How to Grow Your Website Traffic?

If you are reading this article you probably know the importance of having an online presence. Not only does it allow you to keep your business operating without a physical location but can also develop into a very profitable facet of your business.

Having a website is a great thing for businesses to aim for but if no one is visiting that website then it’s the same if no one is walking into your physical store. It won’t help you pay the bills and it is just another expense you’ll have to worry about.

If you are in the situation where you have a website but aren’t generating as many online orders as you’d like, don’t despair as you can give online advertising a try! There are many different advertising options available to you but in this article, we’re going to look at a couple of the most popular ones that can start generating new business for you within minutes.

Getting Started

Before trying any of the upcoming suggestions we recommend that you ensure your website is set up to track the extra traffic you’ll be generating. The place where most people start is Google Analytics, which is an web analytics suite operated by Google.

All you’ll need to do is sign up for a free Google Analytics account and then add a little bit of code to your website. Should you get stuck, Google has loads of helpful material and guides found on the Google Analytics Academy website.

Alternatively, if you’ve built your website using an online Website Builder tool then that tool probably already comes with an Analytics package installed so you don’t need to go through the extra trouble or installing Google Analytics.

Having said that, a lot of the Analytics suites that come pre-installed as part of Website Builder tools can be rather limited in the data that they provide so we’d still recommend you invest a little bit of time and get Google Analytics setup instead.

Now onto the advertising options!

Free Options

While the goal of this article is to give you an overview of the most popular paid advertising options, which are able to provide quicker results, we realize that not everyone has the funds available to utilize paid options so here’s a few advertising options you can utilize for free!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you’ve spent even just a little bit of time thinking about how to drive more people to your website then I’m sure you’ve come across the term SEO before. This stands for search engine optimization and like the name suggests, this advertising method involves optimizing your website in the hopes that you’ll receive better rankings in search engines like Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

Most successful online businesses have a great SEO marketing strategy as if you get it right, you’ll be sending lots and lots of free, highly targeted traffic to your website. It’s everyone’s online marketing dream!

There are endless articles online regarding where to get started with SEO but we would recommend you start by setting up a Google Search Console account for your website. With this account you’ll be able to see your current rankings plus Google will notify you of any issues they have with your site that will be negatively impacting your SEO efforts.

SMM (Social Media Marketing)

In this day and age, if your business doesn’t have a social media presence then you’re probably aren’t maximizing your marketing reach potentially. Some businesses don’t even have websites, they just rely on social media pages!

If you have a business that lends itself well to beautiful photos (think something like fashion, food or travel) or you consider yourself a master of memes and funny pictures, you can generate a lot of free traffic for your website utilizing the various social media websites and apps available to all people and businesses.

Here’s a brief list of the most globally popular social media sites and apps:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Snapchat
• Pinterest
• Youtube

If you look up Social Media Marketing in Google, you’ll find loads of different articles and strategies regarding where you should begin and what platform would be right for your business.

Between SEO and SMM, if you get your strategies right then you’ll be well on your way to operating a very successful online business. The only problem with each method is that results can take a long time to come to fruition.

If you want to start getting traffic on your website quickly then there are some reliable platforms you can utilize to achieve that.

Google Ads

Generating traffic via Google Ads works basically the same way it does for SEO. Someone will be going into a Google search engine, performing a search, and then clicking on your listing. However, instead of the traffic being free, via Google Ads, you will most likely be paying Google for each click someone makes on one of your ads. This is referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

I’m sure you’re now thinking why would I pay to use Google Ads for traffic when I can just generate it for free using SEO?!?! Well here’s just a few reasons why you should give it a try:

Instant Results

After you setup an advertising campaign within Google Ads, you’re listing should be viewable on Google search engines within minutes. No waiting weeks or months for results like what can happen with SEO.

Best Placements

The search results page for most Google search engines organizes the listings as follows:

• Position 1 through 4 – Paid
• Position 5 through 13 – Free
• Position 14 through 16 – Paid

Google shows paid ads above the free options so when using Google Ads there’s a good chance that you’ll be seen before the free options. This will result in more people visiting your site verses visiting a competitor.

Precise Targeting

Let’s say you operate a Yoga studio that offers classes for various techniques to people. A lot of the classes you offer are already completely booked so you don’t want to reach everyone looking for yoga classes, but your Bikram Yoga class still has spots available.

Using Google Ads you could start a campaign that will reach anyone in your area using Google to look up “bikram yoga classes”.

Good luck getting that type of targeting via other advertising methods!

