10 Powerful Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website

10 powerful ways to drive traffic to your website, Featured image, Get more website traffic

HOW TO GET 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. Unfortunately, the same is not true of your website. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean people will come. Having even the best designed website doesn’t guarantee that people will visit it.

Related: The Complete Guide To SEO In 2021

It’s crucial to create a proven strategy to get more web traffic with tested methods for generating a steady stream of website visitors. You need demonstrated tactics and hacks for getting people to visit your site and engage with your content. The more people who come to your site, the more people become aware of the great content you create. The more people become familiar with your great 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.

How do you establish yourself as an industry expert and gain the trust of your viewers? Avoid jumping from strategy to strategy without spending adequate time on each. Each of the following strategies requires significant time and effort to execute properly and return worthwhile results.

Maintain 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.

Of course, this raises the question: How do you get more website traffic? Luckily, here you’ll discover 10 proven strategies for getting hundreds, if not thousands, of website visitors.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #1: Create Amazing, Share-Worthy Content

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It’s safe to say people have plenty of options when it comes to the content they consume on a daily basis: if you want people to come to your website, you need to provide a valuable reason for them to come. You need to create informative, inspiring, and generally helpful content that attracts people and compels them 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 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?

  • Create high value, in-depth content
  • Answers people’s questions and speak to their pain points
  • Address a subject on a much deeper level than anything else out there

In order to achieve this, ask yourself these questions when creating content:

  • 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 beneficial it is. People want to share content that is valuable and if you create worthwhile content, others will promote it for you.

Questions for creating social media  content infographic, Create Amazing Share-Worthy Content, Powerful ways to drive traffic to your website

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #2: Share Your Content On Social Media

Share your content multiple times across all your social media profiles. Why? Not every one of your followers will see every one of your posts, and some are more active on certain platforms than others. Sharing your content across each platform maximizes the chance of your followers seeing your social media posts and ending up back on your website.

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, make sure to create an accompanying image that is specific to the Pinterest platform. Each social media platform engages in different ways, so deciding where and how your content should be shared is critical.

Social Media Content Examples:

  • Facebook tends to push video content higher up in the social media feeds, giving it more exposure. This means you should consider using video to promote the content you create on your website.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Related: Using Social Media To Enhance Your SEO For Increased Traffic

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #3: Build An Engaged Email List

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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 and watch the visitors come flooding in. One of the most effective ways to build your email list is by giving away something in exchange for an email address. The giveaway, also called a “lead magnet”, is a piece of valuable content that readers can download once they hand over their email address.

Examples of Lead Magnets:

Whitepapers
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter.
E-Books
An electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a computer or handheld device designed specifically for this purpose.
Case Studies
A case study involves an up-close, in-depth, and detailed examination of a particular case or cases, within a real-world context.
Webinars
A seminar conducted over the internet.

As well as:

  • Videos
  • Free Email Courses
  • Lead Magnet Templates
  • Premium content

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.

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.

Related: Your Email List Is More Critical in 2021 Than Ever Before

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #4: Guest Posting

Guest posting infographic, Unique blog posting, How to drive traffic to your website

If you’re like most people, you probably won’t have much of an audience when you first get started creating content on your website. That’s okay and should be expected! After all, it takes time to build an audience.

Guest posting on someone else’s website allows you to tap into another person’s audience that’s much larger than your own. This provides the opportunity to showcase your outstanding work in front of new viewers, which increases your exposure and allows you to drive traffic back to your own website.

The most common way to secure guest posting gigs is to research and contact blogs in your niche, asking them if they accept guest posts. One thing to keep in mind when reaching out to these blogs is that they probably get collaboration requests regularly, so it’s important to set yourself apart and be unique in your pitch. Think about how you can create a mutually beneficial experience by offering unique value to the other person’s audience.

What can you uniquely offer in your pitch that will set you apart?

  • Years of expertise?
  • A different/fresh perspective?
  • Research on a particular subject?
  • An insider’s opinion?

