How to Grow Your Website Traffic

When you’re in the first few months of starting a new website, increasing your traffic is vital, possibly a little daunting, and, surprisingly, quite straightforward when you start getting into it. Once you’ve got the basics down, it’s over to content creation, SEO optimizing, and (if you’ve got the budget) a little paid advertising sprinkled in for good measure. 

The best part? The first two components are all pretty much free, with the exception of software subscriptions that you may or may not decide to use. Here are a few of the simplest website traffic generating tricks that you can put into practice right away. Starting with…

SEO Optimization

SEO! In the past, a time-intensive (boring, to some) and expensive grind entailing website overriding, endless research, and some gray hairs. But now it’s easier than ever to play SEO guru to your own website. All you need are a few fundamentals, a little patience, and in some cases, the right tools. Start by…

Building Solid Backlinks

Getting backlinks to your site is like calling in a digital favor. Links shared between businesses with aligned products or verticals instill a sense of thought leadership, brand exposure, and rank higher in search results all round. You gain further credibility when the sites that reference you are industry titans. You know, the Forbes, Hubspot’s, and NASA’s of the world. 

Some easy ways to generate backlinks include…

Link sharing
You sell plants and I run a landscaping company. I link to your site and you link to mine, be it through a blog, mailer, landing page, or 3rd party partnership. Rinse and repeat the process with as many partner sites as you can and stand to gain referral traffic in exchanger for minimal effort. 

Guest Posting
Writing and submitting guest posts are great for backlinking. Find the sites aligned to your brand and reach out to them for guest posts. Whether opinion pieces, blog articles, or short sharp forum posts, your guest posting shows you’re active in your community, while at the same time racking up solid links that run back to your website. 

Finding backlink opportunities.
This one takes a bit of research, but the wins pile up gradually. Search for all the times you’re mentioned in other people’s content and make sure there is a link going back to your site. Sign up for a Buzzsumo or other software that will alert you every time your site gets mentioned. Some of the time there’ll be a mention with no backlink. Reach out to the author/web host and send them a fresh URL (yours 😉) to hyperlink to. 

The same goes for 404 errors. Dead links are everywhere, so comb through articles and find the ones that tie in with your product or service. Reach out to the site’s webmaster to let them know their link is dead and gone while offering to substitute the link with your own site’s content. If they get the hint, you get the backlink. If you’re using Chrome, try installing the “Check My Links” plugin. Type in the sites that spark your curiosity, and pull the 404’s from the search results (highlighted in red)

Quick pro tip? You can check out your competitor’s backlinks with tools from AHRefs, Link Miner, or Ubersuggest. Enter the domain and get a list of sites linking back to your competitors.

Moving into the wonderful world of keyword research, you can also try out…

Targeting Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are more often than not niche in nature, which is good for you because there is way less competition and they are a heck of a lot easier to rank for. A refresher for long tails?

Shoes
vs.
Shoes for men
vs.
Running shoes for men
vs.
Running shoes for Nebraska men, etc. 

These 3+ word phrases get specific and dig down into what you’re selling. With each word added to the equation, your target audience becomes more fringe, and your conversion rates start to climb. Find your industries most searched for long-tails, by…

• Typing a keyword into Google and seeing which variations “Google Suggest” picks up.
• Checking out Google’s “Related Searches” at the bottom of the search page.
• Using keyword research tools like Google Trends, Longtail Pro, Answer the Public, etc. 
• Browsing through Q&A sites like Quora. 

Revamping & Upgrading your Website

A little web maintenance goes a long way when you’re on the lookout for new site traffic, with the two big ones being to optimize for…

Page Speed
Make sure your site loads fast. According to Google, 2 seconds ought to do it. Check out Page Speed Insights and run a test. If your site is a little on the slow side, try optimizing images, compressing pages, reducing redirects, etc. Get the full page speed checklist from Moz.

Mobile Friendliness
Optimize your site for mobile responsiveness. Make your CTA button sizes large enough to work on smartphones, reduce your image sizes (again), use large font sizes, keep your design simple, etc. 

Writing the Right Meta-Descriptions

Concise, informative and keyword heavy meta-descriptions pull interest back to your pages and site. With so much information riding on the world wide web, audiences want to know what they’re getting themselves into before clicking through. So tell them. Search engines will show your meta-description as a summary of your page or site, and the better the meta-description, the more likely your audience is to click through to what you have on offer. Download the Yoast SEO plugin or something similar. This software specializes in analyzing your content before its published and suggests ways you can improve on it (including meta-description quality and length) 

Right, with SEO done and dusted, let’s move swiftly along to…

Content Creation

For any website starting out (or running strong), the key to clicks and conversions lies in content. But, with so much content competition, as in 4.54 billion pages as of 2020, it helps to stand out. However, you don’t always have to be reinventing the wheel for your content to rank well. Sometimes the effort is minimal when you have the right channels in place. Let’s check it out, starting with…

Landing Pages

Landing Pages (when done right), lead audiences right to the heart of your website. More often than not, they’ll broadcast who you are, what you offer, and how to get in touch. Add a few tasty incentives in for good measure, like discount coupons, promo codes, free guides, or tutorials and you have a 1-page calling card to chop and change as and when you see fit. 

Draw your audience in with an attention-grabbing headline, targeted message, and an ultra-strong call to action, and see your click-throughs start to climb. They’re easy to build (with software like Unbounce, InstaPage, or Purelander) and they’ll leave an impression. Just make sure you optimize according to your intended goals, whether that be getting your audience to sign up to an existing email list, downloading a piece of content, requesting a callback, and so on.

Check out a full guide to effective landing page optimization. 