Tips

We ourselves can vouch for the effectiveness of Google Ads as it helped our business launch from nothing in 2010 to what it is now in 2020; a company with over 220k customers in over 190 countries. We would recommend any online business to give it a try. You are spending money though so there is risk involved when using Google Ads. Here are a few little tips will help you avoid expensive mistakes:

• Never start a campaign without setting a clear goal and ensure that goal is tracked. If your goal is to get people to submit an order, ensure that your order confirmation page is set up as your conversion page.
• Start all campaigns with very modest budgets. Depending on the keywords you’re targeting, you could waste thousands of dollars if you’re not careful. If the campaign is successful, then increase the budget!
• When it comes to Google, everyone always thinks that they need to be in position one on the search results page for the best results. For SEO this might be the case but for paid advertising, the answer isn’t so easy. Generally, the advertisers that pay the most per click are put into the first position. The advertisers in positions 3-4 usually pay much less. They won’t get clicked as much as if they were in position one, but they’ll also be paying a lot less per click than the top advertiser so campaign ROI should be better.
• Be mindful of the keyword match types at your disposal. At the start stick to using “Broad match modifier” keywords and then use the Search Terms report to see the searches people did to find your ads. Anything that looks highly targeted for your business should be added as an “Exact” keyword but searches that don’t look relevant for your business should be added as negative keywords.
• Ignore the Google Ads Display Network…for now. Focus your time and energy on getting your Google Search Network campaigns generating a great ROI then thinking about expanding to the display network.

We’re only just scratching the surface of Google Ads so if you’d like to learn more than more recommend giving Google’s own tutorials a read. They can be found here.

Facebook Ads

How does reaching an audience of over 2 billion monthly users sound? Pretty great, right? With Facebook Ads, that’s possible.

When using Facebook’s advertising platform you’ll have access to all the users of their services, which include Facebook.com, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Much like Google Ads, after you set up a campaign with Facebook Ads you’ll start advertising almost immediately and will be sending traffic through to your website. However, the method in which you’ll be sending traffic to your site is different.

Google Ads is targeting users that are actively looking for information. They’ve gone out of their way to use Google to find more information about a certain product. On Facebook, you’ll most likely be advertising to people that have never heard of you before and don’t know what you offer. Luckily, Facebook Ads has unprecedented audience targeting options so that you can dial on the exact audience you want to reach to ensure that you’re putting your product in front of people that might be interested in purchasing it.

If you have a product that’s susceptible to impulse buys, then Facebook Ads might be your gateway to quick riches with its vast reach of highly engaged users! If your product requires some investigation or thinking before someone will buy it, don’t despair as Facebook Ads has you covered with the powerful retargeting campaign options available to you.

To learn more about Facebook Ads, we recommend that you get your information straight from Facebook via their comprehensive help area found here.

Closing Tips

No matter which platform you choose, there are some principles you should follow to get the best results out of your advertising campaigns:

Setup Conversion Tracking: As mentioned before, if you run an e-commerce website and want people to submit an order then set up the order confirmation page as the conversion page. If your goal is to have visitors provide you with their contact details, then set up your lead confirmation page as the conversion page.

There’s no point in spending money to acquire traffic for your website if you don’t have a conversion goal established on your website. Once you get the hang of conversion tracking then you can start to think about Sales Funnels.

Use Bounce Rate Metric: Bounce rate is the metric that tracks how many people visit one page on your website and then leave. Seeing only one page would indicate that the visitor didn’t find what they wanted and immediately left. This tends to happen when what the visitor wants doesn’t line up with what you’re offering.

If 100 people visit your site and 50 of them leave after seeing only one page, then your bounce rate will be 50%.

The reason why bounce rate is a useful metric is that it will tell you if the audience you’re spending money to acquire is relevant to your website. If the traffic you’re generating via Facebook or Google has a 90%+ bounce rate then you’re targeting options will need to be tweaked to save you from wasting money. You want people to browse your website and get a better understanding of what you offer, not leave after seeing a single page.

A bounce rate of over 70% should be a concern, around 50% is okay and 30% or below is good. A targeted audience shouldn’t leave after just one page unless of course, your website is only one page, in which case the Session Duration metric will be more useful for you.

Don’t Give Up: Trial and error is a massive part of online advertising so don’t give up if things don’t immediately work. Keep tweaking your campaigns and strategies. Read as many online articles or blog posts as you can to get new ideas. You’ll eventually start sending a steady stream of high-quality visitors to your website and will be on your way to having a profitable online business!

Traffic and visitors are the lifeblood of all websites. If your website currently doesn’t many visitors, then hopefully after reading this article you’ll be able to change that. All the best!