September 9, 2016
ARE YOU ONE OF THE 46% OF SMALL BUSINESSES THAT DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE?
I was shocked to read that only 54% of small businesses (as of February 2016) have a website. This to me, seems like such a small number as I see having a website a crucial part to a small businesses online, and offline success. I was happy, however to see that 24% of small businesses are going to have a website in the near future, bringing that total to an estimated 78% by 2020.
Having a website is great, but are you really driving the traffic you NEED to make your small business a success? After 25+ years in sales and marketing, and 8+ years in Internet Marketing, I have come to understand what it means to have a successful website.
HERE ARE 17 WAYS TO INCREASE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE.
1. GUEST BLOGGING
I guest blog on Business 2 Community and Social Media Today. This, in turn, drives a lot of traffic back to my website. Research your industry, find leading news outlets that are looking for guest bloggers and get in contact.
2. SITE SPEED
Whilst traffic may not be dependant on site speed, the length of time someone spends on your website does. If your website takes too long to load, people will leave your site immediately and you could miss out on potential sales.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA
As we all know, social media is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, sales and website traffic. Stay brand consistent across the social networks you are using to promote your business and always offer a call-to-action to bring that social media user across to your website.
4. ON-PAGE SEO
On-page SEO has always been a huge part of my SEO checklist and strategy as I understand how key this is. If you have great on-page SEO, you can get a first page Google Ranking, if done properly.
5. REFERRAL TRAFFIC
As I am a thought leader in the social media/digital marketing industry, I do receive a lot of referral traffic because of the recommendations I have, and the content I produce. I had a huge spike in referral traffic when Google recommended a piece of content of mine on their official Google+ page.
6. BE A GUEST ON A PODCAST
Podcasts are great for increasing brand awareness so do you research, and find popular podcasts in your industry and contact them to be a guest on one of their segments.
7. VIDEO MARKETING
Although written content and visuals still drive a large amount of traffic, video marketing has become a more popular way for people to digest content so make sure you consider using videos to increase traffic to your website.
8. REGULAR FRESH CONTENT
Having a blog on your website is one of the best ways to increase traffic to your website. Google loves seeing a website that has new content published on a website every week.
9. LINKEDIN PULSE
LinkedIn Pulse has been one of my biggest traffic drivers this year because of the power it has. An article of mine that was written two months ago went viral inside of LinkedIn Pulse and this drove copious amounts of traffic back to my website.
10. LINK BUILDING
Off-page SEO is referred to as the most “popular” part of SEO work. This is otherwise known as link building. Link building will automatically increase traffic to your website.
11. ADVERTISE
Advertising your website can be done in many forms. You can look at PPC (pay per click), Google Adwords or advertising on social media. Depending on what your goal is, chose the advertising option that will give you the best ROI.
12. RESPONSIVE/MOBILE FRIENDLY WEBSITE
In 2015, 33.4% of all website traffic was generated through mobile and that number has, and will continue to increase. Make sure your website is “responsive” so that people are able to have the same experience on your website via mobile, as they would on desktop.
13. ENTICING BLOG/ARTICLE HEADLINES
When I write content, I always make sure my headline matches the content i’ve written, and has been designed in a way that will make my audience want to read it, and in turn increase traffic to my website.
14. WEBINARS
I run at least one webinar a month which allows me to generate a large amount of leads, up-sell my products/services and increase traffic to my website.
15. EMAIL MARKETING
I have an email marketing list of over 10,000 small businesses. Email marketing has always been a great traffic driver for me, and can be for you if you do your research, and find out the best ways your email audience want you to communicate with them.
16. SIDE PRODUCT MARKETING
The best way to engage with your audience online to increase awareness is to offering something of value, completely free of charge (or for a small cost). I have various guides, eBooks, downloads and autoresponders that bring traffic to my website whilst also generating leads.
17. KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR ANALYTICS
You may find that your website is not generating as much traffic as you would like, so you need to be constantly checking the analytics to see if there are any problems.
I hope my 17 ways to increase traffic to your website will help you do exactly that. What is the most effective way for you to generate traffic?
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