Sales and purchases, the quest for information are all taking place online today. Websites and blogs are run by churches, businesses, News agencies, Sports clubs… it’s a long list of activities that take place online. For the sake or organization and putting everything together in one place, thus creating your own online store, or online news agency or perhaps a business you will have to create a website or maybe just a blog. The purpose is not just to have the name of your business too online. In fact, running a blog or website in itself is a job, and there are millions of people who are employed that way. Like a normal business you can only measure how successful you are by the number of people you are influencing and the quality of impact you are having on them.
Getting people to visit the website becomes a major issue and now you need to know how to increase traffic to your website. You may have already created a website for yourself for a business or just to share knowledge. Maybe you did not really consider it but now you have come to know that what is more important than having an online platform is getting the online presence. So you are now interested in knowing how to get traffic to your website. Before we get into what you are really excited about, I think it is only fair for me to let you know that the most trafficked websites did not get to the top of google and other search engines or accumulate traffic in a day, or two, or even a week. It takes some time and monitoring of web traffic analysis. But at least not too much time than you can commit if you really want to see this thing work out and figure out how to increase traffic to your website.
It is a whole Job sector with many employees
First, understand that it is not an obligation that you do this by yourself. The need and demand for website traffic that has accompanied an ever growing number of websites has given birth to a new job opportunity and the job description is to drive traffic to websites. Of course those who undertake such jobs understand all the different things to do or not to do so that in just a matter of weeks, perhaps days, your website will be having more visitors than you imagined possible. You may want to hire such expertise and just seat back tracking your web traffic analysis. But if you want to understand how it is done so that you spare yourself some extra expenditure, the following steps and tips to watch out for will prove invaluable to you. So here is how to get traffic to your website.
Think about your Audiences’ Impression First
The tendency to sometimes go ahead and just create a website because that is what every other person is doing out there is great. But you have to also remember that your intention is not just to have a website. It is to get to people through it. If you have already built one, no problem! You can pick up from the next point. If you are yet to, then this should be your start point. The overall design of a website really has something to do with the way people interact with your information. Here is the idea; a website for teenagers should not have the same look and feel as one done for grown - ups. So what is your target audience? There are so many templates (for those who use site building platforms like wix.com and Wordpress which are also some of the most trafficked websites. These templates as you will figure out even from their names and look are designed for different purposes. Some for businesses, some for educational purposes and yet others for online markets. The categories are many. The point is to start by making the right choices.
Ohh you are looking for how to increase traffic to your website, so you may be asking; what has that got to do with bringing traffic to my site? Well remember that as far as the term online traffic is concerned, it is not just about getting people to click on your link in google and other search engines. If you have been checking your web traffic analysis, you should know by now that getting people to stay on your site is as important as getting them to visit the site. They should be able to stay for time. If someone knocked on your door and you opened up for the person to come in but they immediately rushed out because the house was uncomfortable, you cannot call that person a visitor. Visitors to your website have to stay a while and get engaged. Having the right template and organization appropriate for what your website represent is thus important. Visitors will quickly ignore your wonderful content if you have it carelessly presented because you did not make a wise choice on your website template.
Introduce with Stunning Headlines
Have you ever gone through the first paragraph of an article and then wondered why you started reading it in the first place? My best guess is you were attracted by the headline. Those who know the importance of writing great headlines to attract visitors to their site are usually the people with some of the most awesome headlines and they will testify that it actually works. You are going to read about keywords later and how to get traffic to your website using them, but let me state here that incorporating keywords into your headlines could be a wise move.
Present irresistible content
When visitors get to your site, they are looking for information and you have to keep in mind that there are several other sites calling out for their attention. They have a choice to either click the return button or go on reading. That is what makes quality content very important as far as increasing traffic on your website is concerned. When people are seeking information on the internet, they usually do not have enough patience to go through all the information search engines bring up. If they click on your site to search for the information, you are a step ahead, though not good enough. Whatever content relates to their need at the time must be engaging enough to keep them. If it is an article, be sure you do the writing professionally. It should have what journalists call a “hook” from the very first line. Remember there are so many options online. No one will stick around your site if the content is inappropriate, or boring when there are lots of other options to exploit.
