10 Tips for driving more traffic to your Business Website

Introduction

Generating traffic to a business website is an age-old problem. It has been with online marketers since the dawn of the internet era. Even a layman can quickly grasp that a business website is of no use if no-one visits it or buys the products or services the site is selling.

Most entrepreneurs and business managers hit the traffic wall once they launch their business website and have no clue how to generate traffic to it. In this article, we will discuss some of the best ways to send traffic to your business website.

Before jumping to the methods, I can’t emphasize enough one thing. To reach your business goals, your website should be optimized for conversions. That means that when you create your business website, you should have a clear call to action in mind. That call to action should stand out on every page of your site. If you manage to send traffic to your site, but there is no clear call to action, that traffic will be wasted.

And now, let’s jump to the 10 ways you can increase the traffic of your business website.

1. Take advantage of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Many people wrongly believe that SEO has lost its appeal. That’s because, when it comes to traffic generation, as in today’s social media-driven world, SEO may seem a bit old-fashioned. Search engine optimization is one of the best ways to generate traffic for your site. It is still among the most affordable ways for traffic generation.

According to Oberlo, almost 3.5 billion searches are performed on Google which translated to more than a trillion searches a year.

Another report by Brightedge suggests that organic search accounts for 53.3% of all website traffic generated. Or in other words, by not performing SEO, you are making yourself invisible to almost 53% of traffic. These statistics alone are sufficient to make you realize the importance of SEO.

Other stats from Imforza tell us the importance of ranking on first page of SERPs for your targeted keywords. 75% of searchers don’t scroll past the first page.

Leads generated by SEO also have a much higher close rate. Of 14.6% compared with 1.7% close rate of direct mail or print advertising.

2. Create a social media following

Social media already accounts for a significant share of referral traffic. No business owner can overlook the importance of these platforms anymore. Their share has fluctuated between 20% and 40% of the total referral traffic over the last decade.

The following graph, published by Shareaholic, gives us an idea of the wild swing in social media’s traffic share over the previous decade.

You can see that the share of social media was less than 10% at the start of the last decade. It swiftly rose to almost 40% by 2015 and then again declined a bit to around 25% in 2017.

It is evident from the above graph, that some internet users shifted to social media platforms from search. This was among the main factors of the decline in search traffic. Still, both social media and search engines remain the dominant traffic generation methods. Together, these 2 channels account for almost 60% of referral traffic generated.

While discussing social media networks, it is also important not to overlook the paid advertising platforms operated by Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. These platforms allow you to show your ads to active users. Social media advertising has evolved over the years, and today you can reach billions of users through social media advertising.

Paid advertising, on these platforms, offers the same targeting options that are usually associated with PPC ad platforms such as Google Ads. Social media ads are also cheaper when compared with traditional PPC ads.

3. Get the attention of mainstream media

Most business owners often overlook the opportunity provided by mainstream media for driving traffic to their websites. The Internet has indeed turned the news, media, and publishing industry upside down. However, most of the popular brands of yesterday, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. have transformed themselves into online media platforms.

These publications attract millions of readers each day. If you can get some journalists to mention your business or provide a single link in an article, it may lead to thousands of visitors, some of whom may end up buying from you.

A good number of journalists are always looking for a new story. This is your chance to explain your business/website and what you do. If you can hold their attention, then there is a high chance that you can get some free exposure to hundreds or thousands of interested visitors.

4. Boost traffic through paid advertising

Paid advertising or Pay per click ads, also known as PPC ads, is one of the best ways to generate traffic in a short amount of time. It does not need much time, as is often the case with SEO or social media, but it requires you to spend significant sums on purchasing clicks.

PPC ads are known for their precision and targeting. Very few other methods allow you to have laser targeted ads directly in front of users who are already looking for products or services offered by you.

5. Try the LinkedIn publishing platform

Most people know LinkedIn as a professional social networking site that can also be used for career advancement and job search. LinkedIn is also an immensely popular publishing platform where almost anyone can post. Publishing on LinkedIn has gained popularity over the last few years. This allows you to put your content directly in front of decision-makers without spending a fortune.

LinkedIn Posts can also help you generate targeted traffic to your website with little effort. By publishing your content on LinkedIn, you can build new connections, close new deals, or attract high-quality buyers to your site.

6. Generate leads through email marketing

Almost 4 billion people use their email daily, and this number is only expected to increase in the future. Email marketing remains one of the most popular marketing channels. It offers some unique advantages over other traffic generation methods listed in this article.

