15 Methods to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Oct 1, 2021 | Website Traffic

Respond to Niche-Specific Inquiries

Wherever your potential customers are in the buying cycle, they’re going to have questions. These could be top-of-funnel questions (such as “what is content marketing?”) or bottom-of-funnel questions such as “which content marketing tools are best for content planning?”. Let us look at the 15 Methods to Drive Traffic to Your Website.

By responding to these questions, you’re putting your business in front of potential customers at any stage of the buying cycle. Thus, how do you discover the questions that prospective customers are asking?

Google search should be your first choice. Simply searching for your subject will generate ideas. Consider the following questions. Google provides you with the types of questions to answer directly in the search results. As well, individuals inquire’ Section on Google search queries

These are Additionally Asked Questions boxes (or PAA boxes). Obtaining placement for your content in them is a surefire way to increase website traffic. Additionally, you’ll notice that as you click these search results, you’ll receive an increasing number of questions to answer. How convenient. Additional related search terms in Google Search’s ‘People also ask’ section.

All you have to do is begin collecting this data and incorporating it into your FAQ and Q&A content. And, fear not, there are many methods to automate the collection of this data. If you want to gather data directly from the search results, you may do it with the help of a plugin such as SEO Minion. To take it a step further, you may utilize a freemium tool such as AlsoAsked or Answerthepublic.

Create Content That Is Evergreen

Let us be clear: We are not opposed to seasonal material. If you offer a seasonal product or service, creating seasonal content makes sense. However, if you want to maintain year-round visitors to your site, you must develop evergreen content.

However, what constitutes evergreen content?

It’s fairly self-explanatory – it’s content that can generate visitors to your site all year. There are fewer dips and peaks, which results in more constant and dependable traffic. There are many forms for evergreen content (and the majority of the subjects and concepts are covered in the tools listed below), but the following are some of the most consistently effective.

• How-to manuals
• Q&As and Frequently Asked Questions
• Procedures or lessons that are step-by-step
• The definitive guideboo
• Reviews and round-ups of products
• Training manuals

One method to ensure that this kind of evergreen material remains effective is to update it on a regular basis. Conduct periodic reviews of the material to ensure that the advice is current and relevant. In this manner, you can continue to drive relevant visitors to your site year after year. It’s the perpetual gift!

Related: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Blog Post

Create Visually Appealing Content

It’s worth mentioning that using this strategy increases your chances of obtaining links and visibility on other websites, which will eventually help drive traffic to your site – that is, unless you can associate your graphics with the kind of information people are actively looking for.

What kind of graphic material are you capable of creating? You probably need to consider the following:

Visualizing niche-specific data.

Infographics assist people in quickly grasping complex concepts.

Photographs that you may license under the Creative Commons license, which can result in your company being mentioned on other websites.

Compile Roundups of Experts

Another tried-and-true method of increasing traffic to your site is via the creation of expert round-ups in your field. It can be relatively simple to persuade members of your industry to share their perspectives on a particular subject, after all, we’re all trying to promote our businesses.

The wonderful thing about expert roundups is that they help both parties. You acquire content. When shared by its participants, content has the potential to drive traffic. And participants benefit from the exposure they receive as a result of their appearance on your site You can easily locate industry experts by utilizing tools such as Ahrefs, Buzzsumo, and Buzzstream Discovery all of which are mentioned later in this article.

You can then contact the experts and request their opinion on an evergreen subject. It’s a win-win-win strategy for content marketing.

Constantly Repurpose

Whatever type of traffic-generating content you create, you must ensure that you maximize its effectiveness. Use the material more than once. Utilize it across many channels to maximize your investment. Do you need some inspiration? The following are some strategies for repurposing your content marketing.

A presentation can be recorded and uploaded to a podcasting service such as YouTube. The same presentation can be transcribed using a service such as Otter Voice Meeting Notes and transformed into a blog post with some editing.

Guides and blog posts’ visual content can be repurposed for social media. Blog posts can be sent out on a regular basis to an email marketing list. Internal processes can be transformed into whitepapers.

Combine blog postings with fresh whitepapers and eBooks material. Curate your teams’ tweets for roundups of advice and resources. The list could go on indefinitely. Additionally, the more locations where your material appears, the more opportunities you have to direct visitors back to your site.

