You Need More Website Traffic:
In the movie Field of Dreams, an ethereal voice tells Kevin Costner that if he builds a baseball field, people will come to it.
“If you build it… they will come.”
Unfortunately, the same is not true of your website. Just because you built it doesn’t mean people will come. Having a website does not guarantee that people will visit it at all. It takes effort.
It’s crucial to create for yourself a strategy to bring in web traffic, with tested methods for generating a steady stream of website visitors. You need build up an arsenal of tactics and hacks for getting people to visit your site and engage with your content.
As people come to your site and value the content, you are building trust and becoming an authority in your niche. The more people become aware of your content, the more you become known as an industry expert and thought leader. And the more you’re known as an industry expert, the more people will come to you for help.
Of course, all this raises the question: how do you get more website traffic?
It’s important to avoid jumping strategies without giving much time to each one. Each of these strategies requires significant time and effort to execute properly. Work is required if you want to see results. No solutions are immediate fixes, but some are more ‘best practices’ opposed to ‘if this — then that’ solutions.
Have a long-haul mentality when thinking about getting traffic to your website. As you stack one strategy on top of another, you’ll begin to see compounding results.
Onto the strategies Batman!
Traffic Strategy #1: Create Amazing, Share-Worthy Content
If you want people to come to your website, you need to give them a reason to come. You need to create awesome content that attracts people and that they feel compelled to share with others. If you simply post short, uninspired articles, you’re not giving people much reason to come to your site or share your content.
For your best results, consider how you’re going to stand out from the crowd. How can you create content in a way that differentiates you from everyone else?
The best way to stand out from the crowd is to create highly valuable, in-depth content. Content that answers people’s questions and speaks to their pain points. Content that addresses a subject on a much deeper level than anything else out there.
When creating content, ask yourself these questions:
- Would I want to read this content?
- Does this add value to my readers?
- Is this share-worthy?
- Is this different from all the other content that’s being produced?
- Does this content answer the reader’s questions?
- Does it speak to the reader’s pain points?
If you create great content, the rest of your promotional tactics become that much easier. Your content will practically promote itself when people see how valuable it is. People want to share content that is high-quality and authoritative and if you spend the time to create useful content, others will promote it for you.
Traffic Strategy #2: Share Your Content On Social Media
Share your content multiple times across all your social media profiles. Why should you share your content multiple times? Because not every one of your followers will see every one of your posts. Sharing multiple times maximizes the chances of your followers seeing your social media posts. PS – Are your social media profiles ready to go? Click that link for a proper checklist to get started.
When you share your content on social media, think about what format works best for each platform. For example, Pinterest is very image heavy. When you share a blog post to Pinterest, consider creating a specific accompanying image that fits the Pinterest platform.
Also, consider sharing different types of formats on social media. For example, Facebook likes to keep people on their site as long as possible and video content helps them do that (since people will typically give more of their attention to videos).
** PowerNote ** Most social platforms tend to push video content higher up in their social media feeds, giving it more exposure. This means you should consider using video to promote the content you create on your website. Even a post like this, if I create a ‘6 Traffic Strategies’ video and give a 30-45 second overview of the content, it will help drive traffic and expand my reach.
When using social media, don’t be afraid to experiment with different content formats to see what works best on different platforms. Try sharing links, images, videos, polls, and more to see what drives the most people to your website. Until you test what your audience wants to consume, how will you know? There is no dead-set answer. That’s why articles like this exist to help show you the myriad of ways to get to your target market through different mediums.
You can breathe new life into old pieces of content by re-sharing them on social media a while after they’re first published. Sharing content more than once will generate more clicks, visits, and shares. Make sure if you are using social media planning tools to run ReQueue campaigns so you can have a series of posts for each piece of content you create.
Need some social media post ideas? I’ve got you covered there as well.
Want to know what NOT to do on LinkedIn? You can read that article as well.
Traffic Strategy #3: Building Your Email List
Having an email list is like having your own traffic source. Each time you publish something new on your website, send a link out to your email list for an early boost to your posts. Great technique for getting those first comments as well since they’re already identified as fans of your work and believe in your value.
