Are you struggling with how to drive traffic to your website? Or, are you looking to try new ways to drive traffic to your website? A website without any traffic is pointless and many small businesses are keen to find more ways to drive traffic to their own. Finding good quality traffic at volume is a common struggle and knowing where to start and focus your resources can often be the hardest part.
To put it simply, your website needs be discoverable online. This means enabling users to find your brand and your products or services when they are searching for them, and disrupting your target audiences with your content wherever they may be online. In this article we are sharing the best ways to get traffic to your website if you are a new brand or small business.
What is website traffic?
“Website traffic is the number of visitors (users) and visits (sessions) a website receives.”
It’s easy to define website traffic and it’s easy to measure thanks to website analytics tools such as Google Analytics, which is the most popular choice for small businesses as it’s free and user friendly.
Tip! Make sure you have your analytics tracking installed correctly before you invest time and money in trying to get more traffic to your website.
The importance of website traffic
A website that receives tonnes of traffic isn’t necessarily a successful website, visits are only one metric to measure the success of your brand online. Whilst receiving a high level of traffic every day or month is great, it’s pointless if your website is not converting visitors into an action such as making a purchase or sending an enquiry.
Is your website ready for more traffic?
Be honest, is it? As an experienced and honest digital marketing agency, Hi Digital never encourage our clients to spend their time or money on website traffic driving initiatives until their website is in great digital shape. Your website is your brand’s most valuable digital asset and it needs to showcase your brand in the best way possible, after all you only get once chance to make a first impression – even online!
There are a few ways you can check if your brand should invest money into traffic driving initiatives for your website or if your money will be better spent somewhere else first.
1. Define your website’s purpose and ask yourself if your website is ‘fit-for-purpose’? Typically, a website’s purpose is one or more of the following:
– To educate and engage users with your brand and its products or services
– To drive sales
– To drive enquiries
2. Does your website look great on all devices; desktop, mobile and tablet? If not, your brand needs a responsive website and here’s 5 reasons why.
3. Can users understand your brand proposition clearly from the top section of your website’s homepage? You only have a few seconds to engage users and get them to scroll or click to find out more. If your main message is cluttered, confused or too generic it’s time to rework your brand story with a digital first approach.
The secret formula behind great websites
Simply measuring visits or visitors as a standalone metric will not offer valuable insights or learnings. Savvy brands and business owners consider website traffic in the context of the purpose of their website. A high traffic, high converting website is the dream for all brands like and there is a straightforward formula behind them:
Clear brand proposition + Fit-for-purpose website + High volume of quality traffic
=
Conversions + ROI
The formula may be straightforward but the detail and skill behind it is complex, unfortunately there are no shortcuts when it comes to creating an effective digital presence online. However, we are happy to share a few of our top traffic driving tips with you in the next section.
5 effective ways to get more traffic to your website
Is your website ready for more traffic? Great! Let’s discuss how to increase traffic to your website. Digital marketing is a complex business and there are numerous ways to get more website traffic. Some tactics are expensive, some are time consuming, some are free (yay!), some give instant results and some offer quality results over a long period of time. At Hi Digital, we pride ourselves on being efficient, so we’ve identified the 5 most relevant website traffic driving methods for small businesses and start up brands.
1. On-site SEO
You have to literally spell it out to Google what your brand’s website is about so that it will show your web pages to users Googling topics you talk about. On your website Google reads page title, meta description, image ALT text, URL and more. Make sure you include relevant keywords and search phrases to help search engines find you and display your webpages higher up the search results. The higher you rank in search engine results the more traffic to your website.
Tip! Allocate one target keyword to each of your webpages and ensure your meta data includes this phrase.
2. Get listed in online business directories
Listing your website in business directories that have a great reputation with Google is a great way to start building quality back links to improve your website’s reputation, and increase your webpage rankings in search engines. Many online business directories are free and are relatively easy to populate, if not a little time consuming. They also make your brand discoverable to users searching for your product or services in these directories too!
3. Organic social media
Social media channels offer a fantastic free marketing platform where you can showcase your brand and reach new audiences. Ensure that you focus your resources on the channels where your target audiences are most likely to be and create great content with them in mind. Key channels to consider are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Linked In.
Recent algorithm changes on the key social media platforms mean that organic posts from brands and businesses get limited exposure compared to a couple of years ago. If you regularly share great content with clear calls-to-action to visit your website you can expect to see an increase in traffic to your website.
4. Paid advertising
Investing in paid advertising online is the quickest way to increase traffic to your website. However, it can be expensive and if campaigns are not created well there is a risk of little or no ROI for your brand. Popular and effective types of paid advertising are PPC (Google Adwords), paid social media and retargeting.
Paid advertising enables you to target the exact users you want, when you want and with the message you believe is perfect for them. Always appoint an experienced digital marketing consultant to manage your brand’s paid online advertising to ensure maximum results.
5. High quality blogging
Blogging is great for business but only when it’s done well. Brand’s need to write about topics their target audiences are interested in and each blog post should be engaging and informative to add value to readers. High quality blog posts will be displayed in Google’s organic search results and drive more traffic to your website. For more content marketing and blogging tips to improve SEO read this blog post.
The role of a digital marketing agency
Are your business goals to improve your brand’s presence online and attract more customers? A digital marketing agency or consultant can be a valuable extension to your core team. Effective digital marketing strategies take experience and skill, and there are a number of digital marketing services for you to choose from and navigate between. Outsourcing your digital marketing needs to a specialist is a cost and resource effective solution to help you to achieve the results you want efficiently, and long term.
Let’s grow your brand’s digital presence
It’s time to explore how digital marketing can help your startup brand or small business. Hi Digital are a boutique digital marketing agency dedicated to growing small businesses with effective digital strategies. We’d love to help you reach your business goals and be a part of your brand’s growth. Please email us info@hidigital.co.uk or please get in touch with using the form below to book a free consultation with us.
Alternatively, find out more about what we do or discover free digital marketing tips on our blog.