In your pitch to the blog, talk about what you have to offer and suggest a few topics that you can offer expertise on. Be sure to focus on how you’ll benefit their audience. Once you build a relationship, agree on a collaboration, and publish a post, share it across your various social media networks. This benefits both the owner of the website on which the guest post appears as well as yourself, providing a growth opportunity for both parties.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #5: Participate In Online Forums

Online forums like Quora and Reddit, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn groups, can be great sources of traffic for your website. Forums and groups exist for almost every subject imaginable, and you can be sure that people are looking for the kind of information that you can provide.

These platforms function differently than standard social media sites - you can’t simply share links to them and expect people to go to your website. In fact, if all you do is share links with no other thoughtful contribution, there’s a good chance that you’ll be marked as spam and kicked out.

First and foremost, members of these sites want you to add value directly to the group by being an active participant to the conversations within the group itself. So, answer people’s questions, contribute your own thoughts, and ask questions in these groups. Make it your goal to participate in numerous conversations and build authentic relationships with other users before considering sharing any links to your own website.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #6: 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? After all, 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 a number of email marketing specialists and ask them for a quote for the piece. Once you’ve written the guide, tell all the people you’ve quoted in the article. There’s a good 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. Then, you can reach out to them via email or social media and let them know that you’ve quoted them. Again, there’s a decent chance they’ll share it with their audience.

A secondary benefit of quoting influencers and authority figures in your pieces is that it adds expertise 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 #7: Collaborate With Other Content Creators

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Always be on the lookout for ways to collaborate with other website owners and content creators. By collaborating, you get to benefit from their audience, and you can share your audience with them.

A simple example of collaborating with another website is to do a guest post swap: you create a post on their website, and they post on yours. But it doesn’t have to stop there - this could lead to further collaborations, like appearing on someone else’s podcast and then promoting that podcast on your website.

The key to collaboration is bringing value to the other person. If you can bring value, even if that’s just sharing your audience with them, there’s a much greater chance that they’ll want to partner with you. When you reach out to someone regarding a collaboration, make it crystal clear how your partnership will benefit them.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #8: 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. Unlike the organic strategies we’ve listed so far, this does require a budget - but if you’re willing to spend the money, you can get an avalanche of traffic to your site.

Facebook and Google are massive: billions of people use both websites each month. It’s an enormous audience, and if you’re willing to put some money into advertising, your ROI can be a huge success.

Related: 8 Steps To Grow Your Business Using Social Media

There is one distinct advantage to paid advertising above other forms of promotion: it allows you to put your content in front of a very specific 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 and your business.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #9: Comment On Blogs

Comment on industry related blogs, Infographic, Powerful way to drive traffic to your website

In addition to your own website, there are thousands of other industry-related sites publishing great content on a regular basis. Choose a number of these blogs to regularly comment on. By commenting on these blogs consistently, you’ll begin to establish yourself as a presence in your industry.

When commenting on blogs, have the same mindset as when you comment in online forums. Your goal is not simply to share a link back to your website, but to participate in their conversations. With each comment, your goal is to add value.

It’s important to note that the blogs you comment on should all be related in some way to your industry. A comment on a New York Times story may result in a lot of views, but most of the people who see it won’t be interested in what you have to offer on your website.

This type of strategy builds traction slowly, but the more you comment on other blogs, the more people will begin to recognize your name. The more you provide large amounts of value to the conversation, the more people will begin to respect you as an expert in your industry.

TRAFFIC STRATEGY #10: 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 others still 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. You could then:

  • Take one point from that blog post and turn it into a short video
  • Take another point from the blog post and turn it into a short podcast
  • Take a third point from the blog post and turn it into a series of social media 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.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of strategies we’ve discussed. Start small when it comes to increasing your web traffic. Begin with one tactic, focus on it, and learn how to do it effectively. Then move on to the next tactic. Don’t feel like you have to implement everything at once. Small, steady, and consistent is the way to go when it comes to increasing your web traffic.

Want more great holistic marketing ideas like these? Download our Step By Step Holistic Marketing Business Plan here.

Ways to drive traffic to your website infographic