So you've got a nifty site created for your business, and after sitting back and admiring it for a bit, a question may dawn on you, "how do I get people to actually see this?"
Yes, developing a website is only part of the equation. An important part, but, regardless, you need to have customers visiting and interacting with it. Y'know: learning about your products and services and ultimately contacting your business or placing an order online.
Thankfully, there's some fairly straight-forward tactics you can pursue to start the wheels turning in attracting hordes of visitors.
1. Content Creation
Inbound marketing focuses on attracting the right people to your company. One of the best ways to do this is by creating content through blogging.
To come up with content that will attract the right visitors to your website, you should know your buyer persona. Once you know your audience, you can create content that will attract them to your website.
But how do you write a good blog post that will attract the right audience? Follow these five steps:
Identify your buyer persona: Find out more about your audience, from job title to pain points.
Conduct SEO research: Learn what your audience is searching for on search engines so you provide the right content.
Write a draft: Begin by drafting a post that answers your audience's questions.
Publish: Publish your post on your blog.
Promote: Promote your blog post on social media and email newsletters to generate traffic. The more traffic your post generates, the higher it will rank in search engines.
2. Topic Expertise
Ranking higher in Google will increase the organic traffic to your site. But did you know that Google favours sites that are known to be topic experts on the subject matter they're writing about? (Yes, it's true.)
To be seen as an expert, you can create a pillar page, which is essentially a longer blog post that broadly covers all aspects of a topic. Then, you write "cluster content," or supporting blog posts, targeting long tail keywords that show you've exhaustively covered a topic.
The pillar cluster model organizes content on your site around a single topic and search term through internal linking. This organization helps search engines easily crawl and categorize all of the content that you have on a particular topic, thereby making it easier for you to rank for that search term. When the model is done right, it also helps visitors navigate your site and move through related pages, boosting traffic for all of the pages in your topic cluster.
Want to get started on pillar pages for your company? Shoot us an e-mail.
3. Paid Advertising
Yes, good old paid advertising. Buy, hey- if done correctly, it can really work. And be cost-effective.
In short, you can drive traffic to your website quickly with paid advertising. With search engines, you can run pay-per-click or retargeting ads. With social media you can run display ads or sponsored posts. Your digital marketing strategy should most likely include a combination of different types of advertising. In fact, according to the 2020 CMO Survey, firms expect social spending to rise by 62% over five years.
(Thankfully, getting started with paid advertising can be a simple process — learn more about it here.)
4. Organic Social Media
Organic social media is not a new strategy, but it's still something all businesses should pay attention to. Besides posting on social media platforms, you can also use Instagram Stories, live video, IGTV, or Facebook Messenger. The key with organic social media is to be an early adopter of new features.
For instance, Facebook has released an automated lead generation feature on Messenger, allowing businesses to create an automated chatbot experience within Messenger to link to content offers on your site. This is a great feature for sending traffic to your website.
It's also important to have a diverse social media strategy and use the right social media platforms — not just Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Platforms like YouTube or Pinterest generate a lot of traffic. For instance, consider that Pinterest has great engagement rates — 66% of Pinterest users make a purchase after seeing a brand's Pins.
Gavin Miller, Creative Director at KJB Digital recommends two things regarding organic social media. "First, don't spam your audience — it costs a user nothing to scroll past your post, and if you don't offer them any value, that's exactly what they'll do."
"Know your audience, and craft content that speaks directly to them," Miller advises.
"Second, stay active with community management. People love when brands like and reply to them — it'll humanize your business, and keep people coming back for more content."
Check out our page on content creation to learn more.
5. Website Analysis
Let's do a little reverse engineering of our thought process. Before you drive traffic to your website, it's important to learn about your audience. To do this, there are platforms that will analyze your website, such as Crazy Egg, to see where you're losing visitors. With this information at your disposal, you can create the right content to drive the right traffic to your website.
6. Contests and Giveaways
A simple way to drive traffic to your website is through contests and giveaways. This can give you a quick boost, while also rewarding your followers. You can host giveaways on social media, through your email list, or both.
Implementing a strategy like this can be simple. Just follow these six steps:
Decide what platform on which to host your giveaway (can be multiple)
Choose a prize (gift card, branded swag, discount, etc … )
Select the criteria (website comments, email sign up, etc … )
Write ad copy
Create graphics
Post and promote
7. Influencers
Influencer marketing isn't a passing fad. In fact, it's a budget-friendly option to drive traffic to your website. According to Think with Google, collaborations with YouTube influencers are four times more effective at driving brand familiarity than those with celebrities. When influencers post discount codes, links, reviews, or giveaways, you're tapping into their audience to drive traffic to your website.
Speaking of this, you should check out Brian Halligan's INBOUND 2018 keynote speech. The bottom line is that customers are more likely to buy from organizations with excellent word of mouth. How do you create great word of mouth? First, delight your customers. Second, work with influencers.
8. Email List Building
Using your current readers and customers is a great way to drive traffic to your website. When you post a new blog or content offer, you can promote it to your followers/subscribers for a quick traffic boost. With content-heavy websites, having repeat readership is helpful for traffic goals, conversions, and lead generation.
To get started with this, build an email list or grow your current list. Below are a few strategies you can use:
Content offers: Generate gated content for visitors that requires them to provide an email address to receive. (E.g., enter your e-mail to download an ebook on a particular subject your businesses specializes in.) Include CTAs (calls to action) for your content offers on your website.
Easy-access newsletter sign-up: Include sign-up forms on your website, from your homepage to your about page. If a visitor had a delightful experience on your site, they might want to sign up for a newsletter. Make this an easy process.
Social media: Promoting your email newsletter on social media, whether through a post or contest/giveaway, is a great way to convert your current followers into subscribers.
There are numerous additional methods that you can use to kick-start your website traffic, and one of us will endeavor to include these in a follow-up post. In the meantime, however, if you're interested in adding some jet fuel to getting your site noticed and busy, please reach out to the KJB Digital team and we can chat about your objectives.