25 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Digital nomads, online business owners, affiliate marketers…they all need customers and they get those customers through website traffic. There are numerous methods you can use increase traffic to a website, and here are some ways to do just that…

1. Change Things Up

Change up the length and format of your content to make it as appealing as possible to a wide range of readers. Mix in short, news-based posts with longer content. Include video, infographics and data-driven pieces for the greatest impact.

2. Link Internally

When you create your content, look for opportunities to create internal links. This will help with your SEO, but also make a richer and more useful experience for your readers.

3. Add Video Content

Video in combination with your text content can be a valuable tool in attracting new visitors and making your site more engaging. Information retention is higher for visual material than it is for text, hence the use of video content will hold your audience’s attention and boost traffic to your website as well.

4. Advertise

Advertising methods like paid search, social media advertising and display advertising are all first-rate ways of attracting visitors to a website, building a brand and getting your site out to people. Some strategies focus more on increased traffic while others strive to increase conversions. If you’re expecting that more traffic will equate to more sales, then you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords with your paid search strategies. Keep in mind, competition for these search terms can be fierce and pricey, but the payoffs can be worth it.

5. Make Sure Your Site is Fast

Because no one likes waiting for pages to load. Make sure that your site is as technically optimized as can be. Think about the size of your images files, page structure and how many third-party plugins you have running. The faster your site loads, the better.

6. Good Headlines

Headlines are one of the key pieces of your content. Without a great headline to draw people, even the most interesting blog post will go unread. Master the art of headline writing. Check out another of our blog posts on the topic…

7. Use Analytics

Google Analytics is a precious source of data on just about every possible aspect of your site, from your most popular pages to visitor demographics. Watch your analytics data and use this information to shape your content strategies. See which of your posts and pages the most popular. Examine visitor data to see where your traffic is coming from and when.

8. Use Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords make up a good chunk of web searches. If you’re not using them as part of your SEO efforts, you could be missing out.  

9. Use Your On-Page SEO

Optimizing your content for search engines is still a valuable and worthwhile practice. Are you making the most of the text boxes for your images? Do you create internal links to your content? Do you use meta descriptions? It’s really not a hard thing to do and it could seriously boost your organic traffic.

10. Get Referral Traffic

Generate content that is such high quality that others will naturally want to link to it..

11. Interview People In Your Industry

You’ll be surprized how readily people will consent to being interviewed just by asking them. Send out interview requests by email to people in your industry and post the interviews on your blog. The celebrity will rub off on your blog and their followers will certainly check out your site, thereby increasing traffic.

12. Host Webinars

Webinars are an ideal way to share your thoughts and ideas with your audience and increase traffic to your website. Hold them on a regular schedule so people know when to tune in or send out emails to your subscribers in the days leading up to your webinar. Remember to record them and post them on your site for later viewing.

13. Don’t Forget To Do Your Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool. Build your subscriber list and use it to remind your reads when you have a new post, offer or update on your site. But whatever you do, avoid bombarding your readers with email after email regarding every single update in your business. That will drive more people away than bring them back to your site.

14. Use Social Media

The use of social media to promote your content is a great method for increasing traffic to your website. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and many other social media sites are all effective tools to get your content to show up in personalized search results.

15. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly

More people than ever today are using mobile devices to access the web. If you are making your mobile readers pinch and scroll their way around your site, you’re going to lose readers. Make sure your website is accessible and easily viewable across a range of devices, particularly smaller smartphones.

16. Create A Sense of Community

Building a community into your site is a great way to get conversations going and increasing traffic to your website. Having a commenting system through third-party solutions like Facebook comments or Disqus, or creating a dedicated forum where visitors can ask questions is how to do this. Be interactive with your community and set standards of decorum.

17. Become Known In Other Comment Sections

You most likely frequent a few sites that are related to your business, so why not join the conversation? Commenting doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate boost to referral traffic right away, but letting people know who you are by providing insightful and intelligent comments on related blogs and sites is a great way to get things started. This may eventually lead to more traffic to your own site. Don’t spam and don’t drop links in every post. 

18. Post Your Content On LinkedIn

While most people think LinkedIn is just about finding a job, it’s also a huge publishing platform in its own right. You should be posting content to LinkedIn regularly. Doing so could increase traffic to your site and boost your profile within your industry.

19. Schema Microdata

Implementing Schema Microdata won’t directly increase traffic to your website by itself but it will make it easier for search engines to find and index your pages.

20. Guest Blogging

Landing a guest post spot on a reputable site can increase blog traffic to your own website and help build your brand as well.

21. Have Other Guest Blog On Your Site Too

Guest blogging works both ways. Just like posting content on other blogs, ask people to blog on your own site. They’re likely to share their contribution with their readers and that should bring new readers to your site. Avoid guest bloggers who hawk low quality spammy content.

22. Get Active on Social Media

Don’t just put your content up on social media, get involved with your community too! Join group discussions, respond to comments left on your Facebook posts. Engage with your friends, followers and readers. Nothing turns people off quicker than using social media as a broadcast channel. Use social media as it was intended and actually interact with your fans.

23. Go To Industry Conferences

Attending events pertinent to your industry is a good idea to make connections, get exposure for your site, learn new ideas and tactics and start to establish a reputation for yourself as an industry leader.

24. Post Your Content to Aggregator Sites (like Reddit)

Be judicious when you do this because nothing good ever comes about from utilizing a ‘spam’ strategy. Look for sites that pertain to your niche, post something useful and pertinent and let the traffic come your way.

25. Research the Competition

Use software like BuzzSumo to see what others in your industry are doing. By looking at the performance of specific sites and their content, you can see what topics are echoing with readers and what’s trending on social media. See what people are reading and following and match your content to get more traffic.

What ideas do you use that aren’t listed here? Leave a comment below and help get the conversation going!