According to a recent report by the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of millennials prefer communication from businesses to come via email. This is also reflected in businesses’ marketing tactics, as almost 87% of B2B marketers cite email as their top free content distribution channel.

A study conducted by Email Marketing Gold showed that email marketing offers the highest ROI or return on investment among all significant marketing channels such as SEO, banner ads, catalogs, mobile ads, and display.

This study found that email offers almost $40 for every $1 spent or a return of 40x. SEO came second with an ROI of $22.24. Email remains the preferred medium for businesses and has managed the challenge from social media quite well. Some studies also show that websites with regular email newsletters have a higher share of returning visitors, leading to higher brand loyalty and sales.

7. Create awesome infographics

Infographics seem to have lost the appeal, which is true to a certain extent, as video content has replaced infographics in many industries. We need to remember that a decade ago, video was not as popular as it is today largely thanks to the poor speeds and inability of devices to support high resolution video.

Still, infographics remain one of the most cost-effective ways to generate traffic for your website. Infographics rose to popularity due to the viral effect as any useful infographic was shared hundreds or even thousands of times and would lead to a massive increase in traffic for the site that initially published it.

Much of this remains true even now in 2020 as people still prefer engaging visuals to boring text when it comes to understanding something.

Infographics have long been known for their viral effect, and some infographics have resulted in thousands or even hundreds of thousands of visitors for their publishers.

Grammar Goofs infographic, as shown in the image above, was published by Copyblogger, and this single infographic has been shared more than 250,000 times over social media platforms.

US Solar Employs More People In U.S. Electricity Generation Than Oil, Coal, And Gas Combined infographic, as shown in the image above, was shared more than 160,000 times by users over several social media platforms. A single, well-designed infographic can easily give you thousands of visitors and probably more if you can create something with the potential to go viral.

8. Use video marketing

According to a report by Cisco, the video will account for 82% of traffic in 2022. So, you can no longer ignore video marketing’s power as the effect of video on traffic generation is visible in 2020. In the future, its importance is only going to increase. Video Marketing is also a perfect way to generate additional traffic to your business website.

Almost everyone knows about the No 1 search engine or Google, but people are unsure if you asked them about the search engine ranked no 2. Many will say Yahoo or Bing, but no the correct answer is YouTube. Yes, YouTube is not only a video hosting site, but it is also the 2nd most popular search engine after Google that attracts billions of users each day.

Many businesses now have YouTube channels that allow them to publish video content regularly, and YouTube can give you an edge over competitors when combined with other video hosting platforms.

9. Interview Industry Thought Leaders and Influencers

This is among the most overlooked strategies on our list. You do not have any idea how many industry leaders and influencers are willing to give an interview if approached in the right way.

Several sites have used this tactic to generate traffic and you can too take advantage of it as readers love interviews. Even competitors are willing to hear or read an interview as it can give them another perspective or tell them how their competitor thinks.

Industry thought leaders and influencers have huge networks of their own, both online and offline. They cannot resist the urge to share a link to their interview published by another site. You will get access to this huge network for free if you are willing to do some work to do an interview.

10. Guest post on other websites

Guest Posting, yes we know what you are thinking as one can be falsely led to believe that guest posting is dead thanks to the obituaries written like this one. But the fact remains that guest blogging is still very much alive and indeed thriving.

Buffer, the social media app, is a perfect example as according to Leo Widrich, the co-founder of Buffer, guest blogging helped him reach 100,000 customers from 0 when he launched his service a decade ago. Leo explained that he used only guest blogging in the initial days when he was trying to bootstrap his startup. So, now you probably know the power of guest blogging.

To be frank, it’s hard to say that Guest Blogging will ever be dead as content platforms are always willing to publish more content from an outsider if it can keep their readers engaged. Maybe guest blogging will change with time, but it is highly unlikely that this time-tested tactic will become completely useless, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Conclusions

Generating traffic has never been easier as billions of humans are now online. There is also no shortage of good strategies that can help you generate targeted traffic to your business website. Some of the methods require money, time, or effort. Although often it is a combination of all three.

With a little bit of planning, hard work, and time you can quickly generate traffic to your business website using the strategies mentioned in this article. Not all methods may work for every business type as consumers in one industry may prefer one medium or type of content over another. It is up to you to decide which method, channel, content type, or strategy will be most effective for you.

But don’t forget that, first, you need to create a business website optimized for conversion. People that come to your site should have a clear idea of what they need to do in order to buy your product or service.