9 Ways To Drive Traffic To Your Website
So, you’ve got an amazing product and this incredible website, but nobody seems to be finding it. Or, at least, not enough people for your liking.
I know how frustrating this is. A few years back I had this challenge myself.
I thought I could fix it by hiring an experienced digital marketing agency but that did not go as I hoped (understatement). I’ll write about that one day but for now please take my work for it and don’t hire a digital marketing agency until you properly understand it yourself.
There are lots of effective ways to drive traffic to your website and the world of digital marketing can feel overwhelming at first. But the most important starting point in my eyes is finding the way/ways that are most suitable for YOU.
Before you start: 2 critical things
Before we get into this, however, I want to check something super critical. Before spending any time and money trying to drive traffic to your website you need to:
Have some form of website analytics tool set up and running well
Check that your website is set up for conversion
There’s is absolutely no point in spending time and money driving traffic to a website that isn’t set up in the right way. Use this checklist to find out.
Similarly, there's no point driving traffic if you don’t have visibility (through an analytics tool) of what’s working and what’s not. Depending on the website platform you’re using, you’ll likely have some in-built analytics but I recommend setting up Google Analytics too.
Is More Better With Marketing?
Let’s also cover something very important. Something else I learned the hard way. Something that will save you a lot of time and stress…
Don’t try and do everything at once. The best way to grow your website traffic is to pick one or two tactics and go all in on them. Once that’s working, add in another.
It may feel like the more tactics you throw at it, the more traffic you’ll get but each one needs time and attention, and you’ll have far better results if you focus on getting one right (and then systemised) before you start working on another.
Which marketing strategy is best?
The answer to this lies with you, and how you want to spend your time and money. Each marketing channel comes with a different ‘cost’ - some are free and time consuming, others require little time but a budget to fuel them.
Some people love to create content, whether it’s writing articles or making videos. To others that’s their idea of hell. There’s a channel to suit everyone and I highly recommend you think about that when choosing your approach.
With that in mind, here are 9 effective ways to increase your website traffic.
Use Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is exactly as it sounds; it’s the process of optimising your website for search engines, such as Google, so that it ranks higher in the listings. The goal is to appear in the search results on page one (or as close as you can get) when someone searches for a product or service you provide. The higher up the list you are, the more people will visit your website.
There are various ways in which you can optimise your website in this way, in both the settings of your website and its content.
SEO is great because it’s free, i.e. people are finding you because of ‘organic’ ranking, not paid. However, it’s not something that will drive traffic overnight. Search engines promote businesses based on how credible they are and it takes time for them to learn this.
I highly recommend you learn a bit about SEO and get the basics right from day one but, due to its speed, you may not want to make it your sole marketing strategy.
2. Write Amazing Content
Content marketing is the process of using high-quality content to appear ‘organically’ in front of your ideal audience. An example of this is having a blog or tutorials on your website.
The key to a successful content marketing strategy is making sure it’s ‘high-quality’. Content marketing isn’t simply about volume, it’s about creating and posting content that is truly great.
Excellent quality content not only helps with SEO but it also keeps people engaged for longer once they’re on your website, making them more likely to stick (and click) around. If it’s really great, they may even share it, which will drive even more traffic to your website.
If you’re writing your own content then this is another free way to increase your website traffic.
3. Build An Email List
I’m a big advocate for email marketing and think every business should be doing it. Once someone has signed up to your email list you can send high quality content straight to their inbox. If this content is good it will drive them to visit your website. If it’s great, as with content marketing, it will inspire them to share it too.
No matter what stage you’re at with your business, in my humble opinion, you should be building and nurturing an email list. I talk more about why it’s so important here. And if you need help with getting started, here are the most effective ways to build your list.
4. Grow A Social Media Following
Social media marketing is a form of content marketing, where you use social media platforms, such as Instagram, to build an audience for brand awareness and affinity.
If you plan to use social media marketing to grow your business, it’s important to remember that you don’t own the audience you’re building. What I mean by this is that how visible you are to your audience is dependent on the platform itself, and they change the rule a LOT.
It’s not uncommon to build up a big audience just to find that no-one is seeing your posts as there’s been a change in the way the platform operates. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use social media platforms, but more that you should be conscious to:
Use them to drive traffic to your website, where you capture the audience a different way, i.e. email sign up
Stay up to date with the latest changes to the platform and how to get the most out of it
The key to a successful social media marketing strategy is to remember that social media platforms are very personal and people use them for social connections, entertainment and education.