Refresh Stale Content

What about the material you’ve already created? Is it experiencing a decline in traffic? Did it reach a zenith before gradually declining? Don’t neglect it; with a little bit of love, you can give it the kiss of life, which is far faster and less expensive to create than another piece of material.

There are many methods for identifying inactive material – the most apparent place to begin is through Google Analytics or Google Search Console. If the work has previously been done well, it stands to assume that it can do so again.

Recently, a few programs have emerged that evaluate this data for you. And anything that eliminates any physical work is a huge plus in our book. Two of the most popular are Revive and ClickFlow’s content degradation functions. Resurrect examples of articles that need to be updated.

Not all content marketing entails the creation of new material. You must keep an eye on previous work. At times, it is advantageous to look both backward and forward.

Everything should be promoted

Yes, you can produce incredible, high-quality material. That is not to say that readers will flock to it, share it, and link to it. That occurs seldom. Numerous excellent pieces of content marketing have been discarded because the team behind them believed that the audience would just show up. Therefore, how can you increase page views? Simply put, via marketing. You should be marketing.

Here are some certain methods for attracting attention to your content. And it is when those eyes are on your content that you will receive the social shares and links necessary for it to be successful.

Always Engage in Outreach

It is critical to reach out. You must get your content in front of the appropriate audience. They are those who share your content; they are those who link to your content; and they are those who can help spread the word about your content.

However, how do you begin with outreach?

It all starts with a list. You compile a list of websites and journalists who are both relevant to your niche and the content you create. And when we say list, we are not referring to a group of ten or fifteen people. Outreach is a difficult task with a poor response rate. To get a positive return on your outreach efforts, you must create lists with hundreds of sites and journalists.

Analyze Data to Discover Similar Content

Therefore, what is the most effective methods for locating these websites and journalists? Consider a few of the most popular options.

Ahrefs allows you to search for websites and journalists based on their subject matter. With a few clicks and some further refinement of the search results, you can collect data for hundreds of relevant websites. This eliminates several hours of manual labor.

The data it collects for you includes (but is not limited to) the following:

• The pages that contain similar content (and by default, the site).
• Authors of distinction.
• The domain’s rating (critical if you want to build links).
• The total number of domains linking to a particular piece of content.
• Traffic volume is estimated.
• Who posted the information on Twitter.

Along with useful content research tools, Buzzsumo has a subject function that enables you to create mass outreach lists. You may see the following data:

Content that is currently trending and popular on your chosen topic. That is all well and good, but you must then save all of that data in a centralized location in order to monitor your efforts. When you’re on a tight budget, a shared Google Sheet is sufficient. If you have a team, purpose-built tools such as Pitchbox or Buzzstream will be more beneficial.

These tools will enable you to submit the lists you’ve generated in order to qualify the results and contact the individuals you’re looking to reach.

Keeping track of as much as possible is important for outreach and ensuring your material is seen. If no one sees it, it will never succeed.

Think About Guest Posting

Didn’t Google previously advise us to “put a fork” in guest blogging? Wasn’t it “completed” a few years ago? True, but it does not imply you should disregard it as a tool for promoting your content – when done properly, it remains a useful strategy.

So what are you to do?

Essentially, you should seek opportunities to guest post on high-quality websites. However, what constitutes a good website? We’re happy you inquired

Here are a few things to consider while selecting a blog for which to guest post.

Is the site receiving a reasonable quantity of traffic?

Is it primarily focused on your topic (you’ll want to avoid broad “we-cover-everything” sites)

• Is it staffed by recognized or experienced authors or does it rely on guest contributors?
• Is the site well-indexed by Google?
• Is the site’s social engagement high?
• Is the site appropriate for your intended audience?

At the end of the day, when it comes to identifying and developing a guest blogging strategy, quality must always take precedence over quantity. Google is adept at detecting trends, and if it believes you’re attempting to cheat the system, you may find yourself in hot water with the search engine’s ruling class.

Communicate with Influencers

For many years, influencers have been a popular subject, with many receiving significant support from some of the world’s largest companies. However, influencer marketing is not exclusive to high-flying companies; small businesses may participate as well.

