How To Drive Traffic To Your Site: 14 Top Tips

Your website is filled with important information about your business, services, and products but if your site hasn't gained any traction, you're not alone. Many business owners struggle to achieve a healthy stream of traffic to their website. It's great if your site comes up when you type your company name into a search, but can people who have never heard of your business find you online? If you've just started a business or have been around for years, understanding how to drive traffic to your site is fundamental for continuous growth. These 14 tips can be implemented right away to help you get more visitors onto your site.

Types of website traffic

Simply put, website traffic is the number of visitors that reach your site. It can be measured on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. This information is important because each visitor has the potential to become a paying customer. The more traffic you receive, the higher your potential for generating sales. Website traffic can be generated from a variety of sources. The main types include:

Organic: This free traffic occurs when users arrive on your site after searching and clicking on results from a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. 

Direct: This traffic is mainly generated by people who type in your website's URL directly, without the help of referring channels. Email marketing traffic and document traffic (pdfs and other attachments) are also often characterized as direct traffic.

Referral: Just as it sounds, users arrive on your page after they were referred to your site from another site. For example, by clicking on a link to your site found on a third party website.

Social: Traffic generated when users land on your site after clicking on a link from social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Paid: By running paid ads on search engines and social media platforms, users arrive at your site once they've clicked on your ad.

14 ways to drive traffic to your site

1. Create a business blog.

Blogging is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site, and best of all, it's completely free. Blogging gives you the opportunity to provide potential clients with something valuable, and value comes in a variety of different forms. If you're selling maple syrup, a recipe blog helps people create that perfect dish with your product. If you're a computer repair shop, a blog comparing computer tech specs helps people choose the right computer for them. The blogs you write don't all have to advertise your products or services. Providing information and addressing issues or queries that potential customers may have helps to establish your business as an authority in your field. This is essential as it builds credibility, enabling clients to trust your knowledge, and in turn, your product and services. 

2. Master local SEO.

Every business needs to take advantage of local SEO, and that's because local SEO is your key to getting your customers to find you based on where you're located. Even if you're an online company or one that operates out of multiple locations, you still need to ensure you're showing up in local searches. Think of how many times you've searched, hoping for local results, by typing in something like “restaurants near me” or “hotels in Toronto”. It's very popular for people to search using terms “near me” or “in X city”, so it's important that your business can be found locally in order to show up in those search result pages. This means registering for a Google My Business listing, optimizing your website effectively, and registering in local directories.

3. Consider guest blogging.

Many business owners understand the value of having a business blog, but not everyone is taking advantage of the guest blogging strategy. Our recent post on guest blogging will give you a rundown of what this strategy is, and how it can benefit your business quickly and effectively. 

4. Engage on forums.

Responding to questions on forums such as Quora and Reddit has a few different benefits. In your responses, you can add links back to your site, driving more traffic. Being active on forums can also position your company as a thought leader in your field, and at the very least, as a credible source of information. Remember, Google uses E-A-T – expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness – in its search quality rater guidelines. What this means is that having a high E-A-T is essential for ranking better on Google. The better you rank on Google, the more you drive traffic to your website.

5. Participate in podcasts.

Podcasts create an immersive user experience, and many people tune in to podcasts during their free time, while cooking, or even while commuting to and from work. You can participate in a podcast, then advertise your involvement on your social accounts to draw new visitors to your website. In addition, you can directly embed podcasts onto your website, increasing user session time and page engagement – both important for ranking higher in search engine result pages. 

6. Amp up your social media presence.

Getting your company set up on the many social media platforms relevant for your business is not only important for brand awareness, but also for driving people to your website. It's important to have a social media strategy set up so you're regularly posting content to your channels. This way, you'll be connecting with your audience and intriguing them to visit your site to learn more about how your company can benefit them. 

7. Get on YouTube.

There is no question about it, corporate video production is one of the best ways to boost engagement and help people to learn about who your company is, what you do, and why they should care. YouTube has over 2 billion users worldwide, allowing you to cast your net wide and reach more potential customers. You can link back to your website and highlight relevant products, services, news, and blogs in your video description. Videos can also be embedded directly onto your website pages, boosting user engagement and time spent on your page.

8. Fix technical issues.

If you're never had a digital or SEO audit done on your site, there is no time like the present. Many businesses are unaware of their site's issues: slow loading speeds, broken links, and missing titles and descriptions. These problems can really hurt your website's ability to rank well on Google, not to mention the negative impact on user satisfaction. Audits are an affordable way to learn about your website's issues so they can be corrected quickly. 

9. Invest in paid ads.

Paid ads can be a great way to get relatively quick results to meet your business goals. You can target ads to gain more email signups, get people onto your website, or even increase your brand awareness. Google ads can be pricey, but if done correctly, they are often worth the investment. Social media ads are usually more affordable and also produce excellent results if ads are created effectively. If you want to get results fast, it's worth looking into paid ads. 

10. Analyze your website.

How many people arrive on your website each month? From which sources? How long do they stay? What percentage of people bounce as soon as they arrive? You absolutely need to understand what is going on with your website in order to make changes to improve your website's weak spots. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are fantastic for tracking your website's successes and failures. If those platforms are too advanced for you, it's a good idea to hire a digital marketing specialist to track and analyze your website and user’s behaviours.

11. Make your brand fun. 

Another great way to drive traffic to your site is to increase buzz and excitement around your brand. Think about running contests or giveaways – which can be promoted on your social platforms – to draw in more visitors to your site. 

12. Start a newsletter.

Having a company newsletter is an effective way to bring visitors to your site. When visitors provide their email address to sign up for your newsletter, you've created a direct line of communication from your company to their inbox. The best part – these visitors know about your site and are interested in your company to some degree. Why else would they sign up for your newsletter? You now have a good lead, whether or not these users have purchased your products or services or are merely interested in what you're offering. Running email marketing campaigns can ultimately bring repeat customers back onto your site – encouraging them to purchase. 

13. Invest in SEO.

SEO has to be at the forefront of everything you do online; it's the only way to ensure you are visible to potential customers. SEO must be used in websites, ads, social media, blogs, etc. so that all of your marketing efforts don't fall on deaf ears. 

14. Revamp old content.

For most businesses invested in content marketing strategies, their old content, known as “evergreen content” is their most valuable. This content has been around for a long time and has had the chance to gain traffic, authority, and backlinks – allowing it to rank well on Google. Not all businesses are as lucky. If content hasn't been optimized properly or isn't regularly updated, it may never show up on the first page of Google. The good news is that you can revamp that old content, giving it the chance to become one of your best-performing pieces. Find out which pages are ranking ahead of your post for its intended keyword, and update your page until it's significantly stronger than your competition. Use SEO best practices to optimize the content, and you'll likely have yourself a winning blog. If you're unsure how to update your old content, or simply don't have the time, it's best to invest in content marketing services. Revamping old content is completely free if you know how to do it yourself and it's often quite affordable if you need to hire a company for assistance.

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