Driving Targeted Traffic to Your Website is Essential

“How do I get traffic to my website?” That is without a doubt the most frequently asked question new online marketers ask themselves daily. After all, without traffic you have no customers; without customers you make no sales; without sales you have no business.

Driving Targeted Traffic to Your Website

Clearly you need traffic to your website, but what you really need is targeted traffic. You want people visiting your website who are interested in, or looking for, what your website has to offer. These tips will help you attract that target traffic so let’s get started.

Tip#1: Video Marketing

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Complete Forecast for 2015 to 2020, it is predicted that more than 4.1 billion new users will join the Internet community by 2020, up from 3 billion in 2015.

It goes on to state, “It predicts that video traffic will be 82% of consumer Internet traffic by 2020 – up from 68% in 2015. It forecasts business Internet video traffic will be 66% of business Internet traffic by 2020 – up from 44% in 2015.”

Source: Video Will Account for 79% of Global Internet Traffic by 2020 

What this means to you is if you create video content, you’re much more likely to be found on the Internet.

Adding video to your marketing efforts can make a huge difference in the traffic you get in addition to eliciting more user engagement. Consider adding video to your blog, social media, and your sales pages to make the most of this exploding traffic generating strategy.

Tip #2: Give Away Stuff

Contests and freebies are excellent ways to bring traffic to your online real estate. The trick with this option is to ensure that only those who are truly interested in your niche will be interested in your freebie or participate in your contest.

Make the giveaway super laser focused on something only your audience will want so that you don’t get too many tire-kickers or freebie seekers coming to your website or landing page.

Tip#3: Use Social Media Effectively

To use social media effectively you’ll need to study your audience and your industry on a continuous basis to ensure that you reach your audience at the right time and in the right place. Randomly sharing information on social media isn’t going to get much traction unless you have a plan in place and a reason for each share.

You must always engage with your audience. If they comment, you should comment back or “like” what they said or even share what they said. Engagement is paramount to making social media work for you. Also, never forget your calls to action.

Tip #4: Contribute Content

You can contribute content as a guest to blogs, magazines, newspapers and more to drive targeted traffic to your website. When you see an opportunity, analyze whether your audience reads that content, and if they do, you want to contribute. If not, then move on.

Be very strategic about where you put content. You want to seek out and contribute to websites that complement your business. Also, it’s best if the content you create is unique for that particular blog or publication.

Always include your bio and ask for a link back to your landing page or website.

Tip #5: Call in the Cool Kids

Another traffic-generating tip is to ask influencers to help you out. This is a way of getting a well-known personality to endorse your business, product, or service.

First, identify potential influencers in your industry or niche who might be interested in your products or services, then reach out to them. Ensure that your product is truly top-notch and something the influencer will like.

Keep in mind you cannot control whether or not they give you a good review. While you might be hesitant to try this at first, it couldn’t hurt to make the effort.

Tip #6: Comment Thoughtfully

If you’re going to spend time commenting on blogs, social media posts, etc., be sure your comments are well thought out and thorough. Don’t just say “cool” or “thanks for the post” and leave it at that. Instead, state why you think it’s cool or helpful, whatever the case may be. You could even add a related personal story.

Your comments will help people get to know you better. If readers like what you say and how you “present” yourself, chances are good they will want to go to your blog or website to learn more or see what you have to offer. This means more targeted traffic to your website and more potential customers.

Then there is the added advantage of getting needed backlinks in many cases. Even if you don’t get a backlink, your name being out there will increase your authority quotient exponentially.

Tip #7: Use On-Page and Off-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the action you take on your website that increases the chances of your audience finding your content via the search engines. Off-page SEO is the same thing but you do it off your site, such as via social media or guest posts.

Ensure you’re doing all you can to optimize profiles, optimize your blog posts, and your website. Consider using a plugin for your blog like Yoast SEO to help you get it right. Yoast has features for both on and off-page SEO such as easy sharing, internal linking, keyword analyzing and more.

Tip #8: Don’t Forget Your Email List

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of a well-targeted email list. Your goal is to capture the name and email address of anyone who is interested in your niche and visits your website.

Place an opt-in form on your website, blog posts, in your lead magnet or giveaway, and certainly make it available on social media. Once someone is on your email list, you can send them information they are interested in, you can send them your latest blog post to keep them current, you can send them information about products or services you think might benefit them.

Whatever the case may be, once someone is on your list, you have their permission to “talk” to them so don’t blow it or they just might “hang up” on you.

And one more thing to consider…

While not directly related to driving traffic to your website you do need to take into account your web hosting service, meaning don’t go cheap when it comes to hosting. Don’t use cost alone as the determining factor when choosing your web hosting service.

In addition to the bells and whistles they offer, you want to make sure their servers are fast and they have a good uptime rate. These factors can impact your website’s performance.

You want to make sure the hosting service limits the number of websites sharing your server (if you purchase shared hosting) and you want to make sure they guard against webmasters who play fast and loose with spam.

Also, take their customer support for a spin; ask a question to see how they respond and how long it takes. Good customer support is essential.

After all, we’re talking about driving traffic to your website and you want to make sure the web host meets your needs. Do your due diligence when making this important decision.

Conclusion

Driving targeted traffic to your website means you need to promote everything. When you create anything new, especially if it’s evergreen, you should promote it, and promote it repeatedly.

If it’s not share worthy, then why did you publish it in the first place? There are social sharing websites such as Hootsuite.com, Buffer.com and others that will help semi-automate your social media strategy, so use them.

Driving traffic to your website isn’t difficult if you have a plan. Use these proven tips to drive targeted traffic to your website, interact with your readers, sell products or services, and much more.

Remember more targeted traffic means more opportunities to meet your business goals and achieve long-term success.