Driving traffic to your site can be tough, especially since every business is competing for the same sets of eyes. Website traffic isn’t just an indicator of how well your marketing campaigns are working; it’s an indicator of how good your website is. And when a majority of leads, conversions, and customers come from your website, you want to be sure that you’re getting quality traffic that will convert. How do you improve your website traffic? There are hundreds of ways, but we boiled it down to seven key areas that can help drive individuals to your website and bring you more business.
Expand your social media presence
If you don’t already have a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn for your business (preferably all four), get those set up as soon as you can. Your social media accounts are a great way to find customers without relying on Google’s SEO algorithms to bump you to the top of page one. Social accounts give businesses a huge opportunity to promote new products or offerings, advertise, your blog, and introduce new marketing efforts.
To effectively use social media, make sure you are using established hashtags on every post, as well as creating your own. Each post should also push people to a specific page on your site, and how you do this will depend on the social media platform. For example, Twitter and LinkedIn are great for links to new content on your site, but that’s a bit trickier on Instagram, where your “call to action” might be a link in your bio on your profile.
Improve your site’s speed and functionality
A fast, operational website is super important if you want a) Google to like your site, and b) customers to want to visit (and stay on) your site. When Google likes your website, more potential customers find you. This means an increase in traffic. Google also loves fast sites. Speeding up your site means a boost to SEO, and a better chance at a higher rank.
Your site speed is largely determined by your host, but there are small things that you can do to help speed things along. Effective use of browser caching can help speed load times. You should also evaluate your plugins. While plugins can be fun, excessive or outdated plugins can really be a drag. Go through your plugins and make sure you’re only using the ones that you need. As for functionality, make sure that your site is easy to navigate, you have a clean URL, and you aren’t suffering from any broken links.
Also, make sure you are not serving complex images in WordPress. Large or misused images can create a drag on your site and its servers.
Use digital advertising
There are many different ways to go about using digital advertising to your advantage. Besides SEO, you have pay-per-click ads, search engine ads, sponsored listings, then specific programs like Google Ads, Google Shopping Ads, Bing Ads…the list goes on. Each of these paid channels has pros and cons depending on your product and your target audience. You also have to keep your goal in mind—do you just want more visits, or do you want more customer conversions?
Outside of the browser, you can also use social media by placing ads on any of the top social media platforms. Again, your product and target audience is important to keep in mind. Social media is also a great place to retarget customers and tailor their experience to their interests.
Research keywords
Keywords are what your potential customers are typing in the search bar. They tell you where you want to focus your search engine strategy to reach your best potential customers. The keywords that customers use will depend on their “commercial intent,” or what point they are at in the shopping process. If they are early in the process and they’ve just started poking around, they might shop using broad terms (“wedding dresses,” for example). If they are shopping with high commercial intent, then they will be more specific (“wedding dress shop kansas city”). Target those individuals using high commercial intent keywords.
Identify these keywords using Google AdWords Keyword Planner, and take a look at what your competition is targeting. If a lot of ads are on the first page of the search results, then that’s where you want to be.
Vary your blog content
Regardless of how you feel about blogging, you know it’s not going anywhere. You have a blog because it’s an easy way to post fresh content, build some internal linking, and boost SEO, but a truly engaging blog can do a lot more.
If you’re posting the same old 400-word blog post every week, you’re doing it wrong. Successful content marketing has to appeal to all kinds of readers. Not everyone likes a listicle, and not everyone wants to read 3,000 words of technical jargon. Between your usual posts, invite guest bloggers, or reach out to some popular people in your industry for an interview. You’re not restricted to written content, either. Infographics and video are a great way to appeal to more visually-minded customers.
You also aren’t limited to posting new content. Overhauling past pieces works just as well, and at the rate the internet changes, you probably have some stuff back on page 54 of your blog that could use an update.
Reduce your bounce rate
Your bounce rate is the number of visitors who leave your site after viewing just one page. If this rate is too high, it can have a negative impact on your SEO. You can improve your bounce rate by evaluating two things: your site and your SEO.
If the user experience of your site is annoying or hard to navigate, people will be quick to go back to their search. The same goes if your site just isn’t interesting. Pique users’ interests by posting new content with visuals and good headlines.
Alternatively, your site could be great, but your ads aren’t reaching the right audience. People are clicking your link, but they quickly realize that what you’re offering isn’t what they’re looking for. It might be time to reevaluate your keywords and how you trying to reach your audience.
Check out the competition
As with any part of your business, it doesn’t hurt to see what the competition is up to. Where are they placing ads? Are you being retargeted after visiting their sites? How often do they post on their blog? Maybe they’re doing something you never even considered, or maybe you’ll find inspiration for a brand new idea that will set your business apart.
There are so many factors that can affect website traffic, but anything you can do to improve the user experience will surely help increase traffic in no time. First things first, though—your site speed. Without quick load times, you won’t stand a chance. With Pressable’s managed WordPress hosting plans that all come standard with a lightning-fast CDN, server scalability, and redundant architecture, your site will be ready for anything that gets thrown at it.
Amanda Nadhir
Amanda serves as the Head of Sales and Enablement for Pressable. She's worked in the tech space for well over a decade and has spent the majority of that time building/training/leading teams. She loves travel and adventure and when she's not working, you can find her spending time with her family, lounging pool/beach-side, playing tennis, working out, and meeting people/making friends all along the way!
