It’s not just frustrating and depressing when you can’t drive website traffic to your site, it is costing you sales and crushing your dreams of a fast-growing business.
In fact, a whopping 20% of business owners report struggling to drive website traffic to their site – are you part of this unfortunate number?
Your website is like the front door of your business; it’s the first thing people see and their first impression of what’s inside. So let’s get the first impression right and help you get visitors to your website that you are working so hard towards.
Here are the top 20 things we view as the most important and effective ways to drive website traffic which are life-changing to the number of visitors you will see coming to your site, yet are simple to implement.
1. Make your website rocket fast!
Consumers want information NOW, and they won’t wait around for your site to load – you will be unable to drive website traffic from your visitors as they’ll simply go somewhere else. Ideally, you’ll want your website to load within three seconds or two seconds if it’s an e-commerce site.
A slow website certainly is noticed by Google – If your website is not fast enough, Google will not show it to people very easily. And if you run Google ads with a slow website, be prepared for a shock: Google will charge you up to 400% more than your faster competitors!
Google Page Speed Insights is great for helping you figure out if your page loading speed needs to be faster. Simply visit the page and put your URL into the test.
Under the ‘performance’ section, you can assess your page speed and take any remedial action needed. (some of this will fall to your website developer as it does get quite technical)
If this area is red for you, don’t stress – Google Page Speed Insights will tell you exactly what you need to do to fix the issue to enable you to drive website traffic to your site finally.
Key takeaway: A slow website drives visitors away, resulting in lost traffic. Google penalises slow sites, lowering visibility and charging higher ad fees. Use Google Page Speed Insights to assess and improve your site’s speed, ensuring effective traffic generation.
2. If you want to drive website traffic to your site, you need to create a complete digital footprint.
Your digital footprint is your business’s connection to Google – make sure to set this up correctly to drive website traffic from your visitors. Your complete digital footprint would include:
- Social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram
- Your website
- All your various Google assets such as Console, G4 etc.
- YouTube
- Google My Business
Why is this important?
It is essential that all that good work you put in and your social platforms convert into traffic to your website not only because you want to drive website traffic but because Google is looking for clues as to how useful and authoritative you are, and all the social platforms provide those clues.
Detail is crucial to success in helping drive website traffic.
Recently a client was punished by Google for having different opening hours on the website versus their Google my business page. Detail FTW!
3. Write compelling content Using the They Ask You Answer Framework.
They Ask You Answer is a globally renowned content framework based on a book of the same name by Marcus Sheridan.
This is about truly understanding your audience and creating content suited to them – this is your key to drive website traffic and building a great deal of trust in your industry.
The best way to think about your content is to understand that you cannot write every piece of content for people just about to buy from you.
Most visitors to your site need to be nurtured rather than offered 10% off or ‘call us today.’ You need to provide a broad range of educational content that helps them understand the sector that you operate in – drive website traffic by teaching your website visitors some valuable information they can learn and use.
This content needs to be honest, unbiased and very useful to them – your goal is to make them want to visit your site repeatedly, which will help you drive website traffic.
There are five big content areas that you must consider and answer all the potential questions that may be in a buyer’s mind to help you drive website traffic:
- COST – talk openly about the factors that affect the price of your product or service. You do not need to name a specific price if you offer a bespoke service, but you must share details that help people understand where you sit and why your price points are different
- PROBLEMS – you should always answer any questions that buyers have ever put to you about issues with your product or service problems in your sector, problems with implementation and be very clear on who your product or service is not an excellent fit for.
- COMPARISONS – An Amazon page is a very effective selling page that always includes comparable products. To help drive website traffic, offer this service on your website! Compare your product or service to others that do a similar job – that will help those for whom your product or service is NOT a good fit to understand that.
- REVIEWS – nearly every human who uses the internet well at some stage wants to see a review in the shopping and research process. Why not write a few reviews of competing companies, their products or services, and related products and services? But to help drive website traffic, never include yourself in these reviews because they will immediately be biased.
- BEST OF – everybody loves a top ten or top five list, so start making some around your product or service area, which will help educate and inform your buyer. You must remember that there should be no selling in these blogs – it’s simply a case of showing the buyer that you are a trustworthy and honest company worth talking to.
- HOW TO / WHAT IS – This category educates people on all the item components that make up your product or the different areas of your service. This will help drive website traffic by your visitors, ensuring they feel confident that they understand everything you do.
