Raise your hand if you’re looking for more people on your website? I know I am. When I started on my business journey, I somehow thought that if I designed this beautiful bomb looking website people would flock by the dozens to see it. Well, I built it. I launched it and saw a ton of traffic that initial month and then crickets. My website traffic went from a few hundred visits per day to maybe 5 or so visit. Completely embarrassing. Has this happened to you?
If you’re like me you’re probably salivating for ways to increase your website traffic for obvious reasons. You want people to read your blog articles, you want them to sign up for your email list, and most importantly you’re anxious to get people interested in your products or services. But what you probably want is to help get ranked higher in search engines, and likely increase the overall engagement on your website. So what’s the secret behind those brands that get month after month of high website traffic and you? Well, I was curious to know what goes beyond the beautiful website and gets our websites on people’s radar and this is what I found that works for some of the major brands out there.
First and foremost before we get into the nitty-gritty, it goes without saying that if you’re going to embark on this journey, you have two options: do it for free or pay for it. What’s the difference between the two? In a nutshell, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you’re getting quality people coming to your website. And by quality, I mean people who are interested in you, what you have to say and people who would be interested in working with you. These are going to be the folks that you can potentially convert into buyers. So if you’ve got a budget and can afford to pay for traffic to come to your website, then, by all means, use it. But if you’re in a pinch, and need a free solution to drive traffic to your website, then you’re in luck because we live in a day and age where you can do that.
Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way, here are a few ways that I’ve found (and plan to use) in order to get quality traffic to my website which will work for you too:
Actually using social media.
If there’s anything I learned in the last year of my business, it’s that people want to get to know you. I actually remember listening to Jenna Kutcher talk about how her engagement exploded when she started including more pictures of herself in her Instagram profile. In fact, the more she shared about herself, and her personal life, the more she found that people were interested in her services and products. I noticed this about myself in my early days of blogging. I wrote articles that shared my thoughts on some interesting topics and people really responded to it, but most importantly it got people curious about what I do for work. Where I went wrong was not being consistent. I fell off the blog wagon, hopped on the Facebook wagon, fell off that one too, then got into a complicated relationship with Instagram. No Bueno. This led to sporadic traffic that I’d have to build up from the bottom, everything I went missing in action. What I’m doing differently now is consistently showing up and sharing. It’s that simple. I know there are a ton of you out there cringing about this because you’re a private person, hate sharing about your personal life or truly hate the feeling of taking an abundance of selfies like a narcissist, Or maybe you find social media generally distracting. To which I say, if you’re interested in driving traffic to your site, then try putting all those feelings aside in the interest of reaching your object (or try the other five things I’m going to suggest).
One last note on socials, some ways that have really engaged people to visit your site on social are:
- Posts: by creating a really good infographic (shareable on Pinterest or LinkedIn) or info carousels (on Instagram).
- Paid ads
- Answering questions/or recommendation requests in groups on facebook or LinkedIn
Start sharing your expertise by blogging.
Do people even blog anymore? Well if you’re reading this from my website, then yes. Plain and simple, blogging is how google gets the answers to people’s questions. So when you answer frequently asked questions about your area of expertise in a way that people would search for, you get traffic. A tactic that you can use specifically is using Hashtagging in posts. I’ve never been a fan of littering a beautifully designed website with hashtags, but my goal is to test it and see it the #waytogettraffic is going to work. (Like how I worked that in there?)
In November, when I was getting close to the birth of my number 2, I started writing and sending out emails in relationship blog content that I was getting. Turns out in that month, I had the most website visits. When I tell you I was shocked that this actually worked, I kid you not. Even though I’ve subscribed to a number of lists, I’ve also been annoyed and unsubscriber to a number of them. I secretly harbored this fear that my list (which as we speak has less than 100 subscribers) would all unsubscribe and I would be listless! But seeing as it actually was able to get me what I needed, which is more site visits, I’ll be sending more emails to my list friends! The benefit of this is that when people love the email, they can forward it to other people, who will likely come to my site too. Two examples of emails that really get me to visit their sites are
Neville Medora – the email alone gives you step by step detail, and then he does a good job of pitching his course every once in a while.
Ramit Sethi also does a ridiculously great job at this too. His email will contain screenshots with results that impress me so much, it gets me interested in learning about other things on his website.
Mentions on other websites.
Think of this as influencer marketing. The best thing I ever did in my business in the past year is to place website credits on my client’s sites. Why? Because this small little thing actually helped me generate some good traffic to my website. I say if you provide a service and can tastefully add your credits to something that will be publically used, do it! We see people do this all the time in the product world. There’s not one cup of Starbucks you can buy that doesn’t have the logo on it. So if that cup is featured on a tv show, guess what? People will be curious about Starbucks and hit them up. That’s the sweet beauty of mentions on other websites. A little secret that I’ve found work really well is testimonials. If you’ve used someone else’s service, or product, or attended their event go ahead and provide a testimonial because then people will be likely to find you and your business. This also works wonders if you’re providing testimony for a well-known influencer with a larger market. Coaches do this all the time, and what I love about this is that because we know they’ve been coached their business is likely higher in quality.
Creating a free Course/Webinar.
Jereshia Hawk always says that you need to get in front of your audience and start doing live videos. Lives, in general, are great because you get to ask people questions right then and there vs. sending them an email and holding your breath until they get back to you.
A good example is Jasmine Star who does a phenomenal job of doing weekly lives. This, in turn, get people interested in learning more about Social Curator (her signature product).
Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of lives, because I need to practice being able to talk about a subject on a whim and not completely stutter over my words. So the next best thing is doing a pre-recorded course/webinar. The beauty of this is that with platforms like Teachable, or Udemy, or Skillshare, you’ll be able to get yourself out there in front of a ton of people, and as a result, there’s a high chance for them to visit your website.
Video/Audio Content Creation.
There are so many content creators I’ve been able to find and eventually buy from simply because they created videos or podcast episodes. Because I know that this has worked on me, I know it’ll work for me. So I’ll be using media (particularly audio because it’s super easy for me to record) to start sharing my expertise and let people know about things I can do to help them with their website goals.
Summary
All in all, here are 6 ways that I plan on increasing my website traffic that you can steal from me:
- Start showing up on social media platforms (especially in groups) and start telling people about our wins, lessons we’ve learned, and advise on the things that we know.
- Actually keeping in touch with our email list to let them know about us and any special offers we have
- Creating a free course or webinar that talks about our area of expertise on existing platforms like Teachable, Udemy, or Skillshare. (Side note: LinkedIn also has a slide share option that could sub in for the recorded video).
- Get mentioned on another person’s (especially a person of influence who has a highly engaged audience) website
- Create video or audio content that answers frequently asked questions or talks about our audience’s problems.
- Sharing my expertise by blogging about content that people who need your services would typically search for on Google, Pinterest, or Youtube.
