10 tips to increase website traffic

1. Optimise your site

You want customers to find you easily, so you’ll want to try and be one of the top websites to appear in relevant search results. To do that, you’ll need to optimise your site for search engines. Figure out what keywords are relevant to your business and incorporate them naturally into your website pages.

2. Create a responsive site

People use different devices to surf the web, and an increasing number of them are doing so on mobile. In 2018, mobile phones accounted for over 50% of website traffic worldwide. By 2021, mobile will make up almost three quarters of ecommerce sales. The numbers are compelling, so make sure your site is responsive and easy to use across a range of devices.

Your site must also enable a smooth user experience from the first click to the last. This includes quick load times, intuitive navigation, a clean layout, a simple user interface, and more. Without these, potential customers can get frustrated, leave your site, and never return.

3. Be social

Make the most of all that social media has to offer. Be sure to add a link to your website on all your social media accounts and encourage people to visit it. Run competitions and promote new products or services to drum up traffic to your site.

Posting regularly and adding relevant hashtags (especially on Instagram and Twitter) is also a great way for potential customers to discover your business. Whatever you do, be genuine and attentive when interacting with customers on social media.

4. Advertise

If you have the budget, go for paid advertising options such as:

• Paid search: You can use Google AdWords Express to automatically manage your online ads. You can also retarget ads to customers who have already visited your site but haven’t bought any of your products or services.
• Paid social media: You can purchase Facebook or Instagram ads, boost posts with high engagement, or show sponsored posts to a certain demographic.
• Display advertising: You can advertise on other websites or on social media networks through banner ads or formats that include audio or video. This might take more effort and is often more expensive because you need a creative idea or team behind it.

5. Build an email list

Through email marketing, you can build a list of subscribers who want to receive updates about your product or service. It’s an effective way to connect with potential customers and get them to visit your website.

6. Get listed

Getting listed on an online directory for your location or industry (such as Google My Business or your local Chamber of Commerce’s site) can increase your business’s visibility because you’ll have your own profile and a link to your website. For review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp, people can leave feedback about your business, so getting positive reviews can bring in more customers.

7. Engage influencers

Find bloggers, social media users, and other influencers in your industry who align with your business values. You might need to offer them freebies or woo them a bit to get them to write about your service or post about your product, but their large audience and following will hopefully drive more visitors to your website.

8. Test your content

Experiment with the types of content you provide customers and see what appeals most to them. It could be short articles or longer ones, image slideshows, videos, or infographics, for example. Even if your content comes in different formats, make sure it’s useful and valuable so people want to share it.

9. Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics supplies a treasure trove of data on different aspects of your site, including where your traffic is coming from, visitor demographics, and any traffic patterns or trends. You can use this data to inform your marketing strategies and attract the right customers to your site.

10. Research your competitors

See what your competitors are doing to drive traffic to their website. You can use competitor analysis tools like Alexa or SimilarWeb to check where their traffic is coming from and adopt a similar strategy or tap the same sources. It’s also worth looking at what your competitors are posting, promoting, and sharing on social media to see how you can do it better.