We all could use more traffic, amirite?! I was recently asked by some of my Instagram followers on advice regarding gaining more business, and it all starts with increasing traffic to your website. I’m going to run through this extensive list of ideas to increase traffic for your website. The list is so large, I had to divide it into two parts. In this article, I’m going to cover the first 13 ideas.
Be mindful that these things work when you put effort into them, you can’t expect to run a single ad or optimize the SEO of a single blog post once and call it a day. Like with most things, to increase traffic, you must keep a consistent effort! However, the point of this list is to give you an idea and pick something that works best for your own business.
SEO
Since we’re talking about all things traffic, why don’t we kick this off with SEO!
1. Invest in SEO
SEO is key for organic searches. We all know that. But, I get it, it can be a tedious investment. If you can, hire someone to take care of it for you. If you’re doing it yourself invest time in getting your on-page SEO. If you’re using WordPress, there are plenty of plugins to help you get everything right, including the most popular Yoast SEO plugin which I use too.
To get the most out of your on-page SEO, you want to pay attention to thinks like URL names, image alt tags, and keyword density within a page or blog post. Those three things alone can have a significant boost to your organic search results.
2. Long-tail keywords
Did you know that long-tail keywords account for the majority of web searches? That means implementing them within your pages or posts can also give you a significant boost in organic traffic. Elisa Gabbert put together a thorough piece on how to find and target long-tail keywords. It actually isn’t too difficult if you’ve never done this before. I highly suggest it to anyone with a specific niche as it will allow your target audience to find you that much easier.
3. Always link internally
For starters, this is a great idea because it allows a visitor to always keep browsing through your website. Always make sure that there are no dead-ends on your pages whether we’re talking about a landing page or a blog post. You never know where someone might end up. If you don’t it doesn’t give them a way to explore your website further.
However, when it comes to SEO, internal links do help there too; which is why it’s an extra awesome idea. Although internal links don’t hold as much weight as external links (from other websites), they can still help in your SEO rankings. There is no reason not to do this since it can only help!
4. Implement schema microdata
Lastly, if you’re looking to take your SEO game to the next level look into schema microdata or scheme markup. For those of you unfamiliar, it’s a piece of code you put on your website that allows your SEO results to be more informative and information rich. It explicitly identifies what your content is for search engines making your content more relevant and, therefore, more SEO friendly.
I’m going to let Schema.org explain it to you because it’s a perfect example:
Most webmasters are familiar with HTML tags on their pages. Usually, HTML tags tell the browser how to display the information included in the tag. For example, H1: ‘Avatar’ tells the browser to display the text string “Avatar” in a heading 1 format. However, the HTML tag doesn’t give any information about what that text string means — “Avatar” could refer to the hugely successful 3D movie, or it could refer to a type of profile picture—and this can make it more difficult for search engines to intelligently display relevant content to a user.
Schema.org
Social media
Another great way to get your content and promotions seen is to start posting it on social media. Any social media will do, as long as you’re proactive and consistently use the account. However, I’m going to give you five ideas below for different social media to increase traffic to your website.
92% of small business owners who use social media consider it important for their business. Why? For starters, social media can help you build brand recognition, foster a community around your business, and grow your bottom line.
Elise Dopson, 8 Steps to Drive Traffic to Your Website Through Social Media
5. Facebook groups
Join relevant niche or business groups. Most of these have posts outright telling you to comment with your content which can definitely help drive more eyeballs. However, the more significant traffic will come from other people posting questions that your content can help them with. Write a quick reply answering their question and tell them that you’ve written about this before and if they want all the details to go ahead and read it on your blog. Most groups frown upon blatant link sharing, but if your reply answers the question at hand first, it shouldn’t be a big deal because you are, after all, trying to be helpful. It’s a tedious way, definitely more time consuming but it does help to increase traffic.
6. Your own Facebook group
Another idea is to great your own Facebook group where you can post links directly to your content all day long. Running your own Facebook group can be time-consuming too, but it’s another great idea to increase traffic to your website. They’re the perfect place to build an engaged audience that is filled with precisely your type of target audience. Use it to create a small community, to build your email list and traffic flow and improve your overall authority status.
If you want to get as many readers as possible for your blog posts, there’s no better way to achieve that than by sharing it with a community that already eagerly anticipates your latest content.
Sarah Peterson, How to Use Facebook Groups to Get More Traffic and Traction for Your Blog
7. Instagram pods
If you use Instagram for your business, have you considered joining an Instagram pod? I bring up Instagram pods because if you regularly share your content on the platform, with increased activity through Instagram pods, you will start to see increased activities on your account from new followers which can lead to increased traffic website as well (if you post links).
