Grow your blog following and make money online with these 5 proven strategies.
Increasing website traffic is on every entrepreneur’s list. Website design has evolved drastically over the last 2-3 years and staying on top of new trends in functionality can be challenging for a small-medium sized business owner with a to-do list a mile long. Even trying to understand all the new terminology, such as “responsive design” and “dynamic content,” can get overwhelming. Don’t fret. We’ve got you covered!
Tap House Media has broken down 5 EASY WAYS TO INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC ASAP to help guide you on your journey to driving more organic traffic to your website and converting those leads into paying clients, monthly members, and loyal followers!
1. Have a Content Marketing Strategy
No matter the format (blog, video, podcast, etc.), a content marketing strategy is a perfect way to build your organic traffic to your website or landing pages. And BONUS – it can all be posted to your social media channels as well!
If writing is your jam, then creating a blog specific to your niche will be an amazing outlet for you. We suggest blogging on WordPress because of all the amazing plugins and SEO capabilities it offers. But before you jump in, make sure you’re using a website host that caters specifically to WordPress and guarantees an excellent uptime report and of course speed.
Content marketing is all about creating content that is of value to the consumer. Keep in mind that if you’re blogging for money, Instead of writing a blog post with a title that has underlying sales pitch like ‘Why You Should Hire [insert business name] To Design Your Website’ a consumer, or your ideal customer, would prefer one that offers them helpful, professional insight. For example, ‘10 Website Must-Haves That Will Generate 30% More Leads’. See what I’m saying? Giving valuable and truly informative content to your audience will establish trust and spark a lasting relationship – one that is likely to turn a profit down the road.
PRO TIP FOR BLOGGING: Use Google Keyword Planner to find the best keywords for your industry. Build your blog posts around the ones that have at least 1,000 average monthly searches but also a low or medium competition score so you aren’t strong-armed out of Google search results.
- Begin a plan for content marketing and be consistent! Content marketing drives traffic to your website. Every time you write a blog post, it’s one more indexed page on your website, which means it’s one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search.
- Content marketing helps convert traffic into leads. Just like every blog post you write is another indexed page, each post is a new opportunity to generate new leads. The way this works is really simple – just add a lead-generating call-to-action to every blog post that directs to your landing page (What’s a landing page, you ask? Get in touch with Tap House Media and we’ll talk about how creating landing pages can help sell your service or products).
- Blogging also helps you get discovered via social media. Every time you write a blog post, you’re creating content that people can share on social networks — Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest — which helps expose your business to a new audience that may not know you yet.
2. Post Engaging Content (at least 1,800 words):
You’re the expert in your field, right? So get down to business and write a solid blog post complete with all those high searched (with low-medium competition) keywords strategically placed throughout your post. Writing valuable content can take a lot of time – all day for some people (like me). Develop your writing strategy and schedule and stick to it. Consistency is key when using a content marketing strategy to grow your business. You may work well with an outline or you could be a stream-of-conscious writer. Either way, make sure you have a plan to cover all your important pieces to your content puzzle complete with engaging imagery or videos. Of course, you’ll need to make your imagery SEO friendly with descriptive image names and alt text.
3. Optimize Your Website For Your Ideal Customer (Not For You):
Your website is a tool that should ultimately serve your audience. From the visual aesthetics to the functionality, all design techniques should work together to improve your site’s ability to serve your prospects.
Did you know when someone arrives at your site for the first time, it takes under two-tenths of a second for that visitor to form an opinion of the website, and, by association, the brand it represents? If your website fails to impress your prospect, you’ve just lost a sale or a follower.
74% of businesses believe correcting your site’s user experience is key for improving sales, conversions, and loyalty. Really terrible sites fail because they were designed for a company, not for the reader.
If your visitor doesn’t know where to look and what to do on your page, they will leave. Look at every page element through your reader’s eyes and correct anything that is confusing or out of place. Not only does this serve your visitors, but it will also improve your bounce rates. Working alone? Join a few Facebook groups of like-minded people to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
Bottom Line:
In 3 – 5 seconds, can someone look at your page and know:
- Who your company is
- What you do
- What you want the visitor to do on the page
If not, revisit both your value prop and design with a professional team to highlight those important messages.
4. Optimize Your Website For Mobile Viewing (with Responsive Design):
People access your content from multiple devices – iPhones, ipads, etc. The evidence of this mobile migration is compelling. Here are a few of the many statistics pointing to audience’s transition to mobile viewing:
- 65% of U.S. adults sleep with their phones on or near their beds
- Over 20% of Google searches are performed on a mobile device.
- In the United States, 25% of internet users only access the internet on a mobile device.
- 61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience.
- 25.85% of all emails are opened on mobile phones, and 10.16% are opened on tablets.
- In mobile SEO, Google penalizes sites that aren’t optimized for responsive design.
Having a mobile website is no longer simply a nice feature. It is now a necessity and literally impacts the growth of your business.
Create A Video Marketing Strategy
While blogging alone is a smart and effective way to nurture your audience, adding a VIDEO component will take your marketing to the next level. Video marketing is where it’s at, and is the ultimate attention-grabber for your audience, more so than still photos and text. Let’s face it – audiences today want to consume info in the easiest way possible with the smallest amount of effort on their part, which usually means video as opposed to taking the time to read something (God forbid!).
Did you know…
- Video in an email leads to a 200-300% increase in click-through rate
- After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online
- Including video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%
- ⅓ of all online activity is spent watching videos
Not only are videos the perfect way to put your message out there, but they are also versatile and have a very long shelf life if planned correctly. Use them on your website and across all social media channels. Recycle them year after year, as long as the subject matter isn’t out of date and it’s general enough to still represent your business as time passes.
PRO TIP: If you’re ready to take your small business marketing strategy to the next level, we highly suggest enrolling in our partner program *SEO DEMYSTIFIED*. You’ll learn a PROVEN strategy to increase your website leads by learning the core components of SEO and finding keywords that rank for your niche – for FREE! Click on the link below to learn more and get started.
It’s not enough to produce great content & hope that people find it – you have to be proactive. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to use “social media” channels to promote your content. “Twitter” is ideal for short, snappy links, whereas “Google+” promotion can help your site show up in personalized search results and seems especially effective in B2B niches. If you’re a B2C product company, you might find great traction with image-heavy social sites like Pinterest and Instagram.
Cheers 🙂
Thanks for your comment, Robert. We love using Pinterest for lead generation.
Great content!
But I have a question:
You said about different statistics on google and search engine.
What are your thoughts on Voice search? and please give any tips for the same