Let’s look at how to increase website traffic – one of the most critical questions in digital marketing and growing your online presence, in my opinion.

There’s no point in having a beautifully polished and strategically put-together website if your website isn’t a traffic-generating machine. But it’s not easy to get traffic, as you probably know if you’ve already got a website for your small business. And don’t be like me back in the mid-2000s when I launched my first website and thought I could publish a website, and the traffic would flow on in, in droves. It doesn’t happen like that. Take it from me.

How do I generate traffic to my website?

That’s the million dollar question isn’t it. There are many ways to generate traffic to your website, and some are more effective than others. Not one method will be effective for everyone. And remember, what works one year, quarter, or month may not work the next.

• Google algorithms change
• what customers search for
• how they search
• what’s relevant

These are all some of the components that can change and will impact how you can drive traffic to your website.

Here are the 6 top ways to increase the traffic on a website.

1. Organically with curated SEO and an SEO Strategy

My favourite, of course. SEO is, again, an area you need to know what you’re doing with. But SEO will keep on giving for years to come. And it’s an area where you can customise your approach to suit your budget.

For example, if you have a healthy budget, you can continue to work and tweak your SEO Strategy.

Or if you need to do SEO on a budget you can have your site overhauled so your SEO is on point or pick a:

• Website page
• Category
• Product if you’re an e-commerce website to focus on as a starting point.

It’s all about expectations. The smaller the approach, the slower results. But the sooner you start your SEO journey, the sooner you’ll see results.

2. Ads – social media and Google ads

Remember that if you don’t know what you’re doing with ads, you can waste a lot of money testing and measuring and trying to get it right. When you do get it right, though, the ROI can be fabulous.

The downside is when you turn the ads off. The traffic stops, too. Which never has sat well with me .😉I want my investment to keep on working for me. But that’s my opinion. Ads are a significant business, so many business owners obviously don’t feel like that.

3. Content marketing

Creating content, especially blog posts, is another favourite of mine. I love researching and writing copy, and blog posts can yield such positive results.

Blog posts work fabulously in conjunction with an SEO Strategy/plan, too. And with a plan, you’ll see quicker results as your approach will be curated with where you:

• Need to improve your ranking
• Close where the gaps are and help you get a foot in the door with a topic and article that will help you climb those search engine rankings. And a plan will help you recognise where those gaps are and what you need to be writing about.
• Don’t write about topics your audience doesn’t want to read. You want to write about topics that will bring traffic to your website and keep your visitors on-site reading to boot your time on-site stats. And even better, if they love your article, they share it with their network too.

Blogs work particularly well if you’re a service-based business, too, as you don’t often have changes to make to your website, so blogs are a great way to keep things fresh. And Google loves new content.

I know planning and writing blog posts can feel overwhelming. It’s another item on a long list, no doubt. But consider your goals, ROI (return on investment), and ROT (return on time).

You don’t need to be writing a blog a week. If once a month is all you can do. Then do that—quality over quantity.

Google only has so much crawl budget when it crawls your website, so use it wisely.

4. Organic social media

Organic social media is a great way to repurpose your content from your:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Podcasts

Take that content and pick out snippets or teasers to turn into captions and posts. And then promote your website by dangling the carrot of clicking through to the article/content to read/watch more.

As you’re driving followers off socials, be aware of how many links you share in a week.

Social media platforms generally don’t like you driving traffic away from them, and rumour has it you’ll get a lower reach if you overdo it with too many links. But like I say, with everything, test and measure what works for you.

You can check your Google Analytics to see where your traffic is something from too.

5. EDMs and email marketing campaigns

EDMs (electronic direct mail) is a great and effective way to drive traffic. The important thing is to think and plan what you will send out.

• Latest news
• New releases
• Sales/special offers
• Order cut-off dates
• Showcase testimonials/case studies and how you’ve helped solve a problem for a client

Remember to send exciting, quality content your subscribers will want to read. The important bit is “what your readers want to read”, and if you’re unsure why not, ask them.

6. Google Business Profile – GBP

GPB, formerly Google My Business (GMB), is another favourite of mine. And a platform where you can publish posts and content regularly – many business owners don’t realise this. Did you?

Google Business Profiles are free, so if you don’t have one, claim yours now. And if you do have one, check it out and ensure it’s set up to showcase your business as best you can.

• Post content that links to your website
• Post videos
• Updates
• Offers with a timeframe
• List all your services or products

Include your opening hours and holiday closures if you have them.

Most importantly, drive your clients and customers to leave reviews there.

What are the reasons why website traffic is not coming

Have you been doing all or some of the above or approaching driving traffic to your website differently, but you’re still not receiving the traffic? Here are a few reasons you might not be receiving traffic to your website:

a)  Your site is new and doesn’t rank yet. SEO, content marketing and backlinks (links back to your site) will help with this.

b)  You’ve misspelled your domain name – it may sound silly, but I know of this happening. And it doesn’t hurt to double-check.

c)   Are there any technical problems with your website that stop Google from crawling and indexing it?

d)  Your hosting or domain name has expired, or is down. You’d be surprised how often both of these happen. So remember to check your front end regularly or invest in a website maintenance plan that includes uptime monitoring.

How do I check my website traffic

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are both FREE Google tools and the perfect way to view your website traffic. If you followed me for a while, you’d undoubtedly have heard me mention these a time or two. 😆

Knowledge is power, and with these informative tools, you’ll get actual real-time stats to show you exactly:

• What website traffic you’re getting
• Where your website traffic is coming from
• Time on site
• Device types
• Where exactly they’re exiting from

And many other insights and stats.

What to do when it comes to your web traffic?

If you’re concerned about the lack of traffic to your website, then you can implement the strategies above. Don’t be overwhelmed. Make a plan and keep it real. By keeping it real, I mean only plan for what you can do, given your available time.

If you’d like a professional/expert opinion on your website, reach out. You can book a free discovery call to discuss your concerns and see whether I can help. I also offer Website Consults, where we can delve into any questions or areas you want to investigate or discuss. Or you can book a Website SEO Audit, which gets into the nitty gritty of your website, but if you’d like to know more, I”m only an email away.

These are just a couple of ways we can collaborate and work together. Or feel free to keep reading through my digital marketing blog to absorb all things SEO and more.