Additionally, influencer marketing is effective in almost every area. All you need to do is know where to search. For instance, you would almost certainly not employ an Instagram influencer to generate traffic to an attorney’s website – the two are incompatible.

So how do you go about identifying influencers that are a good match for your company and the material on your website?

However, it is not just about social media. Bloggers are influencers as well, and they may be very successful in driving traffic and brand exposure. While social media is time-sensitive, blog content can generate a steady stream of traffic for significantly longer periods of time.

There are numerous tools available to assist you in locating and engaging with these influencers. Listed below are a few of the most popular:

• Buzzsumo
• Pitchbox
• Grouphigh

Make Use of Email Marketing

Email marketing appears to be a little out of date. Are emails even opened anymore? Surely they do not click on links or make purchases as a result of them? In a nutshell, no, it is not out of date. People are still reading emails, clicking links, and purchasing the products promoted in those emails.

Email marketing isn’t looking quite as terrible as it used to, is it?

Regrettably, you cannot just create a MailChimp account (or whatever your email marketing service of choice might be). You need email addresses.

Increase Your Email List Size

There are many methods, techniques, and strategies for obtaining email subscribers, including (but not limited to) the following:

Encouraging sign-ups (with a discount, for example).

Hiding material behind a paywall that is only accessible to subscribers.

Placing call-to-actions across your website.

However, they will be ineffective unless you already have a regular stream of visitors.

So how can you encourage folks to subscribe to your email list if they aren’t visiting your site?

Participate in activities. Contribute to their support. Address them. Take them in.

Conduct a contest. Numerous websites host competitions on behalf of other businesses, which provide prizes. The majority will require email addresses as part of the entry requirements.

In your email signature, promote your newsletter.

Create social media advertisements that encourage sign-ups – for instance, by promising (and delivering) excellent material in return for an email address.

Create Online Communities

Participating in online communities can help you not only increase traffic to your website but also establish your business as an authority in its niche.

There are numerous ways to accomplish this, but in our experience, the following methods generate the most traffic.

Quora is a website dedicated to answering prospective customers’ questions. Additionally, Quora pages frequently rank well in Google, providing you with more visibility than you would receive through your own website.

As with any community, you must ensure that your responses to questions and advice are unbiased. Never promote your products or services; otherwise, you risk being flagged and your responses (i.e., your hard work) being removed.

Reddit is a behemoth of the internet, receiving approximately 1.5 billion monthly visits according to Similarweb. If you can find subreddits that are relevant to your niche, Reddit can be a valuable source of traffic.

However, a word of caution: Never, ever self-promote. If you do, your posts will be quickly deleted. If you participate in discussions about your topic and provide valuable insight, you may discover that you can share your content later and receive excellent results. However, exercise caution at all times.

It’s also worth familiarizing yourself with the rules of each subreddit in which you participate, as they vary considerably.

Be a Resource on Forums

Many marketers despise forums as a method of increasing traffic, owing to their long history as an “easy” link-building tool. However, forums are not entirely spam-free. They can (and frequently are) used legitimately to drive traffic.

Due to the fact that the majority of popular forums have been around for several years, they typically have a large number of active members. They are not, in fact, forums. They are communities formed around a shared interest in a particular subject.

While forums may appear to be out of date, this does not mean they lack an audience, and any engaged audience is worth tapping.

If you find the right forums and contribute in a genuine and helpful manner, you can consistently drive traffic to your site. There are a few points to keep in mind, however

Avoid posting links to your content too frequently this may be construed as spammy.

Provide detailed responses to questions that demonstrate your status as a go-to industry expert.

Share high-quality content on a consistent basis.

So how did you come across these forums? Google is the obvious place to start. A quick search typically yields several viable options. Additionally, there are programs such as Find a forum that may assist you in narrowing down forums within your specialty.

To determine the amount of traffic that each of the forums you choose receives, you may use a program like Similar web. This will give you an estimate of the number of visits they get each month.

Integrate a Community into Your Website

If you’re in a niche where people are fervent, you may want to consider adding a community to your website.

