Seven Ways to Drive Quality Traffic to Your Website

Trending

An abundance of self-proclaimed “experts” out there promise they know the secret of driving traffic to your website. However, increasing your website traffic is not rocket science and doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult. While you do have to invest time and resources to achieve quality results, the mystery of Internet marketing is yours to solve. Here are seven easy and effective ways to drive more quality traffic to your website.

Suggested: Download our guide for attracting more traffic to your website

Does your company website need more traffic?


Before we get into ways to drive more traffic to your website, I need to explain why you'd need more traffic to start with.

I'd argue that there are four possible issues with your digital demand generation pipeline:

  • Traffic problem - Your company website doesn't get enough visitors to bring in the number of leads you need to hit sales goals.
  • Lead problem - Your website gets enough visitors but your website isn't effective at converting them to personally-identifiable leads/contacts.
  • Lead quality problem - Your website gets enough traffic and leads, but not enough of those leads are "sales qualified."
  • Sales problem - Your sales reps are successfully selling/closing an unusually low percentage of your web leads.

    • It's important that you understand these possible issues before you address them. You might find our online lead calculator helpful in diagnosing what type of issue your business might have. You can find the online calculator here (it's free for you to use).

    1. Create more content for your website

    Content doesn't just mean the words on the pages of your site. Content can take the form of blog posts, articles answering common questions, free how-to guides, whitepapers with industry insights and facts, ebooks to educate your audience, and more.

    These empower visitors to do their own research -- often with information and perspectives they couldn't otherwise get -- to make them feel comfortable turning to your company when they are ready to become a customer.

    Further Reading: Case Study - Read how a healthcare provider improved SEO and appointment requests by writing a patient-focused blog

    But remember, writing one blog post won’t send thousands of people to your website overnight. Research shows that it takes about 20 quality blog posts published on a regular basis to start seeing a significant increase in lead activity.

    2. Write better content for your website


    When it comes to content, quality over quantity is key. Quality matters, period.

    Too many companies have fallen victim to SEO schemes that preach, “more is better” when it comes to content. While continually producing content is essential, quality is most important. If you create informative content on your area of expertise, search engines and customers will reward you . Stumped for content ideas?

  • Keep a notepad by your phone and write down questions customers have. Answer them on your website or blog.
  • Look in your email inbox for the most common questions from customers, or your Sent folder for your answers to their questions.
  • Think about the topics your customer service team fields the most and make sure your website content answers these questions.
  • Re-evaluate your existing website copy. Does it speak to the potential customer's needs ? Is it benefit driven? Does your website say things that your customers care about?

    • You don’t have to be an authority on content strategy , search engine optimization or writing for the web to create informative and interesting content that shows your knowledge and industry expertise.

    3. Add video to your content strategy


    Video is finally accessible to any company that wants to use it. You have a video camera on your smartphone, tablet or computer, don't you?

    Just like written content (see above), you can inform and educate your audience via video .

    People love personal interaction. Video is a great medium to demonstrate knowledge and experience, share information and build some trust with potential customers.

    YouTube is the second largest search engine that people use to find information online. Distributing your videos on a company YouTube channel and optimizing those videos for SEO can help gain awareness and website visits for your company.

    You can easily add video to your website and YouTube channel to generate traffic and gain leads. Here are a few ideas for creating video content:

  • Take a video tour of your office and facility
  • Show how your products are made and create demos
  • Conduct interviews with expert staff members
  • Explain one of your products or services
  • Get video testimonials from your customers

    • YouTube shouldn't be your only video distribution outlet, though. Many companies are planning to add Facebook video to the mix, including Facebook Live and video ads.

    4. Double down on social media


    Of course it’s important to create content, but it doesn’t do a lot of good if nobody sees it. Having the right distribution channels is essential.

    Social media is a good content distribution channel for your company. As you create new content on your site, share it across all of your social media channels . As you share your blogs, new offers, videos and more, you’ll connect with prospects who can turn into leads.

    Think social media can't generate leads for your business? A 2017 report shows that nearly as many people report using Facebook for business purposes as using LinkedIn:

    Social media doesn't have to take a lot of time or effort when done properly. Create a social media editorial calendar to keep the conversation going and ensure content is produced consistently. Share content from your website too. Don't be afraid to re-phrase a social message and post it again at a later date.

    5. Evaluate every web page for good SEO


    Every page of your site is a potential entry point for a potential customer if it’s optimized correctly. Treat each page as an opportunity to speak directly to a specific person using a targeted keyword phrase. To find relevant keywords, start with Google’s Keyword Planner . Once you decide your keyword phrases, incorporate them properly within the meta tags and on-page content. A simple one-two-three plan is to make sure the keyword phrase is included in the following attributes of your web pages:

  • Page <title> tag
  • H1 tag
  • Meta description (to increase click rate, not to improve ranking)

    • If you aren't sure how to do this technical stuff, then simply include a keyword in your blog or page title and once or twice inside the copy of the blog/page.

    6. Write for industry blogs


    Sharing your expertise on other blogs not only shows that you’re an industry thought leader, but can also drive traffic to your website.

    Creating content on other industry websites, like association websites/newsletters, can increase your reach and start conversations. One of our clients writes a guest blog for an industry publication once per month and gets new business inquiries and website traffic from it.

    Sometimes, you can include a direct link back to your website for valuable “link juice” that search engines love.

    7. Advertise


    There are a lot of places to advertise online today, and we think two of the best are Google Adwords and Facebook.

    Google Adwords is the obvious choice, but you can expect to spend more and more on Google Adwords over time, as click costs have risen as popularity with advertisers has risen. Wordstream has a good article on their blog about how Google Adwords works and the bidding system that drives click costs.

    Many small, scrappy brands are using Facebook successfully to generate leads using their ad platform. In a recent forum I belong to, an A/E/C firm cited their Facebook page as a strength for both recruiting and generating business. Don't dismiss Facebook because you think people only want to use it for personal interactions (see chart above in #4).

    In general, I've found Facebook ads to be less costly than either Google Adwords or LinkedIn, but have similar results.

    Pro Tip: Use advertising to distribute and amplify your content, like e-books, webinars and informational packets to improve the "helpfulness" of your ads.

    The downside of paid advertising is that it can be very expensive and time consuming if you don’t know how to manage it. But, most ad platforms have valuable statistical analysis and budget setting tools so you can monitor and adjust along the way.