Having an awesome looking site is great, but what’s the point… if people aren’t taking action, buying things to put cash in your pocket – or worse yet, even showing up at your website in the first place? So…
Today I want to share some tips on how to get more web traffic to your websites.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but any type of organic traffic you can bring in is going to give your business a boost without having to hit your pocket too hard.
If you have any methods that work really well, that you wouldn’t mind sharing, please post in the comments below!
Find Your Niche
No matter what your site is about, the truth is – there are already oodles of other people, and other websites producing content on the same subject. That can work in your favour if you let it.
If your dream is to write a blog about fitness, then you are going to be in direct competition with the other 1,430,000,000 results that appear in a Google search whenever anyone types in ‘fitness’. In order for your site to take off, and to maximise its traffic potential, YOUR site needs to narrow in on a specific topic that, perhaps, is not being adequately covered elsewhere. This is your niche.
Your niche area will need to be relevant, something that you are passionate about, that you have skills or knowledge in, and something that you can easily build upon, particularly if you are planning long-term.
Your niche will determine the content of your site, the audience and is foundational to how successful your site will be, so do not cut corners when it comes to this step!
Sometimes in internet marketing this can be tougher still, than non-IM niche type areas – but don’t let that get you down. Using internet marketing as an example (like fitness), there are many smaller more targeted niche areas within the broader ‘IM’ scope, so find your spot and own that (like a BOSS!)
Content
You may have heard this before – “Content is king”. Although trends and Google algorithms go up and down all of the time, this is one that stays nice and constant. All the planning, marketing and digital networking in the world will not be able to save a site that has terrible content – or no content. In order for your site to thrive, you will need to provide creative, original content that people will want to engage with. One way to make sure that you are publishing interesting content is by doing a little market research in your niche area. Keep growing your knowledge and expanding your experience.
Wikipedia
One of the ways to do this is by using Wikipedia. If a piece of digital content is cited on Wikipedia, then you know the author of that content has done something right – an editor had to have engaged with it, in order for it to appear on Wikipedia.
Here’s how you are going to utilise Wikipedia as a tool for increasing the traffic on your site:
- Go to Wikipedia.com
- Enter a broad search term that is related to your niche, in the field provided
- Browse through the relevant topics produced by the search
- View the ‘References’ section at the bottom of the page. There is almost always online links to significant articles in this section, which will relate to your niche. Reading these links and articles gives you good insight into what topics are popular and have already had success within your niche area.
- You can now create content that is in keeping with these already successful topics, and use them to promote your content, and your site.
Reddit.com can be a useful tool which you can utilise in a similar manner. Reddit is a social networking community where members submit content which is then voted ‘up’ or ‘down’. This makes it an excellent way to see at a glance which entries are popular, based on their rank. What’s handy about Reddit is that content is organised into areas of interest called ‘subreddits’ which means you can look at content that relates only to your niche area.
Google
Another fast way to come up with great ideas for content is Google.com
Thanks to the explosion in the popularity and interest in content curation, the internet is now full of bloggers, blogging…about blogging. Among these fascinating blog entries are some quite nicely groomed lists of content ideas. Utilise these as a jumping off point when you are having trouble coming up with fresh ideas.
Pinterest is responsible for more traffic driven to third party websites than LinkedIn, YouTube and Google . Here’s how you can use it for finding out how to get more web traffic using content mining:
- Head to Pinterest.com
- Enter a keyword in the search field
- Pins are ranked by ‘re-pins’, comments and likes so you want to keep an eye out for content that is a top pin, relating to your niche.
- Once you have found a piece of great content, tweak it, use it for inspiration, publish it and then get your content onto Pinterest so that you can make that traffic work for you.
Flippa
If you are not familiar with Flippa, it’s a site where people can ‘flip off’ their websites for a price. There are now a few of these sites in existence but Flippa is the first of its kind and still seems to maintain the most business and traffic. Think Ebay for websites and domains.
What’s fantastic about Flippa is that when someone lists their site, they are also listing everything they did to build their website. It’s like buying goodwill on a business. If you purchase a website on Flippa that has been successful, you are also purchasing their traffic, their published content and their established audience.
Here’s how to find a website in your niche on Flippa;
- Go to Flippa.com
- Search for websites in your niche, using the search field. Be broad and use keywords that encompass your niche widely
- Limit the results to sites that get a minimum amount of visitors per month (eg: 1000)
- Choose a site that matches your niche
- You can now purchase this and use it for your own content.
Using Flippa in this way gives YOUR site the upper hand because you are starting it on an existing foundation. And, since you have picked a website that already caters to your niche market, you are now able to tweak existing content and add new content, knowing that your audience is already established, and is interested in what you have to promote, which solves some of the problem in finding out how to get more web traffic.
Buzz Sumo
Harris Fellman mentioned this awesome resource to me about 12 months ago and it’s something I like to refer to regularly, to see what is going on in the marketplace (whatever marketplace you are in) and see what is trending and getting lots of viral traffic. You can put in a keyword into Buzz Sumo and it will pull up a list of suggestions for ideas and current news activities.
Images
Still wondering how to get more web traffic? It has been proven that using images will improve audience engagement with any topic. However, using free stock images will not always cut the mustard.
Streamlining your images to make them appear more cohesive and themed can increase your hit rate, and increase your permanent audience base. Doing this also improves your overall branding, and will make your images and consequently, your content, more recognisable. This is good business, and is a particularly important factor if you are planning your site’s long-term profitability.
The more consistent and legitimate your images appear, the more likely your content is to be pinned and shared on social media and on other sites – all things which will help to generate and increase your traffic. Streamlining your images will not only help your site to look more professional, but it will help to brand your site. Your site is just one, amongst an ocean of sites that are all seeking the same traffic. Improving how you utilise images will ensure that you are snagging a portion of that traffic for your site, and increasing your profit potential.
Viral Traffic Tools
Getting visitors to your site is a great start, but to get the MOST effective results from all of that content creation work you put in, you really should be building in viral aspects to everything you do.
Make sure that you have distinct calls to action. Be REALLY clear about what action you want your visitors to take.
Include a ‘nudge’ or ‘bribe’ to encourage or inspire people to share your content. For example, this just below 🙂 . I set that up SUPER simply, using a program called Traffic Zombie, which is a hosted software that lets you point and click your way to a bunch of very professional irresistible bribes proven to drive traffic that grows solidly over time. You can put them anywhere – driving traffic nice and easily 🙂
And don’t forget to share your tips and experiences with any of theses traffic tools in the comments below!
