There are many ways to get more web traffic. But what you really want is more sales from your web traffic. It doesn’t help you to get more hits on your website if they don’t buy what you’re selling. Follow these helpful hints and email me if you need more help afterwards!
#1 High Quality & Unique Content
If you are creating lots of information-rich & keyword-rich, useful content, you are doing well. Google Webmaster guidelines advise to have “unique & relevant” content. The more content that matches the keywords customers are searching for, the more likely they’ll land on your site – and be happy they did.
#1a Keep Adding Fresh & Relevant Content
Are you adding content to your website constantly? If not, you are losing to your competitors who are. If you can add a minimum of one article or add to the content of one page per week, you are doing the bare minimum. Twice a week is great, once a day is better.
#2 Buy a Memorable Domain Name
Try to choose a name that won’t be confused with other similar names. You don’t want your customers landing on a page that isn’t yours, do you? Also, if you can’t secure the .com version of your name, be sure to advertise it as YourDomain.NET (emphasizing the difference). We have been conditioned to head to YourDomain.com, so try to secure that name first.
#2a Buy the Wrong Domain Too
For $10/yr, you can add the ‘wrong’ way to your website. For example, I purchased ShoutItOutDesigns.com and it automatically redirects to my correct site at ShoutItOutDesign.com.
#3 Use Appropriate Keywords in Image File Names
Instead of having an image on your site named “image3.jpg” call it “blue_vase.jpg.” Google cannot look at an image and know what it is (yet), so for now you have to give it a keyword infused name and help the Google Bots. That way, if someone searches for an image of a blue vase, they will hopefully land on your site.
#4 Distribute USEFUL Articles & Press Releases
Creating press releases are not just a simple way of getting your message out into the print world & news media, they also help with web traffic. Your press release will reach a new group of people and be archived on the press release company’s website. That creates more searchable content for people to land on your site.
You should be writing a press release (or two) every month or so. Press releases are a good way to get exciting news or general information about what your business is about. Be careful to not sound (too much) like an advertisement and don’t over-promote your company, but be sure to to include important keywords, content & links to your website.
Your press release may get picked up by some local (or national) news outlets, but at worst, you are adding links to your website, which is a good thing (see Tip #5)
#5 Get Linked
One of the most important things you can do to help your “Google Ranking” is get other sites to link to yours. The bigger (more visited) the site, the more Google likes it. For example, if CNN were to link to your site, it would mean more than your friend’s personal blog.
While looking for linking opportunities, don’t jump into ‘trading links’, that doesn’t count for near as much in Google’s eyes. Look for opportunities on sites with similar interests and on sites that are visited by a lot of people.
#6 Blog It Up!
There are so many reasons to have a blog, I can’t go into all of them without running out of room. But here are a few:
The short of it – you should blog to get people coming back to your site to see what you are up to. Keep your regular viewers excited about new happenings and intrigue new viewers into the depth of what your company is about.
Having more pages on your website with carefully selected topics (of course, using keywords that people would search to find your site in a search engine) boosts your site’s ability to be found online.
#7 Be More Social (Media)
If you aren’t on the Social Media Marketing bandwagon by now, I think you are just being stubborn. If you aren’t in the business of connecting to your customers and learning what they are interested in doing and hearing, social media isn’t for you. But if you are interested in interacting with your customers, hearing their praises, suggestions and the occasional complaint – you should look into getting on the Social Media bandwagon. With over 500 million people on Facebook (about 150 million in the US), can you afford not to use the free resource?
#8 Don’t Forget the Internal Links
This may seem redundant, but trust me – linking to pages on your own site will help you win the “Google Wars.” And I’m not just talking about your navigation structure (although that is important as well). In the body of your text, you should have at least one link every 300 words or so. That should equate to 1-2 links per page. Going along with #5, the more links to your site, the better.
#9 Advertise with Google Adwords, Facebook, Yahoo, etc
There are a lot of Marketing Gurus that will tell you that PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising is a waste of money. But if I said that you could pay 10¢ for a referral, would you think that is a waste of money?
PPC Advertising is a simple way to get your name out there, using the keywords you want, to the demographics you want to reach for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.
#10 Free Downloadable Content
Offering something for free on your website might be seen as a gimmick, but sometimes gimmicks work. Even the smartest of consumers gets sucked in by a gimmick every now and again.
If you are an authority on gardening, make up a little downloadable pamphlet on how to do a simple task. If the customer enjoys your perspective, don’t you think they’d be likely to call you when something goes wrong?
Using resources like YouTube is a great way to attract sales. Do a short instructional film about how to plant a small garden. If the customer likes the video, they are likely to share it with their friends (likely using Facebook or Twitter). Now you have your customers doing your sales pitch for you! And isn’t that the best kind of advertising?
#11 Call Me
Whether you are already doing some of these things and need more advanced help or you don’t know what some of these things are and want to talk about how they can help your business – I can help you get attention online and start making your website & online presence work for you.
With nearly 15 years experience with online & print media, I can help your business reach new heights using the internet. If you don’t have a website yet, we can help. If you have a website that hasn’t been attended to recently and are looking for a fresh, new design, we can help you too. Need help finding a presence using Social Media Marketing? We helped a local small business grow from 500 to nearly 20,000 Facebook fans in under a year.