If you are delivering content that adds value for them in this sense then people will engage with it / you and want to follow you for more content. On the flip side, being salesy on social media or talking too much about yourself / your brand will turn people off, so avoid it.
Personally, I think that whilst social media works for some businesses, it doesn’t tend to drive sales for a lot of others. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you HAVE to build a social media following. Think about whether it’s truly right for both your brand and for you, yourself.
Posting social media content and growing a following takes a LOT of work. And, if it’s not work you enjoy, there are plenty of other ways to drive website traffic.
5. Use Paid Advertising
There are many different platforms on which you can advertise these days, but the main ones are Google, Facebook and now TikTok. Paid advertising is powerful as it can be highly targeted and get your businesses in front of thousands of new people.
However, the risk with paid advertising is that it costs you money regardless of the results. It can take a while to find a strategy that works and even then, if something on the platform changes, you may wake up to find what was working yesterday doesn’t today.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can outsource this before you understand it yourself. Sadly, there are lots of ‘digital marketing agencies’ out there preying on small business owners - charging thousands and not getting any results.
If you want to try paid digital advertising, learn the basics and test it out yourself. If you can land on a strategy that works then it can be phenomenal for business growth. When I finally took the time to learn about Facebook ads properly I grew my online sales from £2k/month to £33k/month in just 4 months.
6. Open An Affiliate Program
With so many people building audiences online, it makes sense to team up with others in your niche and share audiences. Affiliate marketing is the process of working with other online creators to drive traffic to your website. The affiliate is paid a commission if someone they send your way makes a purchase.
Affiliate marketing is tracked through unique links that can tell how someone came to be on your website. These are set up to track purchases that happen in a window of time following the initial click - 30 days is pretty standard.
As tracking can be complex it’s best to use an existing affiliate platform to manage the process. I’ve always used Awin and think it’s a great tool. Not only can you find affiliate partners yourself, but they can find you too, so you end up working with a lot more people this way.
The key to running a successful affiliate campaign is:
Set an attractive commission structure (and make sure you can afford it)
Seek out the right partners, i.e. people with an appropriate following in your niche - note that I say appropriate, not massive - yes, massive is good, but only if they are the right people
Build real relationships with people, as this will result in stronger (and more) collaborations
7. Write Guest Posts For Other People
Similar to affiliate marketing, this can be an effective way of sharing audiences. As long as you write a post for their audience on a topic that will really engage them then you will find that some of those people want to learn more about you.
Marketing based on audience sharing can be especially effective, as your content is reaching people via a source that they already know and trust.
To incorporate this strategy into your marketing plan, connect with other creators who serve the same audience but have complimentary offerings to you. Then tailor your content proposals so that it benefits both of you - it should add something new to their website, helping them drive traffic, and also position you as an authority on something that their audience will want to learn more about by following you.
8. Collaborate With Other Businesses On Giveaways
Another way to approach audience sharing is through competitions and giveaways. You often see these run on social media platforms.
To run a collaboration giveaway, find other businesses with complimentary offerings to yours and see if they’d like to team up. Put together a prize that has offerings from everyone and then share the entry rules across all of your platforms.
Often the rules are that you need to follow everyone’s social media account and tag in other people - this is to raise awareness and grow all of your accounts simultaneously.
If growing your social media following is important to you then collaborations can be a great way to do this.
9. Do Some Good Ol’ Offline Marketing
Of course, I couldn’t write this without including a note on traditional, non-digital marketing.
As much as all the focus is on digital marketing these days, it shouldn’t mean that you completely write off the idea of traditional, offline strategies. These strategies can sometimes be the most fulfilling and it really suits some people to market this way.
Offline strategies include print advertising, radio advertising, handing out leaflets and giving talks. Whether this is right for your business really comes down to the kind of business you run, where your ideal customers are and how they shop.
Offline marketing can be particularly effective for local businesses, but I’ve seen some great examples of national businesses building a following through offline strategies, such as street teams too.
To round up:
Ensure your website is set up for conversion
Ensure you have a solid analytics tool in place
Think about the budget and time you have available
Think about how you like to spend your time
Think about how and where your customers shop
Pick 1-2 strategies
Get these working and systemised before adding any more
As ever, if you want more hands-on support in launching and growing your business reach out to me about 1:1 coaching. There’s really nothing you can’t do with the right support.
Hi, I’m Thea. I help ambitious entrepreneurs grow multiple 6-7 figure businesses.
If you want a crystal clear action plan to achieve your goals with full accountability and support, let’s talk.
You deserve to have the business and life of your dreams.