If you're anything like most website owners, you'd like to see more visitors to your site. Or more specifically, visitors who at some point want to purchase. Fortunately, there are many techniques you can use right away to start attracting increasing amounts of quality traffic to your site. And they work long-term too.
If you're anything like the vast majority of website owners, you'd like to see more visitors to your site, correct?
Or more specifically, visitors who at some point want to purchase. Like any other online business, the success of your own business is tied in directly with the amount of targeted traffic your site can attract.
Fortunately, there are many techniques you can use right away to start attracting increasing amounts of quality traffic to your site. And they work long-term too.
1. Recommendations
Recommendations from other online businesses are very powerful, and drive valuable traffic for months if not years. So it's worth investing time and effort in attaining some of these links.
After all, potential customers are far more likely to believe a third-party review of your business than your own marketing materials.
To help encourage these recommendations:
- Ensure whatever you provide through your business is the best it can be and delivers real value to your customers.
- Prioritize customer support, deal with inquiries on a personal level and build up a personal rapport with some of your best customers.
- Create an affiliate program, providing incentives for other businesses to start recommending you.
- Ask for referrals - you'll be surprised how often your customers will be happy and willing to refer others to your business.
2. Article Marketing
Yes, article marketing has received some negative coverage of late, but much of it comes from business owners who use SEO as a central pillar in their marketing strategy.
Instead, it's important to develop links from all over the web that drive traffic to your business independent of search engines, and reduce any such reliance on SEO. Article marketing remains one of the most effective ways in which to achieve that.
The fact is article directories are among some of the most highly-visited sites online ... why wouldn't you want your link on them, siphoning traffic back to your site?
And if you need any proof that article marketing can increase the online visibility of your business - you're reading this, aren't you?
In fact, my own articles tend to get hundreds if not thousands of views within just a few days of publication. Some go on to achieve tens of thousands of views. And that's just one article directory ...
Multiply that when you syndicate to several high-traffic article directories, as well as other potential online publishers, and you start to appreciate how effective article marketing can be in raising your profile.
It's also not always about linking back to your main website either. You can for example also link back to your pages on social media, or perhaps a squeeze page domain to help build your email list.
3. Paid Traffic
Can't that be costly? Yes, but only if you do it wrong. Get it right, and it's a continual, long-term profit stream.
Personally, I've been paying for traffic for years, as well as using other traffic-building methods.
Take time to master it, be willing to invest some cash up front while you get it working effectively, and it becomes an important asset for your business.
4. Retargeting
Of course, retargeting also involves buying traffic, but it works slightly differently.
When you get a visitor to your site, you then drop a cookie on them, and they continue to see ads for your site on other websites around the web long after they have visited.
This not only brings a proportion back to your site, but can also raise your profile with them and keep your business front of mind, increasing the likelihood of purchase.
5. Email Marketing
Capture the email address of your prospect, and you can then follow-up with them by email for weeks, months, and years to come. Some people on my own list have been receiving emails from me for several years now, and still end up back on one of my sites after clicking links provided in the emails I send out.
Communicate with your list regularly, and invite them to return to your website, whether for a promotion, to read your latest content, or to interract in some way with you.
It's a powerful way to build a relationship with your prospects, build traffic for the long-term, and of course increase their likelihood of purchase.
6. Blogging
I've now been blogging for years, and it's one of the central planks to my long-term traffic strategy:
- It gives you a lot of content in the search engines, with each post that you write (or have written) working to attract visitors over the long-term.
- It helps build relationships with the people who read your blog, who return repeatedly to read your latest content.
- It builds your credibility and authority, increasing the chance of both purchase and referral to others
- It gives you content to feed your social media activities.
- You can leverage the content for other purposes (for example, this article originates from a blog post).
7. Forum and Blog Commenting
Engage with forums relevant to your niche, and you can drive a lot of targeted traffic back to your site.
For example, link to a blog post where it helps someone's question. Link back to your site from your signature, and via your profile.
You can also build up some powerful relationships which can result in long-term traffic from referrals and so on.
It works in a similar fashion with blogs. Avoid spam commenting completely, but instead add a useful, informative comment of real value. You can either link back by adding your website details into the field provided, or where appropriate try linking back to say one of your own blog posts where it adds further to the discussion.
8. Videos
YouTube can be hugely effective in driving traffic to your site, simply because it gets so much traffic yourself. As the world's second largest search engine, by posting videos that will match up with some of those searches you'll reach new audiences and attract new visitors to your site.
What's more, you can create new videos relatively easily by simply basing them on earlier blog posts.
9. Social Media
Social media signals are becoming increasingly important for SEO purposes, and it also allows your content to spread far beyond your own shores and get seen by audiences you otherwise wouldn't reach.
Every time you create or add new content somewhere, you can also post it to your social media profiles. This drives up engagement, attracts new followers, and raises the visibility of your business in general.
10. Do They Want What You've Got?
You might not think it's not a 'traffic strategy' as such ... but in fact, it's the most important one.
If people don't want what you've got, you'll find traffic generation a whole lot harder.
On the other hand, when you sell what people want, particularly when combined with a powerful USP (unique selling proposition) it all becomes a lot easier. People will spread the word naturally, your traffic will grow based on their willing referrals, and your marketing costs will reduce substantially.
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