The most effective way to build your email list is by giving away something in exchange for people’s email address. The giveaway, called a “lead magnet,” is a piece of valuable content that readers can download once they hand over their email address.
Another effective way to build your email list is by implementing opt-in forms in various places across your website. For example, whenever someone first visits your site, you could have a box pop up inviting them to sign up for your email list. In my case, a simple sidebar opt-in and another on the homepage.
When inviting people to sign up for your email list, give them a compelling reason to sign up. In other words, don’t simply say, “Sign up for my list!” Instead, tell people what they’ll get in exchange for signing up for your list.
For example, you may give away:
- Your latest book
- E-Books
- Case studies / Whitepapers
- Videos Education
- Free email courses
- Templates
- Webinars
- Premium content
Traffic Strategy #4: Reference Others
If you can get an influencer in your industry — someone with a large audience — to share your content with their audience, it can be a huge boost for your website. But this is easier said than done, right? How do you convince someone else that your content is worth sharing?
One of the most effective strategies for getting others to share your content is to quote or reference them.
- For example, let’s say you’re writing a lengthy guide to email marketing. You could email several email marketing specialists and ask them for a quote for the article.
- Once you’ve written the guide, tell all the people you’ve quoted in the article (and link their websites). There’s a chance that they’ll share your piece with their audience.
A simpler way to get quotes from influencers is to take something they’ve already written and quote them. Afterwards, reach out to them via email or social media and let them know that you’ve quoted them. Again, it is another chance they’ll share it with their audience.
A secondary benefit of quoting influencers and authority figures in your pieces is that it adds authority to your content. Rather than just being your own opinion, your content also includes the thoughts and insights of industry experts, thus giving more weight to your content.
Traffic Strategy #5: Advertise
Advertising on Facebook, Google, or other social media platforms (like LinkedIn) is one of the most effective ways to get traffic directly to your website. Yes, it does cost money (unlike the other strategies listed so far). But if you’re willing to spend the money, you can get an avalanche of traffic to your site.
Facebook and Google/YouTube advertising is huge. Billions of people use both brands websites and services each month. It’s an enormous audience, and if you’re willing to put some money into advertising, they will share their audience with you.
There is one distinct advantage to paid advertising above other forms of promotion: paid advertising allows you to put your content in front of a targeted audience.
- For example, let’s say that you’ve created a guide to preparing for retirement. The ideal audience for this guide is people over the age of 45 who make more than $70,000 per year and who are married. With Facebook, you can target this precise audience.
Instead of sharing your content across your social media feeds and hoping that the right people see it, you can ENSURE that the right audience views your content. You can get your content in front of the people most likely to be interested in it.
Traffic Strategy #6: Create Various Forms Of Content
People learn in a variety of ways. Some people are visual learners and learn best from videos. Others learn best by reading, and still others prefer audio content. If you want to connect with the greatest number of people possible, create content in a variety of formats.
One of the best ways to create a variety of formats of content is to use the “pillar strategy.” The pillar strategy involves first creating a lengthy, in-depth piece of “pillar” content. This pillar content could be a video, blog post, podcast, or something else.
Your pillar content will be the longest type of content you create and will talk about a subject from a variety of angles and viewpoints. From there, you take the pillar content and slice it up into smaller pieces of relevant content that all stand on their own.
For example, let’s say you created a lengthy pillar blog post, like this very article.
You could then:
- Take one point from that blog post and turn it into a short video
- Take another point from the post and turn it into a short podcast
- Take a third point from the post and turn it into a series of social media graphics and posts
Each piece of content should point back to your website in some way. So, for example, at the end of your video, you could direct people to your website for more valuable content. The social graphics can have links that go back to your article, etc.
It’s all about driving that targeted traffic back to your value-rich article.
At the end of the day, we ALL need more website traffic. That is the lifeblood to people finding our content, our value, and potentially be interested enough to wanting to make contact.
The list above is an exhaustive one and not for the faint of heart. To do it alone would be like going on a Mission to Mars with a cardboard rocket ship in your backyard. Difficult to say the least.
Lean on your strengths. Have an amazing email responder series you know works? Focus on growing your email list. Just remember the first point and always focus on CREATING AMAZING CONTENT.
