How to attract the best website traffic
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You’ve launched your website and developed some great content for it. Now it’s time to generate traffic!
But not just any traffic – the best website traffic is targeted.
What is targeted traffic?
Targeted traffic isn’t just random people ending up on your website. It consists specifically of those who are likely to use your products or services – in other words, your target market.
With millions of websites competing for the attention of your target market, you need to actively employ marketing strategies to attract and convert your ideal buyers. The more you know about them, the more effectively you can market to them by providing the information and solutions they need.
Hopefully, before you started your business, you created a buyer persona of your ideal customer. If not, read my article, How to Create a Buyer Persona to get started.
An example of a broad target market could be women. Niching that down further, you could target middle-aged women, single middle-aged women, or even single middle-aged women in Vancouver, BC.
To attract your target market to your site, you need to create offers specifically to grab their attention. These visitors can turn into leads, which can turn into buyers, then become repeat buyers, and ultimately turn into loyal customers.
My Top 3 Website Traffic Strategies
If you Google how to drive traffic to my website, you’ll get millions of results. That’s a lot of information to sift through – and unfortunately, many of the suggestions won’t even be relevant to your business. Even so, there are loads of ways to attract new people to your website.
These are the strategies that have worked best for me, and I highly recommend them. Of course, what works for you will depend on your target audience, the nature of your business, and a multitude of other factors.
1 – Start a Blog
When you write and promote good, relevant content, people are more likely to share it on their own blogs and social networks or to email it to others – which are all great ways to get fresh traffic.
Furthermore, when your posts include the keywords your potential clients might use when searching for your services online, you greatly increase the chance that your site will appear in search results.
For specific ways to generate blog traffic, read How to attract new readers to your blog.
2 – Build an Email List
When you have a subscriber list, you can draw them back to your website by sending them an email whenever you post something new, whether it’s a blog post, a special promotion, or a new service.
To encourage visitors to become email subscribers, offer them something they just can’t turn down in exchange for joining your list.
3 – Develop a Community
A Facebook or LinkedIn group can be a great (and free) way to find new leads and connect with existing customers.
When you create a group related to your business, you essentially create a community where people with similar interests can interact with you and each other. A community creates not just new traffic, but loyal fans who will shout your praises to everyone they know.
To maximize engagement, plan to post something at least once a week – daily is even better. Post tips, ask discussion questions, share your blog articles, and be sure to take the time to answer questions and comment on other people’s discussions.
Final Comments
Before you adopt these or any other strategies to drive traffic to your website, make sure it can handle the increase. Check your hosting package to see how much bandwidth you’re allowed. If it’s limited to a small amount, you may need to upgrade to a larger package or even a better hosting service.
Find what works best for you and, most importantly, for your customer. Give it some time, be patient, and the results will follow.
If you need help developing a strategy for your website or blog, why not schedule a telephone call or Zoom session? I’d love to brainstorm with you, answer your questions, or walk you through the steps that are confusing you.
Photo © dmbaker / Depositphotos
Janet Barclay
I eliminate stress for my clients by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their WordPress sites so they don’t have to worry about security, downtime or performance issues. When I’m away from my desk, I enjoy reading, photography, cooking, watching movies, drinking tea, and spending time with my family.
These are great suggestions, Janet. I appreciate that you distilled down the massive amount of information from the Google search to these three top tips. I readily do one and two, but that third one I haven’t tried. You do this so well with the Blogging Organizers group that you lead. You get wonderful engagement and create a warm sense of community. I learn a lot from my fellow bloggers. Thank you for all you do.
Thanks, Linda! I started with a much longer list, but decided to narrow it down to the strategies I’ve used most often, most regularly, and most effectively. I’m happy that you’re part of my community!
You are the Queen of our wonderful blogging community. Love the interaction with my fellow organizers, and all of the advice and suggestions you give us. I love the point about posting a lot. Be out there… be social!
Thank you, Seana – you’re making me blush now!
Thank you for this terrific information. There is always something new to learn. I had no idea that LinkedIn had groups to participate in.
Also, thanks for creating Blogging Organizers. It’s an amazingly supportive group of really nice women.
I’m surprised – LinkedIn has had groups for a very long time. I find that Facebook groups tend to be more engaging with a lot less self-promotion going on, but that depends a lot on who is running them.
Great tips, Janet! I love that you mention the planning process to determine one’s targeted traffic. It’s important to decide on the prospects that you want to target. This process gives a clearer picture to the business on who to market their services to and will also help determine which direction to go. In a small business, going in all directions is not feasible so we need to be smart about the way we start.
That’s right, Sabrina! I sometimes say, if you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one. Generic messages rarely work.
It’s so important to have a website for you business, no matter what it is. Websites have replaced brochures, listings in the yellow pages, in some ways articles in newspapers and business cards. I think a site legitimizes you.
Absolutely! If you don’t have a website, people don’t think you’re serious about your business.
I have found Pinterest to be a great source of traffic to my blog/website. I’m a visual person so the combination of the platforms works for me. I’m slowly working on my email list–it’s on my list of ‘Business Processes to Improve’ for 2020-2021. Everything I read points to the importance of curating an email list but I find blogging and using Pinterest more fun! And if I were to ever consider starting a ‘Community’ I’d have to model it after our fun and supportive Blogging Organizers group!
You can combine blogging and building an email list – here’s something I wrote about that a few years ago: https://organizedassistant.com/blog-subscribers/.
I’m so glad you like Blogging Organizers – it’s a pretty great community, isn’t it? 🙂
Thanks for the resource, Janet. And, yes–Blogging Organizers is a pretty darn great community that I’m so happy to be a part of!