With all of the above blogs, you can include a call to action at the bottom, which might be a paragraph explaining why you solve that problem or why your solution or service is better.
Key takeaway: to drive traffic to your website, focus on creating educational and useful content that addresses your target audience’s potential questions and concerns. Ensure this content is unbiased and honest – your audience must trust you.
4. Drive website traffic with the magic of three blogs a week
To drive website traffic organically, small blogs should post new content 3-4 times a week, and larger blogs should post content 4-5 times a week.
Google rewards fresh content, rewarding those who post more content with more significant visitor numbers. Research has proved time and time again that the cadence or frequency of your posting is a critical factor in your success in driving website traffic.
Companies who post three times a week using the They Ask You Answer framework have seen visitor numbers increase by thousands of per cent – in fact, you can see their success stories for yourself.
Social Platforms
The ideal frequency of posts on social platforms depends on when your audience is most active online and will vary across different platforms.
5. Drive website traffic dramatically and save a ton of time by repurposing your content
Content creation is the heart of all your huge traffic success, but time is a problem sometimes it is hard to think of new content ideas – the good news is, you only sometimes need to create new content.
Instead, help yourself out to drive website traffic by using content that has already performed well in the past:
Have a well-performing blog? Turn it into a video. Chop up a long video into a lot of smaller YouTube shorts. Do you have a podcast that performed well? Turn it into an in-depth article.
Repurposing content is great for reaching audiences you may have missed previously – you can reach your target market on different platforms with different content preferences.
6. You’ll never drive website traffic in a big way without an SEO-optimised website
On-page SEO is the technical term for SEO work on your website. It involves optimising the content and structure of your website to make it more visible and relevant to search engines like Google to help drive website traffic to your site.
This includes choosing the right keywords for your articles, creating valuable, educational content and not fluffy sales pieces, your titles and meta descriptions, and ensuring your website is easy to navigate.
Choosing the right keywords for your content
When thinking of the right keywords to include in my articles and other content, I use Google Ads to help me find relevant and trending keywords my target market is searching for – this allows me to drive website traffic to the right audience.
I start by searching for a keyword I would like to base my blog on the keyword planner tool in Google Ads. You also have the option to input your website URL to filter out any irrelevant keywords – I recommend doing this.
Once Google provides you with some keyword suggestions, these are some things you should look out for
- Three-month and yearly (YOY) change – at which percentage did the relevant keyword change over the past three months and year? It’s best to use keywords that change over the three months of the year, e.g. +900%. This will help you drive website traffic to your site as you use keywords currently trending around your chosen topic.
- Competition – will you feature a keyword in your content with low, medium or high competition? As a general rule of thumb, you must use keywords with different competition levels. Picking a keyword with low competition means that you are likely to rank higher on the Google search engine; however, if you over-use low competition keywords, Google will see that you are trying to take the easy route so it may lower your rank on the search results in the long term.
Choose your keywords wisely and vary the type of keyword you use in your articles and the competition level.
If you need help with how to use Google ads for planning keywords effectively, this detailed guide will help get you started.
7. Unlock the power of your free website from Google: Google My Business.
- When did you last update the photos on your Google My Business page?
- Did you check if it shows all your services?
- Did you update all the other information regularly?
- Have you made sure you have a flow of great reviews?
A billion people use Google to find things they need every day. If your Google My Business page is tired and empty, they won’t click on your website, and you won’t drive website traffic to your site (and while we are here, if they can’t even find the correct address, phone number or opening hours then you’ll never meet them!).
Action: Set aside a few minutes a week to check and update your GMB page
Also, note that Google will judge your business and how much web traffic to send you by how regularly you update the page and how good your reviews are.
Google My Business is a great tool to help manage your directory listings and citations so they appear in searches local to your area.
8. Add technical SEO skills to your armoury.
Don’t worry, technical SEO isn’t as scary as it seems, and you can fix much of it yourself. That said, it is often an area that can be outsourced easily.
Technical SEO involves optimising your website’s structure and code to make it more search-engine friendly, allowing you to drive website traffic like a pro. This includes ensuring proper indexing of pages, implementing structured data markup, optimising meta tags, and fixing broken links, among other things.
The good news is you don’t have to be a techy business owner to get good at technical SEO: there are many resources to help you master the basics to help you drive website traffic from your off-page SEO.
Why not get started with a short course to help you master the SEO basics? Hubspot does some amazing courses for beginners.
Tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you with things such as:
- Indexing issues that may be affecting your website’s visibility in search results.
