“What can I do to get more traffic to my website?”
Believe it or not, this is a very popular question; bringing new visitors to a website and keeping them coming back for more is something that just about every website owner and blogger deals with at some point. And honestly most site owners and bloggers think about this question almost every day which should give you an idea of just how important it can be.
No matter what your company does or what you write about, the primary focus of everything you do should be the people who visit your website. If you can identify their needs, you can give them what they want… and if you can give them what they want, they’ll keep coming back again and again.
How Can I Give People What They Want & Get More Web Traffic Doing It?
- Be authentic – You might think that being authentic means promoting a genuine product, and you would be right, but not always in the sense that you’re selling something physical. Being authentic means being true to yourself and not trying to pretend to be something you’re not. If you’re not a subject matter expert and you still want to blog about something, just say so! Readers will appreciate your honesty. If you’re selling something, give as many references, testimonials, and reviews as you can for each product and then have a way for people to ask you questions in case they want to learn more from a real person.
- Be original – Originality is more than just being unique; unique content is going to help you out in the eyes of search engines (and never hurts with visitors to your site) but if it’s not original, all the uniqueness in the world won’t help you increase web traffic to your website or blog. Content needs to be unique and useful as well as original in order to be seen as truly valuable to someone visiting your site.
- Engage your visitors – You’re probably seeing all kinds of talk online about engaging your customers, and you’ll be happy to know it’s more than just a hot new buzz-word! Engaging your customers (or all of your visitors) means connecting with them and encouraging them to interact with you. For blogs this is often done through the comments, and all pages (websites, blogs, etc) can benefit from having a contact form ready in case anyone wants to get in touch.
- Be relevant – Stick to talking about things that are relevant to your business, blogs, etc. If you sell surfboards, your pages are not the best place to talk about taking care of a pet rock; just use common sense with this one and you’ll go far. The only exception to this rule are mash-up posts where a blogger will compare/combine two very different topics to create a useful and informative post. Approach this one with caution!
- Embrace different media – It’s not just about words anymore! Visitors are flocking to websites and blogs that make use of different kinds of media including text. Videos, audio, animations, and even interactive buttons and slideshows are all different types of interactive content that you can add to your pages to encourage people to stay on your site longer and then come back again later on.
- Be a little mysterious – It’s not a bad idea to keep just a little bit back for next time. This is especially true for bloggers and any website owner or blogger working with a larger marketing campaign. If you put everything out there the first time, then you won’t have anything left to share next time. This ties in to thinking for the long term.
- Stick to your brand – Don’t change your message just to attract visitors to your website; if you do, these people will likely realise that you’re not being very authentic, and this will lead them to question whether or not they can trust your message. Lack of trust leads to them leaving your site, not returning, and not telling any of their friends. The moral of the story, stick to your brand and be mindful of everything you do as it affects how people will see and remember your brand.
- Just give it away – Everybody loves free stuff! Free things you can offer through your website are only limited by your imagination; if you’re strapped for cash or items to give away, why not give away your time or something you can write? An eBook or other handout-style document is a great way to share information with people who visit your site and is a good give-away because PDF files can be downloaded and saved for later reference.
- Be consistent – Just like sticking with your brand, being consistent is one of the best ways to keep people coming back for more. People like to know that you’re going to keep doing things that are going to deliver the same quality of content again and again. You can change things like adding different types of media (if is improves the point of the information around it) and still maintain a consistent level of quality in your work. This also applies to how often you do things like post to your blog, interact with your visitors, etc. Keeping things consistent encourages website traffic because it assures people that you’re there and you’re serious about helping them.
- Think long-term – Make sure you’re thinking about more than just getting a lot of visitors RIGHT NOW. Sure, a jump in traffic will help you now, but if you do not plan ahead you might find yourself making a mad dash for new traffic more and more often as people are exposed to your site and then lose interest. If you’ve been keeping a little bit back (being mysterious) then you should have something new to share every so often, keeping visitors interested and eager to learn more from your site.
- Help people share the love – Two words: Social Media. It’s here. It’s hot, and everybody’s using it! By adding social media buttons, links, widgets, etc to your website or blog you are making it easier for people to share your site with people they know, and we all know how much we like it when someone makes something easier for us!
Don’t limit yourself to just focusing on repeat web traffic; stack the odds in your favou by doing everything you can to encourage all kinds of traffic to your website from both unique and repeat visitors. Even if you only try a few of these things you are still making an effort to deliver a high-quality experience to your customers and they will appreciate it – and show this appreciation by coming back to your pages again and again!