Now this is how it works. When you begin to have more people staying longer on your website, there is a greater chance your site will be placed higher on google search. That is the pride position and everyone’s eye is on the top. However, it is not left to wishes. You have to put in the diligence required. Practice daily and be diligent at improving your writing skills or else get a professional paid to do the Job. Carrying out your research and gathering information on any particular subject your site may be based on is wonderful, but putting all that information together is another issue.
If your content is great, then congratulations you have a good foundation on which to build, but the building has to begin. It takes time and persistence for even the very best of content concerning any given topic to appear at the top of the list on search engines.
Social media advertising
In considering how to increase traffic to your website, producing a great content and hoping that people find it will not exactly cut it – you have to be keen at anticipating. One interesting way to increase traffic to your website is to use social media channels to get more people engaged to your content. There are people who need to get the information on your website but sometimes they are just not looking in the right place or probably not looking hard enough. One way you can link them to your content is to present a teaser to that information on social media platforms. Each platform has a unique way of presenting such information and you have to know that. Facebook could be a great place to present engaging pictures. As they say one picture is worth a thousand words. With Facebook, you can also build an audience base by creating groups for people who are interested in what your website is all about. That helps you to more specifics with your target population. Twitter will prove to be perfect for teasing introductions or summaries of the entire write ups. So advertise your site on social media. Now do not try to overdo it. It pays off to know how much is just right.
The whole reason for advertising on social media is so that you can get people to the site. Now after giving them the teaser, it will be great if you will include a link they can simply click on to get them to the site. You will find tremendous increase in site traffic if you manage to get this right
Let Necessity place the demand
If quality must be the watchword for your site, you cannot afford to put up information simply because you feel like it or because your calendar says it’s time to. Decide to publish only when you have something very important to say, and then make sure you frequently have something important to share. That means the priority should be relevance. If you think about writing something and you figure out it is not very relevant for your target audience or you don’t have enough knowledge to give information on it, forget it. Do not let the pressure to update your site drive you to publish low quality content.
Be Smart with Keywords
In order to get as much traffic to your site as possible you should be able to use those keywords that matter in every subject you choose to write on. There are basically two types of keywords; short tail keywords and long tail keywords. Short tail keywords are those which include about two to three words. For example short tail keywords for this article could be “website traffic” or “SEO tools” and the list could go on. Long tail keywords are those which include at least three words e.g most trafficked websites or website traffic analysis. Just any phrase or word would qualify as a key phrase or key word provided they have a good number of searches online monthly.
There are several ways of getting keywords. One of the most basic ways is to use google search. You must have noticed that whenever you start to search something on google, it brings up unique suggestions which may be related to your search. Those suggestions are not just random options. They are actually keywords and phrases which are frequently searched for. So from there you can have a hint. Otherwise there are several SEO (search engine optimization) tools which can be used to automatically show you which keywords are most important for your topic of interest. Keyword Planner is one of them. It is Google’s keyword tool which is also free to use. Others like SEMrush seem to be more effective. You can also try out Serprana, Ahrefs or LongtailPro which as you should have guessed from its name is purposed to give you longtail keywords.
If you are concerned about which is preferable to use between long tail and short tail Keywords, this is what you need to know. Long tail Keywords are more specific so they actually narrow down the number of people who get to visit your site. For example, if your site is an online market and you were about to write a post on sports shoes, a short tail keyword could simply be sport shoes, while a long tail keyword could be – “comfortable sports shoes for women”. Now using the first keyword “sport shoes” for your write up will mean there is a potential for a very large number of people to visit your website. But most of these people may not necessarily be looking for female sports shoes (though that is what the post or perhaps your website is about). The disadvantage is that your bounce off rate will be high (reducing your chances of ranking top on google search).
