Having a website, no matter how aesthetically pleasing and informativeally complete it may be, is useless if no one knows it exists. If you want your online storefront to truly prove a value-add to your business, you need to put in place precise strategies aimed at increasing website traffic.
Some entrepreneurs prefer to outsource this activity by turning to a team of professionals but, especially when it comes to startups or newly established companies, you do not always have enough budget to do so. That is why you should also know what tricks are most useful to attract more users to the site.
It is important for you to know, first of all, that website traffic generally means the flow of users visiting the site. A more “technical” definition includes within this concept all data sent and received by visitors to a site. But what is this data?
The channels through which Web surfers can reach a Web page are many, as are the reasons why this may happen. For this reason, knowing how many users arrive on the site is certainly not enough: you must also, and more importantly, know which users visit the site, how they got there and why, what movements they make within it, and, if any, why they leave it before completing an action that you consider essential (such as, for example, purchasing a product or service).
Prominent among the main metrics to evaluate, in addition to visits, are the number of new visitors, the number of repeat visits by the same user, traffic sources, time spent on the site, and clicks made by users.
Knowing what data to look at is important, but knowing how to analyze it is even more so. Information about traffic sources, for example, is very valuable because it helps you understand which channel is performing best and where, on the other hand, you need to make some improvements. Listening to consumers is, in this sense, critical. Do you know what Philip Kotler said?
“Collaboration begins when marketers decide to listen to the voice of consumers.”
One of the most common mistakes made by startuppers and entrepreneurs is to believe that only particularly high numbers (i.e., 4-digit numbers) certify a site’s success: this is not always the case because a business can also target a particularly narrow niche characterized by lower but not failing numbers.
Once you understand which user profile is important to intercept, it will be easier for you to attract them to the site. Proceeding in order is key: the first move in figuring out how to increase site visibility is to examine market trends and competitors.
Examines market trends and competitors
Site content must be designed specifically for a specific audience. To identify your target audience you need to conduct market analysis, examining the trends in your industry and observing which competitors are already active and how they move: only in this way can you succeed in differentiating yourself from the competition, offering something unique to a specific niche of people.
Narrowing the field in targeting helps you avoid going head-to-head with the so-called “big players” in the industry. Be careful, however, not to narrow your niche too much: in fact, remember that it, however specific, must have sufficient numbers to prove profitable.
Increase site traffic with SEO
The channels through which users can find ways to reach your website are many, and that means you also have several solutions at your disposal to take action and try to increase site traffic.
We will devote a more specific and in-depth focus to each of these solutions in the coming weeks, but it’s useful for you to know right now that one of the best ways to try to attract more users to your site is to work with SEO, studying a strategy aimed at improving the ranking of your site’s pages in organic search on Google and the other search engines.
The strategy for increasing your site’s visibility on Google (and other search engines) must include a number of activities, among which you cannot fail to research the keywords used by your target audience to search for products, services or topics related to your startup.
As you may be able to imagine, some keywords are used more than others on search engines, but what you may not know is that there are several keyword research tools on the web to find out what they are.
Be careful because high search volume is not always a guarantee of high traffic potential: keywords that stand out for very high search volume are often also very broad and difficult to intercept. For this reason, you would do better to focus your attention on so-called long-tail keywords, which are characterized by lower search volumes but are also more specific and have higher conversion rates.
Once you’ve found the keywords to focus on, you need to optimize your content, positioning those same keywords strategically, in the title, body of the text and metadata that are read by search engines. Optimizing the site for SEO, however, also means taking care of internal and external links to the site and improving many other aspects, including page loading speed.
Content Marketing
Appearing on Google’s first search page and, perhaps, in its very first positions is certainly your goal, but, rest assured, it is also that of all your competitors: that is why it is important that the content you publish is the best. What does best mean? They must be complete, comprehensive and up-to-date, but also understandable (both in the eyes of users and search engines) and interesting.
You will not be surprised to learn that the more value you offer on your site, the more reasons you give users to visit it. Content marketing is a marketing approach focused precisely on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content for the purpose of attracting (and retaining) a well-defined target audience.
Linking us to the previous discussion regarding SEO, you should know that publishing new content is considered by search engines as an important ranking factor and therefore it is very useful to draw up an editorial calendar and publish content regularly. In this sense, the blog is a valuable tool because it gives users an extra reason to visit the site or stay longer and because it offers content that can be shared on social media and linked to from other sites.
As for topics to cover, know that news and trending topics can bring you more visits in the short term, but it is evergreen content that gives you the chance to accumulate traffic (and links) over the long haul. Crucial, however, is to update them periodically.
Focus on titles because, sometimes, they can be more important than the articles themselves. Think about it: if the title is not able to capture the user’s attention, the article, no matter how interesting it may be (enrich them with images, infographics, and catchy videos!), will probably not be read. To make your headlines more interesting, you could, for example, focus on numbers, figures and lists.