8. Pinterest group boards
A Pinterest group board allows the owner to add collaborators who can then add their own pins to the board. This Pinterest strategy has worked wonders for discoverability for many businesses and their content. Pinterest group boards can be an incredible strategy in helping you increase traffic to your website! An active Pinterest group board can dramatically increase your Pinterest following, repins and increase your engagement. All that ads up to a dramatic increase in your website traffic as well. Here is a link to Jeff Bullas’ amazing post that details all the things you must know about Pinterest group boards for businesses.
9. LinkedIn
Personally, I feel like LinkedIn is a forgotten gem. It does get used a lot by people looking to hire help, especially from a corporate standpoint. Just like with Facebook, you can join or create your own groups. Additionally, you can use LinkedIn’s blog app to actually published posts that get actually get indexed by search engines, unlike Facebook posts. Not only is that going to be a great SEO boost but it will also help you and your content get found by LinkedIn users as well.
Your content
Let’s have a look at your actual content whether it’s a blog or self-hosted podcast (whatever your website has to offer). There are plenty of enhancements you can do there to improve the quality of your content and therefore improve how it’s received by the masses.
10. Experiment with your content
If you’ve been keeping your content similar for a long time now, it’s time to switch things up. You never know what kind of content will resonate the most with people, so it’s best to experiment. You can experiment with your content length; if you usually write shorter blog posts write a few longer pieces instead and vice-versa. See how they measure up. Experiment with how you create your content too. Try adding an audio file to your blog posts or incorporating video content. Another idea is to try infographics. They do really well as content pieces mainly because they are easy to consume and easy to share.
11. Add content upgrades
A content upgrade offers extra value on the initial article or content. It’s a downloadable, email-gated piece that strikes while the proverbial iron is hot.
Peter Boyle, The Big Fat Guide to Content Upgrades
I love Peter Boyle’s definition of a content upgrade. So there you have it. You don’t have to make a content upgrade for every piece of content you produce if you don’t have the bandwidth for it right now. But, if you can then do it because content upgrades are powerful!!! They increase retention and interest in your visitors. They are also easily shareable. And the more of them you produce, the more your current email subscribers or followers are going to keep coming back to your website looking for more useful stuff.
Content upgrades don’t have to be complicated or extreme to make. All you have to do is spend an hour or two extra while creating your content to put together a downloadable file. It can be as simple as a checklist (Brand visibility checklist) or a workbook (Building your brand demand workbook). If you have the time go ahead and make an eBook (8 steps checklist to level up your website). There are plenty of ideas you can try.
Yet, this extra hour can significantly impact and increase traffic to your website and then some. Going the extra mile to create some useful content upgrade pieces can grow your email list, social media shares, brand retention, brand loyalty and a whole lot more too. Content upgrades are little gold mines for online businesses in more way than just to help you increase traffic to your website.
12. Update your content
If you have content that’s already online, especially if it’s at least a couple of years old you can repurpose it by republishing that content with an update.
It’s a killer idea because it kills many birds with a single update. ?
For starters, the content is already made, so all you have to do is go through it and update it for today. In just about all fields, things are continually changing. Maybe you had a great post that review a service, update it with its current features. Perhaps you learned something new that you’d like to add to your videos or blog posts that are missing from the original piece. People love relevant and up-to-date posts and adding”[Updates November 2018]” at the end of the title can drive a lot more interest towards it.
Additionally SEO rewards updated content. Breathe some new SEO life into your content by updating your blog posts, landing pages and even videos with something new. And it doesn’t have to be a complete rewrite either just make a note at the beginning that it’s been since updated, when it was updated and wherein the post is the update.
13. Improve your headlines
Without a compelling headline, even the most comprehensive blog post will go unread.
Dan Shewan
Honestly, that one little sentence says it all. Whether we’re talking about headlines for your blog posts, your social media captions, your ads or landing pages, headline matter! Don’t just pick something that comes to mind first that’s “good enough.” It’s tempting, I know, I’m a writer too! However, a good practice is to come up with as many as ten, if not more, headlines for a single page or article. Over time, you’ll get better at it and it will get easier. My advice is to be mindful of your headlines, at the very least.
People really look to headlines to judge the quality and usefulness of links they come across. When done well, an exciting headline can definitely bring in significantly more clickthrough to you whether a potential visitor sees a link to your content on social media or browsing through your own website.
You want your headlines to be specific and intriguing.
The takeaway
I think the biggest take away for this post is that there are so many different things anyone could do to increase traffic flow. As always, do what fits you and your business. Next Sunday (October 28th, 2018) we’ll continue this post with part two that will include ideas such as guest blogging, partnerships, interviews, webinars, ads among other things! Stay tuned!