Using the second option which is a long tail keyword will mean potentially less people will be visiting the site. However these fewer people will more certainly find the exact information they want, so they will not just pop in and jump out but will actually spend considerable time on the site and certainly are more likely to make some purchases.
Bottom line is, make a wise decision to use both keyword types and intelligently integrate them into your quality content. Most times when people tell you how to get traffic to your website, they don’t spill out this important information.
Consider Internal Linking
When you share information on your site in the form of write up, or maybe videos, try to add links that take people to other pages within your website. Refer them to information they can find on the same website but on a different page; that implies that you will not have to put everything together at all times unless it is very important.
Let’s say your website is about automobile parts; when you write about a particular part and realize that there is some important information on some other page that may be helpful in relation to the subject, make sure you direct visitors to that information through links. You should also be careful not to overdo it. A few clever internal links place here and there will be just fine. Don’t go on sharing half information on one page simply because you want to link it to another page. Using internal linking helps you keep visitors on the site. That way they don’t go looking for information elsewhere when you can keep them by giving them that information. If you adequately make use of internal linking, you are bound to see improvements on web traffic analysis.
Writing Guest Posts
One smart move you can make is to find sites related to yours and share content therein. There are many sites with a large audience you can easily get access to by writing related posts for them. That way you create traffic for the site while at the same time increasing the potential for your own site to be visited. By using guest posting, you can present yourself as a popular name in the industry, get traffic to your site and build links to your site. In order for this to work for you, you need to make careful choices. Be sure that the website or blog you are going to use has a large audience, that the audiences are connected to your niche or industry. Lastly the blog or site owner should be active on social media. There is a trick which owners of the most trafficked websites have learned and are making use of.
You can also consider getting others to guest post on your site or blog since the whole exercise generates mutual benefits.
Create Videos and alternate ways of presenting information
You can get out of the traditional, static mindset of wanting to write everything out. Try putting some information on slides, or creating short videos that vividly explain what you should otherwise have said in words.
Using YouTube videos is a great way to start. There is a large possibility of getting audiences on YouTube and what is even more interesting is the fact that these videos can easily get to your target audience since the search results on YouTube are more specific. It sure takes time to get a thousand or more view on YouTube, but if you do it well enough, you will actually get more people interested in what you have to offer within a shorter period of time. Once you have many viewers or subscribers on YouTube, you now have a good platform on which to advertise your site. You can also go ahead to place adverts, especially if your site is about sales or an online shop.
Now that we have some steps and things you need with regarding how to get traffic to your website, here are some tips on things you should not do.
It doesn’t matter how crazy you are about increasing traffic on your website and seeing improvements on web traffic analysis. There are some things you may imagine will really be great at increasing website traffic but are no go areas. So while we are looking to help you get as much traffic as possible to your website, let’s be sure that you are not undoing your own progress.
The Don’ts
Do not overuse keywords
We have talked about making use of Keywords as a means of attracting more traffic to your site. You may say to yourself…. Ohh why not use a keyword in every line of my write up? Or use as many keywords as possible? You sincerely don’t want to do that. The days when this was smart trick that could easily get you traffic are long gone. There are still a few people who will tell you it’s a great idea, but trust me it’s more like a fly playing around a candle flame because of its brightness.
Google and other search engines have figured out the trick long ago and are now capable of dealing with defaulters. Nobody wants a web page with a thousand “workout techniques to cut down fat” scattered over the place with no sensible issue communicated. Google is going to flag your site red and demote its rankings or perhaps delete the page altogether. That’s bad for business.
Do Not Overload your site
Do not put up very large capacity files and videos on your site which will just serve to slow down the site. Nobody wants to spend more time than they have to waiting for a page to load when they have tones of other options they can run back to. So while you are uploading videos, pictures or any other form of media, make sure you are using the least file size with a considerable good quality. For example, there is no need using HD video seeing that 720p quality is good enough.
The search for how to increase traffic to your website is becoming more popular by the day. There are many other tips you will find from different writers on and offline. Some of them are necessary and some are not. Summarily you may have to seek professional advice if your site is in a way unique in its purpose.