How do I get more website traffic? Everyone is asking that question. Some brands are already at the top of SERPs. But they’re also looking at how to get more consumers through the funnel. Your website is your digital business card. That calling card isn’t going to be effective if it’s sitting in the drawer. So, how do you get more website traffic?
What Kind of Website Traffic do you Want?
First of all, let’s talk about website traffic. All traffic is not the same. There are window shoppers, and there are buyers. Window shoppers might one day come inside and buy something. So, you don’t ignore them. You take time to create an engaging window display, attractive signage, and announce lots of sales. But your goal is more customers inside the store buying your stuff.
When thinking about how to get more website traffic, be clear. Thousands of one-time organic visitors per week could be fantastic. Your brand visibility improves. But that’s not the goal. It’s better to have 100 targeted visitors who stay on your website long enough to buy a product or make an appointment.
Where Does Your Traffic Come From?
Yotpo conducted extensive research into the state of eCommerce. They found that 40% of website traffic comes from direct search and 34% from general or organic search. Ten percent comes from referrals (see the previous article on brand authenticity). This means that 40% of the people coming to your website did not come from a referring site.
The 34% is organic traffic; they searched for the kind of service you offer or the product you sell. Organic traffic does not include visitors who come to your website because of paid ads on search engines.
Your SEO and inbound marketing efforts influence the number of organic visitors coming to your website. So, let’s move on to how to make that happen.
8 Tips to Get More Website Traffic
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User Experience
Let’s go back to the business card analogy. If you go to an industry conference, you will likely collect hundreds of business cards and brochures. You’ll want to keep some because you made a good connection, and you want to follow up. The rest, you’ll glance at them once you get back to the office and make a selection. Based on what? On whether or not the business card or brochure catches your attention.
You want your website to catch your customer’s attention, intrigue them, inform them and entice them to learn more.
User experience is critical to securing returning traffic and keeping visitors on your website long enough to trigger search engine algorithms. For organic and social channel visitors who come for the first time, their experience on your website can move them through the funnel to the point of becoming customers. However, if they can’t find what prompted them to come to your website, or the interface is clunky and confusing, they won’t return.
Even worse, they’ll leave within seconds, giving your site a high bounce rate. Hubspot defines bounce rate as,
“the percentage of people who land on a page on your website and then leave without clicking on anything else or navigating to any other pages on your site.”
Begin by knowing your target audience.
- What are their demographics?
- Interests?
- What products or services are they already using?
- What do your want your visitor to do when they come to your website?
Keep your website simple.
- Avoid unnecessary components and words.
- Your home page shouldn’t look like a novella. Instead, make it interesting, engaging, dynamic, and straightforward.
- Simplicity is the key.
- Embed clickable links in your graphics so you can smoothly and quickly move the visitor to service or product information and from there to checkout.
Pay attention to page loading time.
If it takes too long to open, your website visitor will depart. Statistics show that in today’s multi-digital tasking environment, you have only a few seconds to keep your reader engaged.
Select your colors strategically.
According to research, people make a subconscious decision about a product within 90 seconds. And 90% of those decisions are impacted by color alone. (Neil Patel blog). Think about the psychology of the colors you use on your website. Keep in mind your target audience. What color emotion is going to help you connect with them?
Use video on your landing page, within blog articles, and on other pages on your website.
Make your CTAs attractive and accessible.
2. Encourage Dwell Time
An excellent user experience results in more extended stays on your site, which helps you get more traffic to your website. Dwell time, the length of time a visitor remains on your website is more important than page views. A higher dwell time rate will improve your ranking on internet search engines, bringing more visitors to your website.
3. Optimize for Mobile
38% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. Considering this statistic, if your website is not optimized for mobile, you’ll miss out on a significant segment of your potential consumer market.
4. Use Your Social Media Channels to Drive Traffic
Social media marketing is a powerful strategy to get more traffic to your website. You can’t rely on direct search alone. On the other hand, you don’t need a presence on every social media platform. Your social media strategy depends on the same factors you use when designing your website. Knowing your target audience is critically important to shaping your social media presence.
