how to boost traffic to your website
Lack of
website traffic is one of the most common challenges I hear from business
owners. Many report having lost a significant percentage of their search
traffic over the past year or two, and are continuously looking for new ways to
drive relevant traffic to their site.
This
article is an attempt to give marketers and business owners a whole battery of
straight-to-the-point, actionable tips for getting traffic to your website or
blog. While some of these strategies won’t be a quick fix, you may be surprised
how quickly many of them start to generate results.
Focus on long-tail keywords – The days of focusing on a
single keyword for each page are long gone. Make sure your posts include all
the relevant terms and phrases related to your topic. For help with finding
long-tail keywords, see my post How to Find LSI
(Long Tail) Keywords Once You’ve Identified Your Primary Keywords.
- Start a forum on your
website –
An active forum can quickly begin ranking for long-tail keywords. They’re
also great for decreasing your site’s bounce rate, increasing
time-on-site, as well as building a community.
- Start a Facebook group that
drives traffic to your site – Start a niche-specific group where members
can ask questions and get support (and don’t forget to point them back to
your site’s content where relevant).
- Submit your blog posts to StumbleUpon
– It works!
- Promote your blog posts to
your email list –
This doesn’t have to be the main focus of all your emails, but including a
link or two back to your blog posts can considerably increase traffic,
leads, and sales.
- Answer a HARO
query – Answering a pitch only take a few minutes, and can result in
great PR, high-quality inbound links and referral traffic to your site.
- Work on your headlines – Your headlines are what
will get people in the door, particularly when you share your blog posts
via social media; make sure they pique interest and clearly articulate the
benefit to your readers. For help with that, see “The Online Marketer’s Guide to Writing High-Converting
Headlines.”
- Join a blogging community
like ProBlogger
or CopyBlogger – This is a great way
to network with other bloggers, and to cross-promote each other’s content.
- Include links to other
relevant posts on your blog – When you write a post, always be sure to
mention other posts your readers may find helpful; this is great for SEO
as well as for increasing time-on-site, conversion rates, and referral
traffic.
- Guest post on relevant blogs – There’s not much point
guest blogging on a site in an unrelated niche; make sure you only
contribute to highly-relevant, high-quality sites in your niche. See “The Ultimate, Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your
Business by Guest Blogging.”
- Become a columnist or
contributor on a well-known website – If you can become a guest contributor on an
authority site like Huffington Post or Forbes,
you not only drive targeted traffic to your site, but establish yourself
as an expert in your field.
- Optimize your existing posts – Comb through your old
posts to make sure they have unique and relevant title tags, URLS and meta
descriptions.
- Demote irrelevant Google
sitelinks –
While Google sitelinks are automatically generated, you can demote URLS
you don’t want to show; this may increase the chances that the URLS you do
want listed show up. You can do this from within Google
Webmaster Tools.
- Arrange an advertising swap – Trade banner ads with a
complimentary site in your niche.
- Post more frequently – Neil Patel of QuickSprout
found that by posting high-quality posts 6x per week (as opposed to 5), blog traffic
increased by 18.6%. Find your magic number and commit to seeing it
through. Remember that in many cases, the traffic increases you see from
blogging are scalable.
- Submit your posts to Reddit – Yes, this also still
works.
- Mention influencers in your
tweets –
When you cite, quote or mention someone in a blog post, be sure to @
mention them in your tweet when you promote your post.
- Focus your energy on
strategies that are working – You don’t have to do what everyone else is
doing. Study your analytics to see your main traffic drivers, and focus on
your energy on these areas.
- Build connections with
others in your niche – I know this sounds cliché, but building
personal relationships with other bloggers in your niche will often result
in organic inbound links and referral traffic to your site.
- Make sure you have every
relevant keyword you can think of on your site – I’m not talking old-school
keyword spamming here. I’m talking about focusing on topical content; and
making sure you at least have the chance of being found for all your
relevant keywords, no matter how obscure they may be.
- Create a top 10 website post – Select the top 10 blogs
in your niche, and write a post about them. You may also want to create a
simple badge or banner those sites can embed to show off their award.
- Make the most of Facebook
links –
Be sure to include links back to your site in your About page, in your
photo descriptions, in the comments of your posts (where relevant), and in
your milestones.
- Get on YouTube – YouTube drives the most
engaged traffic out of all social media sites, with an average of 2.99 pages per visit.
- Add text to your blog post
images –
Try including your post title and URL in your blog post images for optimal
effect when pinned or shared.
- Become a member of industry
Facebook and LinkedIn groups – Offer valuable advice and info to build
relationships and drive traffic to your site.
- Connect with bloggers who
are already sending you traffic – If someone has already linked to your site,
they obviously like what you have to say. Contact them to see if there are
other ways they could help promote your content (and vice versa).
- Ask a well-known blogger to
guest post on your site – They’ll likely share the post with their
audience, driving traffic to your site.
- Respond to blog comments – Respond thoughtfully to
all comments on your blog. This is great for building relationships, as
well as for driving commenters back to your site.
- Add your blog to Alltop
– As an aggregate for all kinds of web content, submitting your blog
increases your chances of getting found by people looking for content in
your niche.
- Answer Questions – Visit sites like Yahoo Answers
or Quora
and answer questions relevant to your niche.
- Write a Response Post – Respond to a controversial
post in your niche and then let the original poster know about it. Chances
are good they won’t be able to resist responding to it on their blog.
- Contact influential bloggers – When you write a
groundbreaking or newsworthy post, notify influencers in your field. You
may be surprised at how many link back to your post.
- Make proper use of
categories – If
you haven’t already organized your content into relevant categories, now’s
the time. Categories are great not only for SEO, but for helping your
readers find relevant content.
- Write landmark posts - Create at least a
few long-form, authoritative posts that will organically garner links and
attention over the long haul.
- Comment on industry blogs - Become a regular
commenter on a popular blog in your niche to help drive referral traffic
and to establish relationships with other bloggers.
- Interview influencers in
your niche –
They will be very likely to promote the interview to their audience.
- Share your blog posts regularly on Facebook - Post a short excerpt from your posts to entice them to click through.
- Share your posts on Triberr
- Meet other bloggers and share each other’s content.
- Add your blog to Technorati
– As the world’s largest blog directory, claiming your blog
should be standard procedure for all bloggers.
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