- Any crawl errors, missing pages, or other technical issues that may be impacting your website’s search performance
- Helps identify the keywords and queries that will drive website traffic.
- Enables you to identify areas of your website that may need improvement, such as slow-loading pages or pages with high bounce rates.
9. Videos will enormously drive website traffic.
When I click on long blogs with a short video at the top of the article, I click on them first to get an overview of what will be discussed in the article – could you relate? People buy from people; the sooner a visitor can put a human face to your business, the better.
Video is essential to drive website traffic significantly – Google will see people watching your video and reward you by sending you more people.
Videos in your content are great for capturing the attention of your target market and also saving them time – something which readers highly value.
Marketing your business through video is now more critical than ever – don’t forget that Youtube is the world’s second-biggest search engine. 91% of businesses already use video as a marketing tool. What does that mean? You should probably be using it to drive website traffic, too, right?
And from the consumer’s perspective, they are dying to see more videos from you!
Google and other search engines prioritise websites with engaging and informative content. So get used to producing videos, and don’t worry too much about the technical aspects or whether or not you have the latest camera – just get into the habit of adding a video to every blog and service page.
10. Don’t get left un-clicked: drive website traffic by writing snippets that grab visitors’ attention
A snippet is a short description of your webpage on Google’s results page. If you can write a great snippet and the content on the page backs this up, you will drive website traffic enormously to your site.
Maximise your chances of someone clicking on your page by ensuring your snippets are short, concise (your page description should be between 40 to 50 words) and powerful enough to grab the reader’s attention.
If you struggle with producing compelling titles that grab your reader’s attention, consider trying Jasper.ai and Copy.aI, which help generate great titles for your content.
Some of the features of your title tag to optimise SEO and drive website traffic should include:
- Your focus keyword near the beginning of your title
- Add a power word and a positive or a negative sentiment
- Try to add a number to your title
- Keep it concise (around 50-60 characters)
Key takeaway: To drive website traffic, ensure that your web page’s snippet is short, concise, and powerful enough to grab readers’ attention. Use tools like Jasper.ai and Copy.ai if you struggle with compelling titles.
11. Links from other sites are your success ticket to drive website traffic
Backlinks (links from other sites) are vital for two reasons:
- Backlinks act as a signpost telling people to visit your site – which is what we are all about here!
- Backlinks also give Google a clue about how good your website is, and the better the site quality they are on, the more power it adds to your website.
A backlink from the BBC is worth a lot; a backlink from your mate’s site is Ok to drive website traffic as long as it is relevant!
You must only keep credible and trustworthy backlinks – don’t let spammy sites link to your website and drive your overall authority score down.
If you want to find out who links to your site, you can do so through Google Search Console. Just click on your chosen property, then go to links > External links > top linked pages.
12. Capture attention with internal links
The more valuable links there are connecting pages within your website, the better (just don’t go crazy with the volume of links you have as Google does not like that – it looks spammy)
Excellent internal links keep potential customers on your site, read your content and ‘fall under your spell’, – what a great way to easily drive website traffic to your site!
Using internal links for your content is essential for improving the user experience by providing additional relevant content and helping search engines understand the structure of your website and its content, allowing them to crawl and index your pages more efficiently.
To effectively use internal links in your articles and drive website traffic, it’s essential to link to relevant and valuable content within your website rather than just ‘throwing’ content in for the sake of it – that won’t do you any benefits.
13. Think mobile for a maximum drive to website traffic
I have seen many websites throughout my life: some good, some not so good. The real frustration comes in when I search for something and it does not load within a reasonable time. At this point, I leave the website like any other visitor – would you do the same?
So, what makes a website responsive?
To answer your question, ask yourself: can your user access the same website on a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile phone and still have an optimal viewing experience?
You should account for things such as the scalability of your images (you should aim for a compromise between a high-quality image and a small image size) and a professional design with excellent visuals.
When you type your website’s URL into Google page insights, it will provide you with a website analysis accounting for four factors: performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO. To find out what these exactly mean and how you can rank higher on these four metrics, this is a valuable read on using Google Page Speed insights.
And what about mobile?
58.43% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. A significant number, right? Sadly, many business owners forget the importance of optimising their pages for mobile users, not allowing their business to drive website traffic from this user-swarming device. Don’t make the same mistake!
You can use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test to check if users are staying or fleeing from your mobile site.