Specific social media platforms appear to bring traffic that spends more time on websites. For instance, Yotpo found that visitors from Instagram spend the longest time browsing e-commerce websites. Not far behind is traffic from YouTube. Conversely, viewers coming from Facebook and Pinterest are the least engaged. You might want to keep these statistics in mind.
Use your social media channels to drive traffic to your website.
Browse our blog for tips on content marketing and easy social media marketing for any budget.
5. Answer Questions on Quora
Quora is one of the most popular Q&A sites in the world. Alexa ranks it as the 61st most popular website in the US. Millions of questions and answers on just about every topic imaginable are racing across the platform. According to the site, thousands of new questions are posted every day. You’ll even find Quora answers on Google, which means that this is a proven way to improve your ranking on SERPs.
Using Quora is not a passive exercise. First, you’ll need to SEO optimize your profile and then get involved in answering questions relevant to your niche and experience. For example, if you’re selling e-books, you can target your effort to answer questions about self-publishing, how to write an e-book, and other problems people have on this topic.
Quora is not the place to make direct pitches or advertise your products or services. Instead, embed your brand in your answers in a subtle way. The more questions you answer, the more exposure you’ll have to the millions of potential Quora users following that question. This will drive clicks to your profile to find out more about you. Therefore your profile, similar to LinkedIn, is critical. In addition, be sure there is a link to your website and your social platforms.
6. Get More Website Traffic With an Engaging Blog
Companies that blog get 97% more links to their website.
Be sure to include evergreen content on your blog. These are articles that remain relevant long after they’ve been published. Evergreen content attracts more website traffic, social shares, and leads. Furthermore, because the information is not time-sensitive, the number of readers, comments, and shares will grow. A growing readership helps to establish you as an authority improving your Google ranking.
Additionally, studies conducted by Hubspot and ClearVoice prove that long-form blog content outperforms short articles. According to Hubspot, you should aim for a word count between 2,100 – 2,400 words to secure the best SEO performance. Blog articles this length will drive visitors to your website long after they’ve been published.
Add social share buttons to all your blog articles. Readers will be inspired to share informative, helpful, and engaging content with their friends and social networks if you create informative, valuable, and engaging content.
7. Open a YouTube Channel
YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, following closely behind Google. Used strategically, YouTube can help you get more website traffic and increase brand visibility.
You don’t have to set up a formal studio to create engaging videos for YouTube. You can use your blog articles and turn them into videos. Go live to showcase new products and sales. If you offer a service, you can create engaging YouTube video classes that answer the questions and concerns of your target audience.
- Be sure your channel information is SEO-optimized, as well as your video.
- Take advantage of the YouTube “search suggest” feature to help you find titles and search terms to help you rank higher and attract your target audience.
- End each video with a CTA that gives viewers a reason to come to your website.
8. Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader on Medium
In a previous article, we talked about the role of thought leadership in your marketing strategy. Medium.com, a platform launched in 2012, has become one of the most popular digital platforms, with more than 153 million monthly unique visitors last year (Similar.Web.com).
Medium is like Quora; it’s not a passive endeavor. You need to publish on a regular schedule and engage with others. However, popular Medium articles are making it to the top of SERPs.
Medium likes to see new content. It’s not the place to republish your website content and blog articles. If you have a small team or run your business solo, you might not want to add Medium to your toolbox. But if you have the resources, you can quickly build a following on Medium that can result in thousands of visitors coming to your website.
Bottom Line
The e-commerce marketplace is crowded. Depending on your niche, you might be operating in a very competitive digital landscape. Therefore, you need targeted website traffic to bring consumers from your home page to your checkout page. With careful attention to user experience, website content, and promotion, you can get more website traffic.
Be sure to check out the other articles on this blog for more tips on digital marketing, thought leadership, and brand management.
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