engine results page (SERPs) ranking.
First, find websites in your industry that accept guest posts. A quick Google search can help you find numerous guest posting sites; all you need is to enter something like “online marketing blogs that accept guest posts” or any other based on your niche.
Before pitching to any blog, make sure you read their guest post guidelines and check if they allow external backlinks in the content area or author bio. If they allow, go ahead and pitch your article ideas.
Here’s an example from the Affise blog.
Affise allows up to three do-follow links in guest posts.
Building good relationships with influencers is key to successful link building. You can start by joining niche-related communities, such as forums, blogs, or groups.
By actively participating in these online communities focused around your area of expertise, not only will it give backlinks that are important for SEO purposes, but also help build connections that could lead to more opportunities down the line.
Broken link building is a simple yet powerful link-building strategy. If done correctly, you can build hundreds of high-quality backlinks in a shorter amount of time.
The process of broken link building is this:
The tool will scan the entire website and show you if any link is broken within a blink of an eye.
Now, find an article you’ve already written related to that topic, or else write a better version of this copy and outreach to the editor through email.
Let them know about the broken link and offer your content as an alternative. If that makes sense to them, they will link back to you.
Content repurposing is reusing existing content to reach a wider audience.
Let’s say you have a fantastic blog post about “10 Baking Tips for Perfect Cakes ”. You could turn the text-based article into a video, infographic, animation, PDF, etc., and submit it to different platforms. For instance, you might submit the infographic to SlideShare or Flickr.
When submitting your infographics or videos, make sure to add a link back to the source.
Hot tip: Repurposing content becomes much easier for editors when using a Headless CMS. You’ll never have to re-create content again!
If your business has been up and running for a while, chances are people are talking about your products or services. Maybe someone posted an honest review of your product on YouTube, their blog, or social media.
You can use Ahref’s Content Explorer tool to find who mentioned but didn’t link to you. Then, you can reach out to them, asking if they could provide a link back to your product page.
Advertising on different social media platforms and search engines is a great way to increase website traffic quickly.
Each platform works differently and provides plenty of options to run your ad campaign. For instance, you can display ads or sponsored posts on Facebook Ads. You can run PPC (pay-per-click) or retargeting ads on search engines like Google Ads and Bing Ads.
Before your marketing campaigns go live, make sure to use a wide variety of keywords. This will help you understand which keywords bring more traffic and are worth further investing in.
Interlinking is an integral part of on-page SEO. Internal links are hyperlinks that link one page to another on the same domain.
It helps users navigate your website and find related articles, increasing page views by providing more information and lowering bounce rates.
Internal links also help to spread link juice (ranking power) to other pages if placed strategically.
So, make sure to interlink your pages, whether blog posts, product pages, or landing pages.
If you haven’t started building your email list yet, you’re missing out on potential subscribers, whom you could turn into customers.
An email list doesn’t only help you to boost your conversion rates but also web traffic.
When you publish a new blog post, you can promote it to your email subscribers for a quick traffic boost. Additionally, you can promote different affiliate offers or paid services to generate more money.
The simplest way to build an email list is through an opt-in email form. You add an email newsletter form on the sidebar or at the bottom of your post. If your blog content is helpful enough, they will likely opt into your newsletter.
Social media is an effective way to promote your content and attract new customers. Some of the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.
To promote your website through social media, start creating accounts on all platforms. A good idea would be using a username identical to the name of your website so users can easily find your brand.
When posting on social media platforms, don’t forget to add relevant hashtags. It helps users to follow topics they’re interested in quickly.
An online community, also known as a virtual community, is a group of people with similar interests who interact. Some of the great online communities are LinkedIn groups, Facebook Groups, YouTube communities, etc.
However, not all groups would be suitable for you. Join the groups or communities you are interested in or that are relevant in your niche.
Some groups can have strict rules. So, make sure to read and stick within these group rules to avoid getting banned.
Also, don’t post your link just because it matches the context. Instead, make more connections and be helpful to other members. Once you have enough reputation and trust, you can post your link without worrying.
Podcasts are a great way to drive traffic and build awareness for your business. You can create podcasts that highlight the best of what you offer or discuss industry trends while simultaneously expanding potential customer reach.
Here’s how you can quickly start a podcast:
Some excellent podcast hosting sites are RSS, BuzzSprout, PodBean, etc.
Social share buttons are a great way to increase the number of visitors coming from social media. They make it easy for people to share your great content with their network, which gives you social proof and traffic.
Plus, you’ll be able to reach new audiences that may not have heard about you before or gain more exposure on popular networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Adding a social share button to your website is very simple using AddThis, Shareholic, and others. Alternatively, you can use free tools like Buffer, HootSuite to schedule social media posts.
Hosting contests and giveaways is a great way to drive massive traffic to your website in a short period.
Both small and big brands often host giveaways to boost their website traffic. Additionally, it helps them grow their sales, social media followers, email subscribers, and more.
Here’s a case study of a Coconut Bowls giveaway. Coconut Bowls is a Shopify ecommerce store that sells coconut bowls.
The firm ran an Instagram giveaway, and was able to collect 41,000 email subscribers in just four weeks.
You can easily host a contest or giveaway using tools like Gleam or Vyper.
Another way to increase website traffic is through Q & A (question and answer) forums. Q & A forums allow users to ask and answer questions.
Some popular online forums are Reddit, Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Stack Exchange.
The best part of forums is that any topic is allowed to be discussed. You can ask whatever you have in your mind.
Also, Q & A forums keep a history of previous queries, which means your question or answer won’t get lost in the crowd. Anyone interested in your topic can easily find your queries at any time.
So, whenever answering a question, link back to your website. If people are interested in knowing more about the topic, they will click on your link, resulting in more traffic.
Headlines are an essential part of content marketing, and they’re also one of the most challenging parts to get right.
They need to be short, catchy, and informative enough that people will want to click on them. Not to mention, great headlines can improve your click-through rate.
Here are a couple of ways to make your headlines more click-worthy.
Alternatively, you can use headline generator tools like HubSpot’s headline generator, FatJoe, or SEOPressor.
Driving traffic can be a daunting task, especially if your site is brand new. But that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve it.
In this article, we shared 15 great strategies that you can implement to increase traffic to your website. Some of them require consistent work, and you can see results only after a certain amount of time. Some of them are paid but get traffic instantly.
For example, through SEO, you can’t see an instant traffic increase, but organic traffic from search engines will keep coming consistently after a certain amount of time.
On the other hand, paid advertising will instantly bring traffic as long as you spend money. But, all the traffic goes down if you stop advertising.
So, ultimately, you have to implement all of these traffic-driving techniques and see which works the best for your business.
Now, we want to hear from you. Which tactics have you tried so far? Which methods work the best for you? Do let us know.
Written by
Affise Academy
Affise is a partner marketing platform for brands, advertisers and agencies to scale via all possible performance marketing channels. Synergy of technology and our long standing experience lets you expand your partnerships, automate every step of the campaign lifecycle and make data-driven decisions.
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