9 Ways To Drive More Traffic To Your Website

It is a common question. How do you drive more traffic to your website? First of all, it’s important to know what you’re doing right and what can be improved- and we’re here to help you identify these things. There are a few main topics that you should focus on, so hold on tight while we give you all the facts and maybe even a few figures!

Google Ads & SEO

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Perform Keyword Research.

To start off, always, always, always include relevant keywords in all of your content! The importance of keywords is indescribable! Place your keywords- that are relevant to your business and services-  in your page title, meta descriptions, the URL, headers and throughout general content like blogs, social posts and information pages. The natural inclusion of these words and phrases will make your site more relevant when people search for their needs. For instance, if you’re a bakery, but don’t include terms like; bakery, cakes, homemade, custom cakes, pastries etc. then how will people find you.

Make sure you’re not just throwing keywords in willy nilly though, otherwise this will have a negative impact, which is the exact opposite of what we want. Gone are the days of ‘keyword stuffing’, this no longer works in SEO and Google knows what you are doing. You need to include your keywords in a natural, flowing way that doesn’t distract the reader or flag Google and cause your website to rank lower.

Tools like SEMrush and Moz are great to use for keyword research. They offer a wealth of data that will help you expand your keyword range and in turn drive more traffic to your site. Tools like these offer information on how frequently people search for keywords, what keywords your competitors are using, how expensive the phrase is for PPC advertisements (Pay Per Click) and much more useful data to help with keyword planning.

Keyword research is one of the most important tasks a business owner (or their marketing partner) can perform. Do not underestimate how important this can be to growing your business. You will identify new areas your business can win and areas that are already saturated.

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Google Ads

Digital marketing using ads is a must-do for most modern businesses looking to scale. Google Ads and Facebook ads are the most common methods, with other social media platforms also right for many businesses.

As long as it’s done right, digital advertising is another great way of driving more traffic to your website, whether it’s through social media, paid search or display ads. However, there are a few bumps in the road of advertising. Just as you will have done, people can and do block display ads and when it comes to Google Ads. You can also waste an awful lot of money, very quickly if you do not use the right targeting and tracking methods. But when done right, it is incredible!

The potential issues should not deter you from utilising the power of digital ads as you could skyrocket your business, as we have helped other businesses achieve. We have taken businesses from zero revenue to millions in a short space of time, solely based on using digital ads. The average cost per click on the search network can be anything from a few pence, to £20 or more. Nevertheless, these are still efficient ways to drive traffic to your website, and so by setting sensible budgets and hiring the right people (like Paddle Creative!) to handle your digital marketing advertising you can and will see positive growth.

Google My Business (GMB)

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Google My Business - or GMB for short- is the most popular search referrer for both web and foot traffic. Having a Google Business Profile highly increases the chances of your company appearing when people search for services like yours in their region.

People searching for your company will see your GMB listing, which will show them where to discover, visit, and contact you. It's also a major aid in terms of SEO: when consumers use Google Maps to search for a nearby company, a listing for a local business is more likely to emerge as a top search result.

The cherry on top of this GMB cupcake is reviews. Having a GMB profile allows you to utilise GMB's built-in Reviews to collect consumer feedback, which will aid your online efforts.



Social Media

Keep Active Social Media Pages

The importance of social media in drawing visitors is enormous. Here are some ways you can utilise it to boost website traffic:

• Distribute material throughout your social media channels (blogs, e-books, journal articles, visuals, videos, etc.).
• Respond to followers, repost their material, and tag them in your posts.
• Make use of relevant hashtags.
• When you release new material, update your bio's link to promote it.
• To push fresh material, change the cover photo and tag people who might be interested.
• Include interesting material to entice visitors to click on the link.
• Respond to those who are seeking solutions with links to your work.

The most important rule to remember is social media should not be seen as a sales tool. People do not use social media to buy, you need to add value to your customers in some way and eventually that will result in increased sales. Value and shareable content is for the win in social media. Organic reach of social posts is dropping, and so do not discount utilising the power of social media ads to boost your online profile and drive traffic to your website.

Just remember, the number of Instagram followers you have is not actually relevant, it’s how many engaged followers you have who may become customers or help you gain customers. An Instagram follower does not pay the bills, customers do. So figure out how to harness social media channels to build rapport with your customers.

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Create Memorable Content

Leading on from this, just posting any content isn’t going to get you anywhere; you need to create content that has something a little more special to it. Your content needs to be memorable, eye-catching, interesting! It’s a fact that content that is useful and memorable is one of the top ways to increase website traffic- so keep it in mind…

People turn to Google to get detailed, complete, and correct answers to their questions, and your material should be there to supply those answers. In fact, websites that have blogs create 434% more search engine-indexed pages than sites without them. Furthermore, sites that produce more than 16 content items per month receive roughly 3.5 times the amount of traffic as those who release 0 to 4 content items per month.

So, what we’re trying to tell you is that when you care about the content you produce, people notice, and when you post this much loved content regularly, people get interested. Add that all together and you should end up with: higher website traffic.

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Direct Referrals

Effective branding and brand awareness will lead to an increase in website traffic and customers. But how do you gain new customers through brand awareness I hear you ask?

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Write Guest Posts.

Guest posting on other people's websites is a great strategy to increase referral traffic, get backlinks and improve your search engine results page (SERP) ranks. Always do your homework before pitching a website in your sector.

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Email marketing

There is no getting away from it, email marketing does not have the bite it once had. Add to that, email marketing a ‘newsletter’ to all of your contacts is not going to cut it. Segmentation of your data and using it carefully with personalised content that matters to your readers will boost brand awareness, website traffic and ultimately, sales!

If you have a good quality data set from current customers and prospects (that you have permission to contact) the first-step is to segment (tag) the users. This allows you to define what each user wants to read. If you do not have a data set, there are a few ways to increase subscribers, including free guides, how-to’s, special offers and many other ways that will give something of value to your potential customers. People are data-savvy nowadays and so you need to give a lot away before people trust you enough to hand over their information, rightly so!

Promoting content through email newsletters is an effective way to increase website traffic. Here are a few email marketing best practises:

• You need to be aware of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and know how you can use your data.
• Send targeted emails as opposed to blanket ‘newsletters’.
• Use well-designed templates and optimise pictures to make the email aesthetically appealing and enticing.
• Make use of personalisation techniques by including the subscriber's name.
• In the subject line and body of the email, provide appealing information from the material.
• Insert clear call to actions that subscribers can click to read more of the content, which leads to a highly relevant landing page.
• Ensure that your emails are mobile-friendly. Considering 46% of all email openings occur on mobile devices, links should be easily visible.
• A/B test different versions of emails to identify which ones get more opens and clicks.

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Offline

Exchange Backlinks

There are several prospects for backlink exchanges with so many organisations wanting to enhance website traffic. Contact relevant websites and offer your information as a supplement to one of their articles. You may up the ante by suggesting a mutually advantageous backlink swap, in which you offer to include one of their links in a post of yours.

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PR

PR, or Public Relations was once viewed as the most effective area of the marketing mix. It still has its place today! This can be offline or online or a mix of both but the bottom line is if you gain exposure in media outlets and trade publications, this will drive traffic to your website, in addition to benefiting your brand awareness.

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So now you know 9 ways to drive more traffic to your website! But don’t forget, if you have any queries or just want to have a quick chat, you can easily get in touch with us- we’re here to help!