There is a strong correlation between website traffic and sales. More specifically, the more traffic your website attracts the more sales you can expect.
Lack of website traffic is a common struggle for many businesses. Part of the reason is due to the incredibly competitive nature of the digital landscape. Without a strong online marketing strategy, your site stands little chance of standing out in the crowd. Which ultimately has a negative impact on traffic figures and sales to your business.
The good news is there are proven strategies you can implement to drive more traffic to your website. Here we look at these strategies in more detail so you can get 2017 off to a great start.
1. Optimize On-Page SEO Factors
Search engines are a great source of attracting more traffic.
Google alone processes billions of search queries on a daily basis. Ranking in the search results for your target keywords has the potential to drive a considerable amount of traffic. But building a website is not enough to rank as search engines rely on complex algorithms to determine the relevance of each webpage.
Optimize each of the following on-page factors of your site to improve rankings:
- Page titles: Optimize each page title to include your target keywords. For local businesses, include the primary keywords and city name to target searchers in the area.
- Meta descriptions: While it won’t necessarily boost rankings, optimizing the meta descriptions to include your target keyword and a call to action can help improve click through rates.
- Heading tags: Heading tags are useful to break up blocks of text and improve readability. Optimize heading tags to include secondary and related keywords.
- Content: The above on-page factors are all important but the actual content on the page is what ultimately matters. Provide comprehensive coverage of the topic while also including primary and related keywords throughout the content.
Here is an example of a search result that is optimized for “emergency dentist Austin”:
And another that is poorly optimized for the same keywords:
The difference is immediately clear as the first example is better optimized for the search terms. Before doing anything else, optimize all on-page factors for each page of your site.
2. Create Evergreen Content
Publishing evergreen content is a viable marketing strategy that offers numerous benefits. It establishes your business as an industry authority and increases your marketing reach. Data has shown that B2B marketers that regularly publish content generate 67% more leads on average.
So what is evergreen content?
Evergreen content has timeless value and continues to be relevant long after its publication date. Examples might include in-depth tutorials, product reviews, top tips, etc. It is not uncommon for evergreen content to continue driving targeted traffic for years.
Here is a process to create evergreen content for your site:
- Brainstorm: What are some of the most common problems in your industry? Browse through relevant forums and search on social media for target keywords. Then jot down potential topics you can create evergreen content around.
- Research: Content that fails to provide any depth or coverage of a topic stands little chance of ranking in the search results. Thoroughly research the topic and provide your own personal experience to make your content stand out.
- Create: Based on your brainstorming session and your research, create your content and aim to provide comprehensive coverage. Remember to optimize all on-page factors and include relevant keywords throughout the content.
- Promote: Published content stands a far better chance of generating traffic and ranking in the search results with some promotion. Share the new post on your social media channels and send outreach emails to get the word out.
Follow these steps to create content that consistently generates targeted traffic. Maintain a regular publishing schedule to drive measurable results.
3. Build a Social Media Presence
It’s impossible to talk about website traffic without also mentioning social media. Networks such as Facebook and Twitter are now so widespread that you would be hard pressed to find someone without at least once profile.
This chart from Pew Research Center shows just how prevalent social media is:
Facebook surpasses all other social networks by far with well over a billion active users. But others including Instagram and Pinterest are steadily gaining in popular with each boasting large user bases. Social media is an effective marketing channel to drive more traffic to your website and increase brand awareness.
Follow these steps to create a marketing plan for your business:
- Choose appropriate platforms: Building profiles on all the popular social platforms puts yourself at risk of spreading your efforts too thin. Instead, find out which platforms your target market uses and concentrate your efforts on those.
- Optimize your profiles: The next step is to create accounts on the networks you want to work with. Optimize for SEO to drive more search engine traffic to those properties. Fill out each section and upload quality photos.
- Create a content plan: Sharing great content is essential to succeeding with social media. Create a content plan which should detail the type of content you plan to share as well as the platform to post on.
- Test and evaluate: Measuring how your social media campaign is performing allows you to adjust and change course as necessary. It also provides valuable insight as to what kind of content resonates best with your audience.
Social media is only effective if you make it so.
The key is being consistent with your efforts as a single post on Facebook or Twitter won’t be enough to start immediately driving traffic to your website. But posting on a regular basis makes it far more likely that your efforts will produce measurable results.
4. Drive Traffic With Paid Search
Creating engaging content and leveraging social media are proven ways to increase traffic.
Either strategy can produce fantastic results for your business but it takes time for results to materialize. In the case with SEO, it can easily takes weeks or even months of effort to start ranking in the search results. When you are launching a new product line or testing new offers, you want results faster.
Paid search gives advertisers the flexibility to start driving immediate traffic to their landing pages. One of the most popular platforms is Google AdWords.
Advertisers are able to bid on relevant keywords and create targeted ads which only appear in the search results for those queries. Here is an example of ads that appear above the organic search results for “outdoor furniture”:
Each ad is highly relevant to the search query.
Even with a limited budget you can create a campaign and start driving targeted traffic to your landing pages almost immediately. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that all traffic ceases if you stop or pause your paid search campaigns.
Conclusion
There is simply no way around it.
If traffic to your website is suffering, you can expect sales to reflect that fact. Generating targeted traffic is a common struggle for many business. But following the strategies as outlined here can greatly turn things around and improve traffic to your website.