You could have the best website available for your business, with the fastest download speeds and impressive, engaging graphics, but it doesn’t mean anything if no one sees or visits. Most companies generate business leads by marketing tactics that drive awareness and in most situations, that involves driving your target audiences to your website. However, your business’s marketing dollars need to reach the appropriate target audience who will most benefit from your products or services. There is no silver bullet method for reaching your target audience; you need to activate different strategies to reach your potential customers.
Here, we’ll break down Five Essential Strategies to Drive Website Traffic:
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
An important factor to your website’s success is to ensure is Search Engine Optimized and all pieces of content that are added incorporate?SEO best practices.? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the concept of making search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo and others find your website easier and faster based on specific keywords. Adding particular keywords to your website in your messages, text, and other content will increase the chances that the search engines will find your website and place it at the top of their search results list.
However, how search engines operate is changing every day. For example, Google has made some incredible advancements in the search engine space by allowing their algorithms to search on more ordinary speech than with keyword searching. Not only does this new algorithm search out keywords, but they explore the text around the keyword, which generates better results for their search users.
Based on the increasing complexity of search engine algorithms, some companies have found it beneficial to start a blog on their website. With a blog, you can increase your SEO content with every blog post; when there is meaningful content surrounding the keyword, you are more likely to generate leads back to your website.
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Off-site SEO or backlinking
Suppose you have started to generate SEO content on your website and you are beginning to see the increase in your traffic. Another way you can use SEO to your business advantage is to generate SEO from a site that is not yours. Admittedly, this method is harder to obtain. Off-site SEO or backlinking is where another trusted website links your website; when you have more backlinks generated online, search engines consider these links as votes that users can trust your website. Making your website a viable information source, thus increasing your rank in search engine results.
Methods to acquire backlinks to your website include:
- Publishing an informational report that other websites who have a similar audience to that you are targeting can use as a source for their content.
- Working with a social media influencer who has a following that mirrors your target audience, and have them promote your product or service.
- Getting positive publicity and having the media outlet link to your website.
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Sponsored Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) advertising
If you have ever searched for something online, you know that the first results are sponsored links.? PPC/SEM is typically where a business enters into an advertising agreement with a search engine to place its website at the top of its search results. Google Ads are the most popular and their reach goes beyond Google searches, but you can also have ads appear on YouTube (a Google company) and through their publisher’s network which consists of millions of websites.
Typically, the search engine charges a business per click, also known as cost per click (CPC) or operates within a specific budget. When you opt to set a particular budget amount (for example spend per day or month), other factors such as user action (such as a link click), time of day, and ad management fall under this budgeted amount.
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Social Media Ads
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn use targeted algorithms to match their ads with their users’ interests. The social media platforms work within your allotted budget in a PPC method or an impressions method. Media platforms define impressions as anytime a user is seeing an ad for the first time.
When you choose to run social media ads, you also need to decide if you will use a standard delivery of your ad, which would include even pacing throughout any time of day or an accelerated delivery that will deliver your ads to users during high traffic times. Typically, for the best lead generation, it is recommended that you choose the standard delivery method.
- Develop an Email Marketing List
This method for driving traffic to your website is not instantaneous. Developing an email marketing list takes time, and it typically comes as more of your customers trust your brand and products. Visitors can opt-in for your newsletter or promotional material by adding and subscribe form or offer your website landing page.
Ways to increase your website’s ability to gather emails for your marketing list is to provide valuable content to users such as a worksheet, an informational guide, or discount codes. Another method for developing your email list is offering a giveaway where the entry process is to provide an email address.
Warning!
Do not use an auto website traffic generator to drive website traffic in an attempt to increase your search engine ranking. Search engines are looking for these types of generators and how users are interacting with your website. Using an auto website traffic generator will decrease your rating and get your website banned from search engines.
Also – of course, before taking on any of these strategies, make sure you have defined your target audiences so that you can use those profiles when selecting the demographics for any paid campaigns.
