Imagine what a steady stream of visitors to your website, week in, week out, would mean to your business pipeline.
It’s possible and all it requires is a general understanding of your web universe and a little bit of work.
Here are the four most important things to focus on:
Backlinks to your website generally bring you the best quality traffic. These people have been referred by a website they already know, so some of that trust will be passed on to you.
When you publish interesting, thought-provoking content on your website you’ll soon earn attention (and backlinks) from people who’ve liked what you’ve said.
However one word of warning is that free article submission and directory websites are losing favour with the search engines because they can be manipulated by search engine optimisation (SEO) sharks who artificially build links. You can actually be penalised if your links are coming from dodgy websites.
The best backlinks are from reputable blogs, news websites and organisations that are related to your industry. Reach out to bloggers, journalists and suppliers who may link to you.
Getting a high organic ranking from Google is definitely one of the best ways to attract people to your site because it’s free and it is fairly permanent. Google looks for two things: relevant content and quality backlinks. Publish content that is useful for your customers and look to increase the number of inbound links to your website.
How do you decide which phrases you should aim to rank for? Well, take a look at Google’s Keyword Tool and type in some words associated with your business. Google will then provide you a comprehensive list of related phrases and their relative competition and traffic volume. You’re looking for keywords with low competition and high traffic. Target these keywords first.
Should you use sponsored (paid) search? Yes, if you need immediate results, but I’d suggest reducing your spend as you build your search engine authority and start getting found via organic results.
With all the new shiny social media tools, it’s worth remembering that the most effective platform is still trusty old email marketing. Everyone has an email address, but not everyone is on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn, so my advice is focus on email marketing first.
Since people spend most of their day with their inbox open, you can generate lots of traffic by emailing your subscribers with links to information on your website or blog.
If you’re serious about driving people to your website, your blog must be the central hub.
Most of your social media efforts should revolve around publishing remarkable content on your blog and then sharing it with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and email marketing.
The better your blog is, the more your friends will share it with their friends and so on. This will also earn you more backlinks, which will mean you’ll rank higher in search.
As you continue this cycle, your website traffic will continue to increase!
I’ve outlined a diagram of how your web universe fits together in the Web Strategy Planning Template which you can download for free.
Adam Franklin is the co-author of ‘Web Marketing That Works’, a professional speaker, and co-founder of Bluewire Media.
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