A staggering 91% of websites get no traffic from Google. And an alarming number of websites get barely any traffic from any source. And that’s frustrating when you consider the time and money people spend creating beautiful websites. Why is it so hard to generate traffic?
With around two million new webpages added every hour, a website begins its journey at the bottom of the ocean. If it wants traffic, it must work to reach the surface. You need to know how to create website awareness to increase traffic to your site. These seven traffic-generation techniques can get your site moving in the right direction.
1. Learn Where Website Traffic Comes from
The first step to increase website traffic is to take a close look at the paths traffic takes to arrive at your website. These important stats will get you started. Compare them to your own website’s performance to see where you can make the biggest improvements.
Organic Search
51% of website traffic arrives through the organic search results. And over 90% of this traffic goes to websites found on page one. The people who click on search engine results tend to be high-intention customers. Because of this, organic generates 40% of business revenues.
According to Statista, Google holds 62% of the search engine market share worldwide.
Paid Search Advertising
Organic clicks still outnumber paid clicks about 12 to 1. But the number of people clicking ads has risen by 75% in the past year, suggesting that businesses are getting better at making ads more relevant to customers and demonstrating just how important pay per click is when increasing traffic to your website.
Voice Search
While it’s speculative, Gartner predicts that 30% of searches will be voice searches rather than screen searches by the end of 2020. It’s easy to see where this prediction comes from given that around 50% of people today use voice search at least once a day. Usage has increased 128% in the past year.
Social Media & Other Sources
26% of website traffic comes from social media as referral traffic or advertising traffic. Around 83% of business who use social media pay for ads to promote their social media presences and drive additional traffic to their websites.
Throughout this article, we’ll show you how to capture significant website from each of the above and other sources.
2. Compare Your Traffic to Top Competitors
Next, find out what kind of traffic to expect for your website. This allows you to create goals based on benchmarks to track your progress. You’ll find free versions of paid tools online that will give you a limited look. But also consider investing in competitive analysis tools because the professionals that you’re competing against certainly do.
Some top tools to consider include competitor spying tools from:
- Ahrefs
- SemRush
- SimilarWeb
- Woorank
- SpyFu
These tools not only allow you to analyse competitors. You can also take a closer look at your own performance to optimize.
3. Optimise for Local Search
It won’t surprise you that this is a top tip, given the percentage of traffic that comes in through search engines. But competing with big national or international brands for page one seems impossible on a small to medium-sized marketing budget.
Fortunately, Google doesn’t expect you to compete with the big names as a small business. They favour local business in their local areas. And this is huge!
An estimated 30% of searches are for local businesses. And that jumps to around 60% of mobile devices. And the great news is that if you excel in local search, it will boost your overall SEO for broader reach. To improve your visibility in local searches, always start by making your site fast, easy-to-navigate and user-friendly.
Then show Google you’re a local business in ways like these:
- List your physical location in a header or footer on most pages
- Obtain links and mentions from other local businesses, news sites and charitable organisations
- Get more online reviews, especially on Google My Business (GMB)
- Make sure that your NAP (NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE) is consistent across important industry and local directories
4. Prioritise Mobile
Over half of all traffic arrives through mobile devices. And around 60% of social media traffic comes through smartphones and tablets. We can’t emphasise enough how important mobile is and will continue to be in the 2020s.
If you get desktop traffic, but not much mobile, simply fixing this one oversight can dramatically increase website traffic in short order.
Here are some quick ways to improve your mobile-friendliness:
- Check how your site appears on mobile devices. Is it fast and easy to view?
- Simplify your navigation on mobile devices
- Build a dynamic website that adjusts the page based upon the size of the screen
- Ensure that text, images, buttons and links are large enough to see and click without clicking the wrong link
5. Build a Social Media Presence
A few years ago, Facebook reduced the reach of businesses on the platform. More recently they’re testing an Instagram that de-emphasises “likes”. Recent changes have made it more difficult for businesses to reach new customers who don’t already follow them. Businesses have had to adapt. But social media is still a great place to reach customers and drive traffic to your site if you understand how to use it. Why?
29% of people say they use social media to “find and research new products”. Having a social media presence can build instant trust with customers. That’s very important when people are buying online or encountering a new local business.
These tips will help you build that kind of organic presence:
- Seek to engage first. Avoid direct selling. Instead, see social media as the top of a sales funnel. Once they arrive at your site, you can convert them to customers
- Understand the platform you’re using. If you don’t personally use Facebook, Instagram, etc. the way your customers do, it will be impossible to engage them. Make sure you understand how they use social media to build your strategy.
- Use a combination of paid and organic social media
Many businesses on a tight budget attempt to increase website traffic in clever ways that avoid spending money. But the truth is that it takes significant time to build a brand on social media or get to page one in searches. Social media advertising and search advertising help you generate more quality traffic now while your longer-term strategies begin to work. When running social media ads, apply the same principles above.
Know who your target is and build your advertising strategy around them.
6. Leverage High-Intention with Search Advertising
People on social media passively shop. They’ll view anything random that looks interesting. But on search, they know what they’re looking for. So you need to be there with the answer to their query. It takes time to get to page one. So an SEO – PPC (Pay per click) strategy works best to drive traffic now while you increase your organic visibility.
Start building a strong PPC strategy by:
- Doing your keyword research. Understand what your target customers search for and appear in those searches.
- Align your advertisements with search intention. People will only click to your site if they feel you are what they’re looking for.
- Create and test landing pages. Ads should usually go to a specific landing page that encourages a buyer to take a specific action, such as sharing their email so you can follow up with them if they don’t buy now.
7. Recapture Lost Opportunities
People are around 400% more likely to see and click an advertisement, organic post or search result if they recognise the website. So don’t miss out on the opportunities to bring repeat traffic back to your site. Businesses who do, not only increase traffic; they can double their revenues. That’s because, on average, it takes 5 to 7 contacts with a brand before someone buys something.
Use these clever strategies to redirect this traffic back to your site:
- Capture emails and send relevant emails straight to their inboxes
- Retarget people who have visited your website before using Google AdWords Retargeting Ads
- Retarget people who have visited your website or social media profile with Facebook Retargeting Ads
It’s not easy to generate website traffic. But applying these strategies can deliver instant results that will grow over time. Don’t let your website languish at the bottom of the ocean. Bring it to the surface and start driving customers to your website.
