One question that keeps popping up is, “How can I get more traffic to my site?” Website traffic is a much sought after “commodity” that few can achieve effectively due to immense market saturation and competition; but not all hope is lost for those late to (or simply don’t know how to) play the game.
To address this, we decided to create a 2 part series of the most fruitful tactics you can use to bring traffic to your site and/or blog. However, a quick note before we begin; do not view this as an in depth analysis of each tactic. These 2 parts should be seen more as a checklist you can quickly run through to see what you currently are doing correctly, and what you might want to leverage for boosting your website's visibility.
Let’s begin!
1. On Page SEO
Website optimization (SEO) still plays a very significant role in your site’s visibility and SERP performance. The main areas of focus should be"
- Titles
- Headers
- Website copy
- Metadescriptions
- Image alt text
By strategically placing relevant and “winnable” keywords of choice in the above areas, you are optimizing your website to be crawlable and indexable by search engines. And of course, the same applies to blogs.
*Winnable keywords are phrases that are relevant to your topic, have a high monthly search volume (typically more than 100) and a low-average difficulty to compete for.
2. Target Long Tail Keywords
SEO is changing, the days of simply finding relevant keywords are long gone. Today, search ranking is superficially tailored to user intent. This means that you need to let search engines know that you are an authoritative website that can offer information (and a solution) to specific pains and interests users might have.
This is where long tail keywords come in, as opposed to normal keywords and phrases, these show a specific intention:
- Short tail (typically 1- 2words): "Eggs"
- Long tail (typically 3-5 words): "How to make scrambled eggs?"
Source: Visual.ly
3. Internal Linking
When you create a new piece of content, be sure to provide links to previous articles in your blog as it does not only boost your content’s SEO, it also provides visitors with a more user-friendly experience. Furthermore, the more your audience is directed from one post to the next, the more time they are essentially spending on your site, discovering your content and getting educated. This might even result in conversions and more of your content being shared.
A word of advice: This might sound like common sense but many still do it; when internal linking, make sure that the links are relevant and provide further value to the reader. Internal linking just for the sake of doing it can lead to negative results.
4. Increase Referrals
Referral traffic is excellent for increasing your website’s SEO. In addition to providing backlinks from other credible sources increasing your domain’s authority in the “eyes” of search engines, they also might attract more traffic, allowing you to leverage the audience of the site that linked back to you in the first place.
Keep in mind, however, that referrals are earned, they are not acquired. In order to get referral traffic and backlinks to your site and blog, your content must deserve that link. It must be quality driven and aim to solve a specific pain, need, or interest of an audience.
5. Begin Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is another very effective way to increase your visibility. Providing a guest post to another reputable site can increase your authority, expose you to a larger audience, and increase traffic back to your site and/or blog. Just creating a post and sending it to someone to feature on their blog does not work. You will need to build a relationship with them, make sure your audience and content are compatible, and of course always follow guest posting code of conduct when on someone else’s blog.
For more information on guest blogging, check out Niel Patel’s video below for some helpful tips:
6. Invite Guest Bloggers to Your Site
Just like posting your content on others’ blogs is beneficial, the reverse is also true. Guests on your site are likely to share the link with their followers, potentially bringing in a new audience to you. Again, make sure the content you host is quality driven, relevant, and helpful to your readers.
7. Interview Industry Experts and Thought Leaders
Getting an interview with a thought leader in your niche can truly do wonders to your site’s visibility. Not only will it increase your domain’s authority in the eyes of search engines, but similarly to guest bloggers, these individuals are also likely to share the link of the interview with their followers (further increasing your visibility and traffic.)
8. Leverage the Power of Paid Promotion
Organic tactics, while they should be part of any distribution strategy, their performance often falls short in today’s over-saturated market. Social posts alone are only visible for a few seconds until they get drowned in a sea of content that bombards our timelines. So how can we increase the chances of our content being viewed and interacted with? Paid advertising.
With a paid promotion, you can ensure that your content is being shown to the right people, at the right place, at the right time. Due to their highly targeted nature, paid ads not only contribute to higher visibility, they can even increase the amount of monthly leads your business generates.
The topic of paid promotion is massive in itself and goes way beyond the scope of this article. If you are new to the subject and want some additional insight, here is a good article to get you started:
And that’s it for part 1! Stay tuned as part 2 will be coming shortly.
Did you have any questions? Is there anything on this list you would like us to cover in more depth? Let us know!
As always be sure to check out the articles below for more digital marketing insight:
- 5 Marketing Magnets That Drive Lead Generation
- 4 Tactics for a Better LinkedIn Content Strategy
- Twitter Optimization: Creating A Winning Twitter Page
- 10 Types Of Blogs To Make Content Marketing More Effective
