7 Proven Ways to Increase Website Traffic

A picture-perfect website is great, but what’s the point if no one sees it? 

A top-notch slice of online real estate shouldn’t just serve an aesthetic purpose. Your website should deliver on multiple functions, such as:

• Improve your search engine ranking (increasing credibility with Google)
• Provide access to analytics about your audience
• Generate and convert leads
• Identify the digital marketing tactics that are working

So, if you’re looking for just that, then we’ve got the seven tips and tricks to conquer it all. And it all starts with increasing your website’s traffic.

Be a podcast guest

Podcasts are huge. 

So huge in fact that as of June 2021, there are roughly 2,000,000 podcasts generating roughly 48 million episodes. And the number of “avid podcast fans” who are inhaling these episodes? A cool 16 million in the United States alone.

These numbers indicate the potential reach available through this marketing channel is astronomical. 

But, wait. What if your budget doesn’t have room for the purchase of high-end podcasting equipment, or a professional with serious editing skills? 

Enter the realm of podcast guesting. 

While not every podcast adheres to the host-guest blueprint, many (The Primitive Podcast, for example) do. And these podcasts need guests – lots of guests. 

So, find podcasts both new and seasoned that align with your brand, and pitch yourself as a guest! You’ll not only get your name out there, but you’ll be able to plug your unique vision and thoughts within the industry as well as your brand; it’s a win-win!

Collaborate with brands

Contrary to popular belief, collaboration is not synonymous with competition. 

There are many brands out there that have similar audiences as one another, yet don’t compete within the same industry. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with a brand while actively promoting yourself as a brand that can solve a unique problem for that audience. Not only does this tactic increase your brand value but it also aids in building a positive digital and social presence.

Take, for example, the longstanding co-branding partnership of Nike and Apple to form what most people now refer to as Nike+.

This collaboration formed in the early 2000s to solve a problem many fitness enthusiasts had:  how do I track and record my workouts?

The fitness retailer’s co-branding with the mobile phone giant served to solve the unique issue by creating activity-tracking technology that can be embedded into clothing and gear. Fast forward over a decade and we’re still seeing innovations come as a result of this legendary partnership.

Repurpose your content

It’s true. Even evergreen blog content can become outdated. 

How?

Sometimes the culprit is the media used within the blog, the keywords, the processes covered, or even the links. The process of updating content, based on said culprit, can be as simple as updating keywords and links, or as time-consuming as a full rewrite. 

However, regardless of the reason, when it happens, your best bet to prevent traffic from stalling is to pinpoint the outdated content and give it a good ol’ update. 

Improve your content

Improving content is a bit more nuanced than the update mentioned above, and might take a bit more strategy and collaboration with your digital marketing and creative teams. 

But even to that point, improving your content is a huge digital tool that helps increase website traffic. 

A couple of ways you can improve your web content is by:

• Adding visuals
• Many times a powerful visual can explain a concept more clearly and precisely than a long blog, even if that blog happens to be the pinnacle of thought-leadership on the specific subject. 
• When a visual captures the attention of the user, and provides value to that user, they will often do one of two things: stay on the website longer (which signals to Google that your website is nailing it) or provoke the user to share the content to individuals experiencing the same pain points.

• Create listicles
• Many website visitors aren’t heading to a site to read a novel about your brand ethos. Instead, users are skimming for answers to their pain points and quickly identifying if your brand is the one capable of solving it for them. 
• This alone establishes the power of the listicle – the perfect method for a user to skim the highlights of a post and then quickly determine if this content answered their question. 
• Similar to the addition of visuals, when a listicle captivates a user and provides value to them, they are compelled to share the content. This engagement tells search engines that your content is of high value and should be ranked accordingly.

Combine similar posts

Sometimes you can have a wonderful idea for a blog post yet it doesn't seem to live up to the hype.

Hey, it happens. And luckily there’s something you can do about it to A) not waste the content and B) increase your website traffic.

This tactic is called the Cocktail Technique, coined by Ahrefs, and has proven to work wonders on many sites. 

Essentially, the cocktail technique looks like this.

• Identify the similar keywords each page is ranked for. This will help identify the keyword opportunities for the combined post.
• Rewrite and combine the content (a.k.a merge the pages) together
• Publish the new content by utilizing 301 redirects 

Focus on your CTR

A click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown. 

For example, if your ad is clicked two times and has 100 impressions, then your CTR is 2%. While that number might sound low, it’s actually very average, and anything above 2% is really good.

A high CTR communicates to search engines that your ad is both helpful and relevant to the user. And because search engines like Google love to reward a great ad campaign, the CTR will directly reflect your Quality Score which means higher ad positioning and lower cost per clicks. 

So, if you’re looking to increase traffic to your website and increase your CTR, it’s critical to pay attention to your keywords. 

Take for example, Laura is searching for fresh fruit to buy locally. When she searches for “fresh fruit locally” two ads pop up:

• “Fresh fruit – Buy locally” 
• “Ripe Watermelon – Purchase online” 

Which ad will Laura most likely click on?

If you said the ad that features the keywords she was searching for, then you’re right. And because these right clicks are directly reflected in the CTR of that particular ad, the website’s traffic is guaranteed to increase as well. 

Increase your website speed

1 in 4 people won’t wait longer than 4 seconds for a website to load before abandoning the site entirely. And the higher the load time for a website, the higher the likelihood that your website bounce rates will soar to unfortunate new heights. 

In short, website speed matters. And it happens to be one of those tools in everyone’s digital marketing arsenal that can be sharpened and used for their benefit. 

Remember, if you’re looking to increase the traffic to your website, climbing the SERPs (search engine results page) should be a priority. And for search engines like Google, the user experience comes first.

So any metric or component of your website that causes friction with the user will be a ding against your ability to climb to the top spot, thus limiting your ability to get seen, known, and loved. 

Increasing the traffic to your website is more than getting eyes on your brand.

It’s a strategic way to generate and convert leads, identify what’s working within your marketing strategies, and so much more.