Key takeaway: considering that 58.43% of website traffic comes from mobile devices, it is crucial to optimise your website for mobile users and test it using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure that users can access it effortlessly.
14. Use AI to drive website traffic efficiently
You can use AI to optimise your website’s design and layout, create personalised recommendations for users, and even automate your marketing campaigns – all playing a role to drive website traffic if implemented correctly.
AIContentfy will be a huge help, but it is not live yet. You can join their waiting list and start using it once it’s ready – how exciting.
So how can this AI software help you drive traffic to your website through personalised content recommendations? Let me explain:
AIContentfy will analyse various data of users likely attracted to your business, such as your potential users browsing history, search queries and likes and dislikes.
Using AI software like the one I mentioned above will allow you to present your potential customers with tailored content to help you drive website traffic. There is no point in giving the same content to each person as this strategy is too generic and will unlikely drive a lot of traffic to your website.
Another great gift of this AI software is its ability to analyse your website data and predict future trends and the behaviour of people who visit your website.
AI analysing this vast amount of data will help you understand which pages on your website are being visited the most, how long users spend on each page, and which pages are causing users to leave the site.
With this knowledge in your hands, you can make significant website changes to improve your user’s experience – whether you need to start adding more relevant content or improve your website’s navigation, why not do this with the help of AI to save yourself time?
15. Drive website traffic using the power of paid clicks
Paid advertising can be a great option to drive website traffic, as if used correctly, it allows you to reach a highly targeted audience and drive traffic to your website quickly. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer a range of targeting options, so you can reach people most likely to be interested in your products or services.
Important note: Use paid advertising only when you are sure your website is correctly set up for SEO
16. Incorporate guest posting as part of your strategy
If you have never heard of guest posting before, this is you or a member of your team creating an article or blog post you have expertise in and publishing it on someone else’s website or blog (This would be writing content that you have expertise in).
Over half of marketers (53%) spend four hours or less on guest posts per week. It is definitely worth trying it out and seeing the benefits for yourself.
Guest posting can do a huge favour to drive website traffic for your business for three main reasons:
- Guest posting on reputable websites can help establish your credibility and authority in your industry
- Guest posting can introduce your content and brand to a broader audience, helping to increase your visibility and reach.
- Guest posting can also help you build relationships with other bloggers and influencers in your industry
17. Establish your topic expertise
You can effectively position yourself as the expert to help drive website traffic using these two things: a pillar page and topic clusters.
A pillar page is a main page which covers the broad scope of a topic without going into a lot of detail in any particular area. Such a page is handy for people visiting your site because it allows them to understand the range of the topics you will cover in this subject area.
Image – pillar page and topic cluster diagram (copysmiths.com)
You should link various topic pages or clusters from the central pillar page. This structure gives Google good reasons to help you drive website traffic. This helps them understand your content approach as much as it is very user-friendly for humans.
An example might be for a fishing website:
The pillar page:
A guide to sea fishing
The topic pages ( or clusters of topic pages) could be:
- The best countries for sea fishing
- What bait should I use for tuna fishing in Florida
- Which fishing rod is best for sea fishing?
- Where should first timer go sea fishing?
- What boat is best for sea fishing?
- five things to avoid when fishing for Marlin
And so on…
That will drive website traffic because it has the power to show people you are an excellent resource for the topic area. Before creating your topic clusters and pillar pages, check out this easy pillar page guide to help get you started.
18. You will struggle to drive website traffic if you don’t make it easy for users to share your content
Social share buttons do a miracle to drive website traffic – people can share your content in just one click.
You are not writing articles on your website for fun – you want people to engage with your content and share it with other users to drive website traffic from their friends and contacts.
Your readers are much more likely to share your content if you make it easy for them to do so – you could offer social media icons on the side of your page or at the top – whichever layout will catch your reader’s attention.
Get a precise action plan to drive website traffic today with a website review from the experts at The Ambitions Agency.
There is no better way to gain a clear and detailed picture of what needs to be improved than a website audit. – this is a professional analysis of your website.
Having a website audit gives you the complete picture of both your website and the digital world it lives in. The results are fascinating and fun.
And most importantly, they are a great way to drive website traffic.
A website audit includes
- The content and structure that your website should have to resonate with your audience
- What your competitors are doing with their digital marketing – what is working for them
- What opportunity exists for you to grow your business online
- Which blog content would attract more business and which to avoid for you
- How much money you should spend on a website
If you want to find this valuable information about your website, you can request a free digital audit.