Optimize Old Content

If you haven’t got a blog, you should get a blog. If you have a blog, you should optimize it regularly. One of the easiest ways to rank for relevancy is to update your old posts. Old posts revamped to reflect current opinions, tools and features do wonders for increased traffic and overall rankings. Revisit your posts to address things like…

• Rehashing outdated information to reflect new features, thoughts, or services.
• Changing up your headline images (including the alt text).
• Populating the article with updated keywords and phrases you’d like to rank for.
• Increasing your word count (800-1000 is okay, but more is better).
• Improving readability in line with paragraph structure, sentence length, etc.
• Adding internal links to previous (preferably related) posts. 
• Swapping links with related sites (see SEO tips above).

Repurpose content to other channels 

If you’ve got a bunch of evergreen or lifelong content tied up in blog posts that people aren’t reading, a sure-fire play would be to turn them into something same, same… but different! There really are so many ways to repurpose and upgrade the output and visibility of your content, some examples being to…

Take your post, chop it into bite-size chunks and turn it into a tutorial video on “How to get started with Product X ” Load it up onto YouTube and bring in a new and different kind of consumer.

Take your “10 trends for 2020” blog post and expand it into “30 tends for 2021”. Reword the content and load it up onto Medium as a “thought leadership” piece. Promote your brand by following those who engage with your content, and invite your LinkedIn professional network to interact with the post. 

The possibilities are endless, but the common denominator is that well-performing, information-rich content will drive quality traffic back to your website time and again. Look for and tailor content that answers your customer’s most burning questions, and make that information readily accessible by way of How to Tutorials, product recommendations, and reviews, FAQ pages, supporting articles, and so on. 

Email Marketing
Having been around since the dawn of time (or so it sometimes feels) and as effective today as it’s ever been, email marketing can go a long way to securing conversions. The cardinal rule being to never make your audience feel like they are being spammed. However, when done right, a well-placed twice-monthly newsletter showcasing a few core product releases, interesting posts, or monthly competitions, etc goes a long way to boosting engagement. Make sure you send your audience back to your website/blog/sign up sheet with a few well-placed links, and your home free!

Lastly, if and where possible, try to collect subscribers by adding a CTA asking them to sign up for your newsletter. This will help you gauge what is working and what isn’t in the future by the drop-off or increase in email subscribers that you get. And remember. A quality subject line is 80% of the email. If you’re first starting out with your newsletter and looking for some reliable software to get you on your way, check out  Sender, MailChimp, or Zoho Campaigns

With content marketing out the way, it’s over to… 

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising may seem like a no brainer at the best of times. Throw out some money and double your click-throughs in the blink of an eye. The truth is, online advertising is more of an art form than a surefire win. You’ll need to get a solid understanding of the traffic and regions you’re targeting, what ad formats generate the best returns, which features, optimization tactics and frequency caps will make the most impact, and for that matter, how you would like to generate your returns (be it with the CPA, CPM, of CPC payout model).

With so much to think about, your first point of order should always be to side with the right ad network that meets your unique criteria. Look for a partner that gives you access to…

• Advanced targeting features.
• State-of-the-art anti-fraud technology.
• Top-notch conversion tracking features.
• Exclusive advertising space.
• Ultra-fast campaign creation.
• Real-time reports and analytics, etc. 

Reach out to a member of the Adcash team right here and get a free consultation. We’ll work tirelessly to bring a tailored solution to your online advertising strategy and move heaven and earth to raise your conversions and click-throughs. And hey, if we don’t rock your world, there are a whole lot of other Ad Networks on the market. But, we do recommend finding the one that’s right for you. It will cut your campaign time in half whilst giving you the time you need to focus on what’s important.

That being said, let’s jump into a short, sharp ad format crash course, starting with…

Display Advertising

Ads come in all shapes and forms, but with the right targeting and optimization tactics in place, click-throughs lead to conversions, and conversions lead to brand loyalty. Chances are if you’re reading this on Adcash, this isn’t your first rodeo, so we won’t bore you with the details of what you already know. What we can tell you is that there are a host of different banner ads on the market today, each with its own set of unique features that draw in and convert audiences, whilst being subtle and engaging enough to not drive them mad from over advertising. Some of the top-performing ad formats we’ve seen over the last few years include…

Pop-Unders
Subtle, unique, and effective, these ads run in the tab below a user’s active browsing window, appearing once they’re done with what they’re doing. They go with the flow of the onsite UX and keep the noise to a minimum. Check out 5 Reasons why Pop-Unders are so Effective.

Interstitial Ads
Designed for maximum visibility and reach, Interstitial Ads use a 5-second countdown exit timer, and with more space for impressive visuals, they look great while they’re doing it! 

Push Notifications
These “alert” style ads, yield high conversion rates year after year. Slick, subtle, and easy to create, Push Notifications prompt your target audience to take action with short sharp copy, attention-grabbing visuals, and an organic display that doesn’t take away from the onsite experience. 

Get to grips with campaign creation, both as a publisher and advertiser with a few other helpful articles.

Top Online Advertising Tools for 2021
A Monetization Guide for Publishers
How to Effectively Make Money with your Website

So, that’s about it from us. The above list will get you started with the basics you need to effectively bring traffic to your site and keep them there with some stellar content and incentives. 

If you’re looking to beef up your paid advertising for maximum output or in the running to monetize your existing website by hosting some top quality ads, then reach out to us any hour of the day or night for some tailored tips and insights to take your website traffic from strength to strength. Reach out to any one of our ultra clued-up publisher managers right here, or send us a mail and we’ll help turn your website into a forcefield traffic generator in a few easy steps. 

As always, please feel free to leave some comments below? We always love to hear from you.

Bye for now.