When you are in charge of running a website, whether it be a personal one or part of your job, you want to make sure that you are driving web traffic to your website and do everything to increase your readership. You may have a clean design and provide everything your clients could possibly desire, but if nobody is clicking on your website, it hardly does you any good. Here are a few proven tactics that will help you increase the number of visitors you get to your website.
Social Media
Some of the most reliable methods to bring viewers to your website are also free or very low-cost. Social media allows you to create a page for your website or business and promote it free of charge. You can use these accounts on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to share information about giveaways or promotions or to share posts from your website.
You can also use social media to have your current web visitors promote your website. You can embed little widgets on various pages on your website that allow people to share an article or piece of information on their own social media. This natural advertising comes with a stamp of approval from that user, which can encourage their friends and family to visit your website. To help this, make sure your social media widgets are placed in a prominent location that won’t interfere with the user experience on your website.
Advertisements
In addition to creating a natural social media presence, you can run ad campaigns on your social media accounts. These ads are fairly low-cost and often blend in with regular content, so they don’t annoy social media users. You can schedule your ad campaigns to run at the optimal times for the demographic you are trying to attract.
In addition to using social media for advertising, you can run ads on other prominent websites. Start looking into resource websites for your industry and see if they offer ad space. Placing ads on these websites may be a little more expensive, but they have the added benefit of reaching a wider and more diverse audience than social media ads do because they are more constant than social media ads.
Search Engine Optimization
There is no point in trying to drive traffic to your site if you aren’t focusing on search engine optimization (SEO). This is the number one factor in getting people to visit your website. If you don’t show up in search results, people are going to visit your competition instead. There are a wide variety of things that you can do to increase your SEO, but starting with the basics is important.
Search engines need to know what your website is about, so make sure you have an accurate meta description and that you are using keywords properly. If you don’t use them enough, you won’t show up for the topics you have. If you overuse keywords, you may actually get a penalty for keyword stuffing. You should also make sure that your website converts easily to mobile use. Most people use their phones for the internet, so search engines prioritize websites that work well with both desktop and mobile users.
Encourage Reviews and Testimonials
People want to know how legitimate your website is and any services that you offer. They can glean some information from your website, but hearing from other customers can be very reassuring. Good reviews show that you are legitimate and help convert casual viewers into actual customers.
Display any testimonials you get from customers on your website and encourage people who buy your products to leave a review when they get their purchase. This builds your credibility as a vendor. On the other hand, if you are getting bad reviews, make sure you reevaluate and correct any business practices that aren’t working.
In any method of gaining web traffic, it is always essential to reach as many people as you can. The more people you can reach out to, the better your chances of building a loyal following. That loyal following is one of the most invaluable resources you can have, so don’t ever underestimate or neglect them.