3 essential strategies to increase website traffic
Looking to increase website traffic? Leverage the power of these 3 essential strategies:
- Blogging
- Social media
- Influencers
1. How to leverage the power of blogging to generate website traffic
To generate website traffic you need content and blogging is the most effective way to create content.
Is blogging easy?
No, it’s not, but companies with blogs generate on average 67% more leads per month than companies that don’t blog.
source: hubspot.com
It is a well-known fact that Google loves fresh content so companies that publish new content consistently have a lot to gain and I’m not talking about traffic alone.
Successful companies like HubSpot or Salesforce have grown into content publishing powerhouses. They put out several blog articles a day filled with valuable insights, how-to’s and other recommendations for marketers and sales professionals.
Companies like these two either have a 5-6 writer in-house team or hire freelance writers. Another solution is to welcome guest posts. No matter which option they went with, they have a well-planned editorial calendar for at least 6 months in advance.
It’s totally understandable if your company cannot publish five articles a day, not every company has the human and financial resources of Hubspot and salesforce.
You can start by publishing one article per day. You don’t have a content writer on your team yet? No problem!
Find industry experts or influencers in your niche who are looking to increase their personal brand and invite them to contribute guest blogs.
It’s a win-win situation: contributors boost their visibility and reputation, and your blog benefits from increased traffic from prospects you could turn into leads then customers.
Now that you have writers generating content, it’s time to ensure your published content shows up in Google search results and gets clicked on. In other words: it’s SEO time!
SEO recommendations to get your content to show up in Google search results and get clicked on
1.Keywords with high search volume vs keywords with low search volume
Before jumping into writing content, Nadya Khoja, Chief Growth Officer at Venngage and experienced B2B marketer recommends marketers to determine the search intent of their B2B audience.
Nadya says marketers shouldn’t choose keywords based solely on search volume. When it comes to B2B, marketers should choose keywords and terms that are first and foremost relevant to their audience even if they have a lower search volume.
“Popular searches in your industry will attract more B2C consumers, whereas focused keywords that have a higher value, but a lower search volume, usually fall in the B2B realm.”, says Nadya.
2. Put honey in your titles
The most important element of your blog article is not the contents, but the headline. If the headline is not attractive enough, no one will read the contents.
Think of the headline as honey: it’s sweet and nutritious and bears cannot resist but eat it whenever they find it.
What does a “sweet” headline look like?
A compelling headline:
- offers a solution to the reader’s problem;
- includes an engaging qualifier (i.e.: smart, amazing, easy-to-implement, top, essential, the latest etc);
- is clear on what solution does the article provide (i.e.: recommendations, insights, takeaways, tips, trends etc);
- provides a number (i.e.: 7 recommendations, 25 takeaways).
To help you get really good at writing enticing headlines, use Headline Studio, a Chrome tool that scores your headlines and teaches you how to optimize them.
3. Serve readers with a 3-course meal type of content
Health experts recommend never eat until you are full, eat until you are no longer hungry.
It’s sound advice to prevent overeating related health issues, but that doesn’t apply to content.
Your goal as a content writer is to serve the reader with a 3-course meal type of content.
This type of content satisfies the reader’s appetite in such a way that they don’t need to look anywhere else for delicious content.
It is relevant to the reader and provides valuable information in various forms: how-to, top, round-up, case study, interview or original research.
When the content is valuable, it will get included as a source in other pieces of content and therefore attract further traffic.
2. How to use social media to generate website traffic
For most websites, Google is the first source of paid and organic traffic. Social media comes in second, with Facebook driving the most traffic for business.
Depending on your business, the second social media platform is either LinkedIn or Instagram.
And you should also check out Pinterest because according to the latest reports, each pin can drive up to 2-page visits and 6 pageviews and lasts up to one week compared with Twitter and Facebook whose updates last for 24 minutes and 90 minutes respectively.
Going back to Facebook, what should you write in your post to get your followers to click on the link and visit your page?
Never ever post the link with no copy and expect your audience to click through to your page. It’s unprofessional!
What you need to do is to write a compelling copy that piques the interest of your audience.
Use questions to challenge their assumptions and stoke their curiosity then direct them to your link to find the answers.
3. How to generate website traffic with influencer marketing
The latest stats say influencer marketing strategies focused on branding or engagements generate 8x ROI and according to 71% of marketers, the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.
Influencer marketing is powerful but how should you leverage the power of influencers to generate website traffic?
Here are the main dos and don’ts.
Don’t limit the influencer to sharing a photo holding your product. It’s unprofessional and most of the time it doesn’t work! Yes, I’m repeating myself to grab your attention.
Do have your team and the influencer brainstorm ideas for creative and fun campaigns. The influencer should fall in love with your product and find ways to convey this feeling to their followers.
Which strategy are you using to increase website traffic?
Share in the comments!
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Best Marketing Ideas in 2017
Finding inspiration is something a marketer and creator should always be interested in. We have some ideas that might give you a push to try something new and help your brand even more.
Paid marketing on untapped channels
Differentiation is key and clients need to understand that using only Facebook and Google for promoting themselves, even they bring huge volumes, is not enough anymore for achieving success. In an ever changing market, being among the first to tap into less used platforms and discover the ones that have the biggest change to rise (Snapchat, Instagram) is what brands’ representatives should do.
photo: wearevillage.com
Advertising is most successful when there is market inefficiency.
Choosing to communicate smartly on a channel that isn’t very used or not put to its true value, may be the key to success. Moreover, the advantages occur on channels where there’s a lot of volume, but less competition or no competition.
Content Multiplier Marketing and cross promotion
It’s the time of the multi-channel communication, instead of using just one or two channels. Finding the perfect mix for the brand is a very important step to take. The content is one of the most important aspects these days and can take the brand in the direction you want it to. At the same time, the content can be produced in several ways of expression (articles, videos, audio recordings, a blog post) and by using different shapes and channels it will help the brand increase its awareness.
Moreover, it’s really important for the brand’s target to be able to find the content on several mediums and see its versatility. Also, it’s another manner of gaining new fans that love different types of content.
Create content that’s easy to replicate.
Making a smart and easy content can also help the fans create their own twist on it, share it and show their personality along. Who doesn’t want a target involved in the brand’s growth?
Go mobile
More than ever it’s the mobile phones’ time. Most of the people are using Facebook on the mobile phone instead of the desktop or the tablet, as well as checking and answering their emails and other important conversations and messages. Therefore, the brands’ messages must the adapted to the medium, in order to create the best user experience possible.
Appeal to visual strategies
People understand better the messages and feel more connected to the visual side of the stories. By using video recordings and live-streaming, the brands are growing faster than ever. Recently live-streaming has taken the social media world by storm, Facebook reporting last year that 100 million hours per day of video are watched on their site. Therefore, the marketers should engage their audience with live-streaming at events or conferences that highlight them and their product. It’s a quick and effective way to connect with customers and build the brand.
Visual marketing effectiveness will also rely on engaging graphics. While graphic design has always been important, it will need more attention this year. Viewer engagement durations are shorter and social feeds are getting more crowded. Stand out with powerful graphic content.
Create an expertize blog
Making sure to optimize the brand’s website for search engines and mobile, with quality blog posts, we’ll have as a result the business’ appearance at the top of search results for topics related to your service offering. The result will be definitely a larger number of visitors accessing the website, an increase in leads, etc. The effectiveness of the blogging will be based on exciting and informative content, therefore hiring an expert in your industry or scheduling your own time to draft a quality post each month might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
