Increasing website traffic is a common goal amongst marketers and business owners – whether you have a physical building or an e-commerce company. Your website is your online storefront where consumers learn more about your products and services, build trust in your brand, and eventually become loyal customers.
If you’re looking for proven ways to increase website traffic, both free and paid, here are 12 methods that provide results.
Which marketing channels drive quality traffic to your website?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a “set it up and forget about it” tool that generates free and high-quality traffic to your website. Instead, it’s a combination of marketing channels that work together. Some of the channels and strategies that help drive traffic to your website include:
- Social media
- Online directory listings
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Blogging
- Email
- Online ads
FREE Ways to Boost Website Traffic
1. Optimize your free Google My Business Profile
Did you know that an optimized Google business listing gets at least 7x more visits than a bare and incomplete one? A Google My Business listing is one of the best generators of quality website traffic. Here are a few of its benefits:
- Free and simple to set up
- Increases your visibility in searches relevant to your business and location – and on a platform whose users are looking to purchase
- Allows your business to show up in mobile searches, which exceed desktop searches
- Enables customers to post reviews, which further boosts your visibility
- Provides visuals so that customers feel more comfortable arriving in-person
2. Use proper metadata
One of the most important things you can do to boost website traffic and improve SEO is to add proper metadata to your website’s pages. Metadata describes unseen HTML elements like titles, keywords, and descriptions. It directly communicates and clarifies website information for search engines to ensure they get found. Every website page must have the proper metadata, even previously published pages.
3. Post to social media
One of the most popular and effective free marketing tools is social media. And it plays a huge role in driving traffic to your website. Use Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to promote blog posts and other valuable pages on your website. You can maintain an active social media presence by liking, following, commenting, and sharing others’ posts. Also, remember to regularly update your social media accounts with relevant content to attract followers and increase website traffic.
Read More: 8 Effective Ways to Grow Your Social Media Following
4. Build backlinks
Backlinks are a great way to increase the value of your website’s SEO and boost traffic to your website. When another website links to yours, it gets your business in front of a different target audience. Backlinks also signal to search engines that you are a reputable and trustworthy brand. More trust from Google leads to higher rankings and more traffic.
Read More: How to Build Quality Backlinks
5. Target long-tail keywords
Short-tail keywords may be searched more often but ranking for them on search engines is harder. Targeting long-tail keywords improve your chance of ranking higher for queries specific to your services and products – and a higher ranking equals more traffic.
Plus, people are using more specific phrases to search online now that voice search capabilities are improving.
6. Employ email marketing
Promoting offers through email and sending out regular newsletters is another great way to boost traffic to your website – and stay in touch with your customers. Share relevant and helpful information with links to your website pages where they can learn more. Be careful not to email too often – customers may delete them without reading or unsubscribing entirely.
Read More: Is Email Marketing Still Effective?
7. Utilize website analytics
Website analytics tools like Google Analytics are invaluable. These metrics track the demographics of visitors to your website. Many analytics tools can determine important information, such as where your website visitors come from, what keywords they searched, and how long they spend on specific pages.
Use this measurable data to identify what works, what needs improvement, and what to stop wasting time and money on.
Read More: How to Prepare for Google Analytics 4
PAID Ways to Boost Website Traffic
8. Google Ads
With Google Ads, you pay to have a landing page of your website appear at the top of search results for specific keywords. When a user searches for those keywords, Google displays and ranks the paid results according to the ad’s relevance.
Since these paid search ads appear at the very top of the results pages, this kind of exposure is a great way to increase traffic to your website. In addition, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
Read More: How to Choose the Right Keywords for Google Ads
9. Google Maps advertising
The Google Ads platform also lets you select preferences, so your business appears at the top of Google Maps search results. There’s an indicator next to your listing to show it’s a paid result, but the exposure you get from this top spot is invaluable.
10. Social media advertising
With social media advertising, you’re paying to show up in relevant feeds – unlike search advertising, where you’re paying to show up in the top spot for relevant queries. Both forms of advertising allow you to specify your target audience. However, social media advertising offers more psychographic data, which provides excellent targeting.
11. Retargeting
Retargeting ads are placed in front of people who have already visited your site without buying. They appear on social media feeds and websites to remind visitors of your products and services. Retargeting allows you to retarget them with relevant ads when they visit other websites.
12. Display advertising
Display advertising comprises small digital banners or billboards placed in and around keyword search pages, blogs, websites, etc. They're usually visual ads with little text and are great for promoting your brand to people searching for similar products and services. Display ads can be animated or still images.
Bottom Line
Driving traffic to your website may seem like an unending task, but it’s worth the effort it takes. Do you need help increasing website traffic? Our goal at Impact Group Marketing is to help you make an impact – and we have plans to suit any budget. Contact us today, and let’s get started!