You don’t just put all your time and effort into creating a website to let it sit, and not generate anything more for your business. Screaming to the world, “We’ve got a new website! Come visit it!” just doesn’t work. The good news is generating more website traffic to your website, and, ultimately, more leads to your business isn’t as complicated as it sounds.
Use search engine optimization
Even if you don’t sell products online, or have any interest in e-commerce, integrate search engine optimization into your strategy to generate more website traffic. More than 90% of users turn to search engines for information, and local SEO technology—like KD Interactive’s (shameless self promotion!)—can get your business website in organic search engine listings using long-tail keywords your audience searches for. The increased exposure of a good search engine ranking in turn leads to more clicks, more website traffic, and more conversions.
Create fresh content
Once you’ve created an optimized website (we’ve given you optimization tips here), don’t stop. Keep giving your customers and potential customers—and search engines—content relevant to them through a blog or other content marketing tool. The goal of your effort is to build trust and generate clicks, so it’s essential that you don’t just produce ho-hum content. Produce quality content. Give your customers and potential customers what they want: entertainment, answers to their questions, knowledge. If you optimize that information with relevant keywords that are relatable to your audience, you’ll kill the proverbial two birds with one stone: you’ll show up in search engine listings for keywords your potential customers are searching for and you’ll get more website traffic from your content.
Plan a strong content distribution plan
If you produce quality content, share your content via social media sites, emails to your customers, even as customer service when a question is asked. Once you start writing content, create a calendar of content topics, social media posts, and customer emails.
For your social media posts, use a good scheduling tool, such as Hootsuite and Buffer, to help you manage your social media profiles and schedule posts. Don’t schedule too far ahead of time so you can stay on top of trending topics, and be flexible with your plan when needed. Share relevant content from other sources, and mix your content in. Always link back to your website pages or blog pages to keep generating continual website traffic. Online marketing results occur from regular work, so don’t give up. If you don’t have time to keep up, outsource your efforts to the experts and give the company the necessary information they need to market your business.
Don’t just focus on website traffic
One of our clients, a flooring company, saw their website traffic double in just four months because of search engine optimization. In 30 days, their unique visits increased 122% and hit an impressive increase of 200%. Website traffic is just a number unless you can convert those visits to customer interest. The flooring company receives form submissions every week from potential customers, with 60% of those visits stemming from their search engine optimization package. The moral of this testimonial is that generating more website traffic means nothing if you don’t have a well-designed site with clear call-to-actions that convert your traffic to paying customers.
Integrate your online and off-line marketing
Don’t treat your online marketing as a stand-alone. If possible, create one calendar of on-line and off-line marketing efforts to ensure that you are integrating the two efforts into one, strategic plan. Add your website URL to your mailers, in-store promotions, and advertisements. Include your specials to your blog(s) and social media channels to reach your online and off-line audience, and to meet (and exceed) your goal of generating more website traffic.