Guest post and Digital PR
One of the most important ranking factors for Google is the quantity and quality of links pointing back to your website, since this is considered a kind of certificate of credibility and authority.
In order to increase your site’s visibility on the search engine, you could contact sites that talk about topics related to those of your startup and that are considered credible (by users and Google), proposing that they write a guest post that includes a link to your site. In doing so, take care to choose sites with a target audience that is overlapping with the one you wish to intercept, but remember that you will be speaking, in all likelihood, to an audience that (as yet) does not know you: write an impactful bio to include in the post.
If you don’t want to create ad hoc content, you could go for digital PR: contact news sites in your industry and suggest that they cover a story related to your startup. The story can be about your research that highlighted significant data, the launch of a particular product or service, the organization of an event, or any other relevant event starring your business.
Social media and influencers
Another useful strategy for generating more website traffic involves using social media to share your website content. In this regard, keep in mind that each social media has its own specific target audience, as well as specific rules for publishing posts: focus on the social media best suited to your mission and create custom graphics for each one. Share all new content, as well as old content (if still relevant, up-to-date and useful) on social.
On social media, you can also enlist the help of influencers to increase website traffic: as with guest posts, identify influencers with an audience overlapping with yours and offer them a compelling reason to promote your business. Remember, however, that in addition to being on target, the community the influencer is targeting must also be active. And that’s not all: it is crucial that the influencer also shares your startup’s values.
Increase site traffic with advertising
There is another arrow to your bow: you can also increase your site traffic through advertising, that is, by promoting paid advertising campaigns, both on Google and on social media.
As far as the search engine is concerned, the organic SEO we mentioned earlier can prove very valuable in bringing traffic to your site, but it is certainly not an immediate process. If you want to acquire more visitors to the site quickly, you can opt for paid pay-per-click campaigns: as with SEO you have to identify the keywords for which you want to be found and create the advertisements by choosing yourself the budget to invest, target, format etc..
You can also create effective paid campaigns on social media: again, in addition to the budget, target and all other customizable elements, you can configure the advertising message to target a specific audience.
Increase site traffic with Email Marketing
Last but not least among the ways to increase site traffic is Email Marketing. It is useful for you to know in this regard that in order to properly and effectively manage your mailing list, you will most likely need professional software, which allows you to send the same message to hundreds and hundreds of people at a time.
As with social media, you can send an email every time you post a new blog article, but you can also dedicate a series of emails to “old” articles (always making sure they are still current and up-to-date).
To ensure that users open your email, you should pay special attention to the subject line of the email: it should be catchy, but avoid so-called clickbait headlines. Also, remember to personalize your messages as much as possible.
Why traffic quality is better than quantity
If you have read the previous lines carefully, you will have realized that there are many methods for increasing website traffic. For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that these methods fall into two main categories: those that intercept conscious demand and those that are aimed at satisfying latent demand.
Conscious demand is that of users who are looking for something specific on the Web, while latent demand refers to users who browse the Web without a specific purpose and only realize that they have an unmet need or desire the moment they come in contact with an advertisement. Tools aimed at the former category include, for example, Google, while the latter includes social media such as Facebook and Instagram.
Don’t underestimate this: too often the mistake is made of superficially addressing the sensitive issue of web traffic, focusing on quantity and not quality. The latter, however, is far more important.
Think about it: more site traffic does not automatically mean more conversions (sales). Going back to talking about Google, for example, you don’t always precisely match users’ search intent, and this risks resulting in their fleeing the site quickly, with negative effects on the so-called bounce rate (or bounce rate) and, consequently, on the site’s SEO optimization.
It is essential, therefore, that the incoming traffic to the site is on target, that is, composed of people who, at least at a potential level, are really interested in the products or services that your startup proposes. Only with an ad hoc strategy based on these assumptions can increased traffic translate into more conversions.
How to monitor site traffic
In order to devise an effective strategy for increasing website traffic, it is essential, of course, to know how to measure it. There are several tools on the web designed specifically for analyzing traffic to a website. The most popular ones are listed in the next few lines:
- Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a platform offered for free by Google, which collects data from websites and apps to create reports that can provide valuable information, such as sources of web traffic, characteristics of users visiting the site, and their behavior on the Web.
- Matomo
Matomo is an open source software that provides detailed, real-time reports on a site’s visitors, such as, source search engines, keywords used, language of use, and most visited pages.
- Adobe Analytics
Finally, Adobe Analytics is an analytics platform that helps companies better understand their customers by providing various useful data, including information about the Customer Journey and user behavior on sites and apps.
Do you want to read all the articles related to the stage your startup is in?