This may be a regular forum or something more like to Product Hunt’s selected community. Whatever path you choose, you must ensure that it is the best one for your audience. As these communities develop in size, they attract additional members, who will engage with your business since they are integrated within your site.

Additionally, the material created by your community may generate extra traffic by being discovered in search results and through social media. Passionate individuals may assist in driving traffic.

A word of caution, however: managing communities may be time-consuming, and you must ensure that material is controlled. Additionally, you may want to consider rewarding engagement, at least until your community gets traction. One excellent method to do this is to reward members via a loyalty program.

Increase Organic Traffic Through SEO

We couldn’t create an article on how to increase website traffic without including search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). It’s a long-term strategy with significant rewards. However, what is it? And why should you give a damn?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a broad term that refers to a variety of techniques and procedures used to help websites rank higher in organic search engine results pages (SERPs).

The term SERPs refers to Search Engine Results Pages. Organic refers to the natural or “free” part of the search engine results pages (SERPs). In other words, it’s the part of search engines where you don’t have to pay to be seen (and who wouldn’t want that?!)

This post will not be able to teach you all you need to know about SEO. SEOs (those who practice SEO or work in it on a daily basis as a profession) spend years perfecting their skill and countless hours staying current on industry developments. Rather than that, we’re going to discuss some important SEO concepts.

Concentrate on Keywords

Keyword research is the process of determining which keywords can assist increase traffic to a website. Typically, we assess the “value” of a keyword using three metrics:

• Relevancy
• Volume of searches
• Competition

As a result, you would disregard or filter them out of your study. Additional factors to consider when determining relevance include brand phrases (you do not want to be optimizing your site for a competitor’s name!). or too broad words.

The search volume of a term is the number of individuals that enter it into search engines (or saying it over voice search.) This is critical since increased search volume equates to a higher possibility for driving visitors to your website. However, search volume alone does not indicate if a keyword is a good fit for you. Additionally, you must consider the competition.

Also known as keyword difficulty, keyword competition is a numerical value between 0 and 100 that indicates how difficult it is to target a particular keyword (or in other words, whether you have a hope in Peoria of ranking for the keyword in question.)

This is not as straightforward as “if there is too much competition, you will not rank” or “if there is too little competition, you will rank.” Additionally, you must consider the site’s strength.

A newly launched site will have few if any, incoming links. This means it will have a low Domain Authority and will struggle to rank for competitive keywords. On the other hand, a site with a DA of 90+ could theoretically target almost any keyword.

Invest in a Keyword Analysis Tool

Numerous SEO tools can help you with keyword research (and you’d be hard-pressed to do it manually). The key is to choose a tool that fits your needs (and is within your budget.)

For years, Google’s Keyword Planner was the go-to tool for keyword research. Regrettably, Google does not seem to agree. The tool has been hacked and altered to the point where it is largely useless unless you are specifically researching keywords to advertise on Google — a shame, given that it is free. Additionally, see How to Conduct Keyword Research for Your WordPress Blog.

Improve Your Website’s Performance

After you’ve completed your keyword research, it’s time to optimize the site, particularly the title and h> tags, as well as the content (the body of the page).

On-page SEO is critical since incorporating your target keywords inside your h> tags and on-page content may help you rank for them. Additionally, your meta title acts as a call-to-action inside the SERPs, encouraging users to click through to your site rather than a competitor’s (or it will if you create a decent one!) However, avoid going excessive with the keyword use. Write for clicks first, then for keywords.

Meta descriptions are another critical component of optimization. Unlike title tags, h> tags, and body content, meta descriptions have no bearing on search engine rankings. However, they do have an effect on clicks (potentially more so than title tags).

Meta descriptions are used to summarize the contents of a page. They often double as sales pitches. Utilize them to succinctly summarize the contents of a page and, where possible, its unique selling proposition (USP).

Enhance Technical Capability

Some of the most significant roadblocks to organic search performance and, consequently, clicks are technical in nature. Websites with obvious technical errors will have difficulty ranking. They may not rank at all in extreme cases. Consider Google’s Core Web Vitals initiative, which offers increased ranks for websites that provide a fast user experience (UX) to their users.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. Which helps me support the channel to make quality content and recommend products for you.