SEO
August 22nd, 2023
You’ve built a website! You’re already ahead of the game; nearly 1 in 3 businesses have yet to build a website. But an empty website that never gets seen is just a showcase for your pre-existing customers. To make your website work for your business, you need to start generating traffic.
There are many ways to increase your website traffic, but for the sake of this article, we’ll focus on 5 key strategies that will help you grow your website.
Your website might look great, but how does it perform? Does it load quickly? Is it mobile-optimized? Do the images fit in place? Is it legible? If not, Google won’t share it.
Today, search engines can detect performance issues instantly. And when detected, these engines will choose not to share your website with as many users. Don’t get stuck in search engine jail and make sure your website is performing well, or your website won’t be able to generate traffic effectively.
If you’re looking for a quick, FREE tool to use, we recommend the HubSpot Website Grader or PageSpeed Insights. Both are great for an instant and easy-to-use tool for quick analysis. Aim to achieve at least scores of 85+. For those interested in further analysis, learn to use the Google Search Console.
Once your website performance improves, the next step is to analyze your keywords. Keywords are used by search engines to determine what audiences will be interested in your website. Here at the Red Gecko, we use keywords such as “Digital Marketing”, “Website Design”, and “Social Media“ to establish ourselves in our industry. However, to reach our target audience, we also use words like “Small business”. just like we do in this article. Make sure that you’re specifically calling out your audience, whether they’re parents, homeowners, CEOs, etc.
Your audience won’t return to your website unless you consistently create value for them.
Ask yourself why your website exists... Your answer is likely self-centered, along the lines of “to grow our audience” or “to provide a portfolio of our business”. These are true, but your audience doesn’t care about these things.
Now, ask yourself why your audience would use your website... Whatever your answer is, it likely boils down to “they get value from us”. This can be educational, like an informative insights post, or maybe the value comes from offerings, like special discounts and flash sales. But ultimately, your website needs to appeal to your target audience and provide them with this value consistently.
We recommend to every business start a weekly newsletter. Write updates about your business, give an expert opinion on your niche, inform about trends and updates, give unique offerings and discounts, etc. This content will give your audience a reason to return to your website, which will not only help your website increase traffic but also allow you to understand what your audience values by analyzing what content gains traction.
PPC Ads are a great way to quickly boost your traffic at a consistent rate.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another effective way to generate website traffic. With PPC advertising, you pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad. While paid ads aren’t free like SEO (search engine optimization), you get a quick and clear return on investment with each ad. Every conversion you receive from your ads will be viewers who are CERTAIN they want to see your content, not just users who stumble on your website.
Keep in mind that you won’t see instant results. Consistency is key. Set a consistent monthly advertising budget and stick to it. After a few months, you’ll start to improve your results.
In addition to making ads on Google, consider running ads on social media, such as Facebook. Depending on your target audience, you may find that they are more active in certain spaces than others. For those interested in a social media campaign, check out this Small Business Guide for Social Media.
Similar to keywords on your website as we discussed earlier, you’ll need to ensure you’re using specific keywords on your ads as well. You may find that you can’t compete with big competitors on general terms like “Digital Marketing”, but you can gain viewership with more specific terms like “Facebook Advertising for Small Businesses”, especially if you’re targeting a specific geographic area.
Get other websites to link yours and Google will give you a big boost.
Backlinks are links from other websites to your website. They're an important part of your search engine optimization because they improve your website's ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
When you create valuable content, you may find that backlinks to those pages will develop naturally, but this will may take years, or decades, to develop. One way to generate backlinks quickly is to guest insights on other websites. When you guest insights, you write an article for another website and include a link back to your website in your author bio. This is a great way to get your website in front of a new audience and improve your SEO.
If you’re a business that works with other businesses (B2B), you may find it effective to reach out to those businesses and ask them to share your website link via a partner’s page or an article written to announce the partnership.
Some people already reach your audience! Work with them!
Influencers are people with a large following, typically through social media. Influencer marketing is the act of working with these influencers to promote your brand/website, which taps into their audience and attracts more visitors to your brand/website.
There are a variety of ways to reach out to influencers. You can send them a personal message on social media, email them, or even attend industry events and introduce yourself. When you reach out to influencers, be sure to have a clear and concise message about why you think they would be interested in promoting your website.
Working with an influencer doesn’t have to just be a post. While many brands stick to asking influencers to make a promotional video, the influencer’s audience can often tell that the relationship is forced. Instead, product placement is more authentic, and partnered posts (making a joint post together, where both the influencer and your brand are behind the content) can allow you to create a relationship with the audience that they consider valuable.
Oftentimes these influencers will have worked with brands like yours in the past and may have a standardized rate that they’ve developed for their influencer marketing. Oftentimes you’ll find that working with an influencer will reach a larger audience for a lower cost than PPC Advertising if done correctly.
By following these five strategies, you will generate more website traffic for your small business, and reach your target audience. Remember to be patient and consistent with your efforts. You will see results!
Thanks for reading.