How to Get Traffic To Your Website

13 Ways To Get Traffic to Your Website

Referrals

Getting new referral business is awesome.  Referred customers typically make for the best experience as most of the heavy-lifting has already been done before they make contact and they tend to spend more per order.

Here’s a secret they are not telling you…

Almost all of your referral customers researched you online before contacting you.  They just didn’t tell you.

So when asking your existing customers for referrals, encourage them to share your website.

This one step will speed up the sales process and build credibility.

It’s best to get referral prospects to learn more about your business as early in their buying journey as possible.

Work out a simple process to ask for referrals from your existing customers.  Test different approaches until you find the right one.

By the way, those referred prospects will research you online and on your website, so make sure you get client reviews.

Organic Search (e.g. Content Marketing)

Organic Search (e.g. SEO and content marketing) is when your website shows up on the first page of the search engines (the top ten search results).  It’s also known as “ranking”.

Although it’s called “organic”, there’s nothing organic about it.

Think of organic search traffic like “passive” advertising.  The person searching thinks they “found” a company online but, that company is ranking on Search because they did things to their website and content so they could rank.  They are ranking on purpose.

The power in organic search is that of all online (digital) marketing channels, Search has the highest amount of visitor engagement and the highest visitor conversions.

The main reason is when someone believes they discovered a solution on their own, they value that solution higher than if they were told about a solution.

A standard method

• Work out your marketing, positioning and offer.
• Build an SEO-optimized website that sells.
• Write SEO-optimized blog posts that educate.

Google Ads

Advertising your products or services on the search engines (e.g. Google Ads) is the single fastest way to show up at the top of the search pages, even above the organic traffic.

The cool thing about search ads, is that you can set up your ads so they only show to people that are actively looking for what you offer.

That includes limiting it to geographic range like your city.  You can limits it by age and/or income range as well.

Search Ads are an awesome way to test your sales messaging.

Want to see which sales headline resonates with your prospects?  Run two identical ads with different headlines for a period of time.  Once you have a winner, you can use that headline on all kinds of sales marketing tools.

Organic Social Media

Organic Social means gaining followers by regularly posting content to a social media platform and not paying for any ads.

The big three right now are Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn but there are new social platforms coming up all the time.

If you think your core audience is on one or all of these platforms, then it’s strongly suggested that you create business pages on each of them.

The specific method to gain followers on Social depends on the platform and your industry.

But no matter the method you use, the core principles are the same:

Post content that educates or entertains

People don’t watch boring TV shows and people don’t care about boring posts on Social.  The name of the game here is to get people to know and like your business.  So use your posts to educate and entertain your audience.  Can you post salesly stuff?  Sure, but do it sparingly and track it to see if you get sales from it.  If you don’t, then your audience is telling you “Don’t sell to me here.  I’ll buy from you when and if I’m ready.”

Post content consistently

How often you post is important as social platforms want to promote businesses that are actively using the platform and providing fresh content to its users.

Generally speaking, if you are trying to increase followers and traffic to your website, then posting once a day is a good minimum.  Try to post at the same time every day.

If you really want to invest, then post four times a day or more.  For example, 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm.

Interact with your audience

When a platform sees its users commenting or otherwise engaging with business’ content, it’s a sure sign that   So, ask your audience to comment or ask questions.  Make sure to respond and interact with your audience.

Tip: Automate as much of this stuff as you can.  Use a social media tool like hootsuite.com or something similar.  Hootsuite schedules your posts for you.  So you can spend some time one day a week creating the content and scheduling for the rest of the week so you don’t have to work on it every day.

Paid Social (Ads)

Running ads on social platforms is a super fast way to get your business in front of your audience.

The main social ads platform is Facebook.  You can create specific groups, known as audiences, so only your target audience will see them.

Let’s say you sell dog sweaters.  Look back at your past customers and make a list of everything they have in common.  Then re-create that audience in Facebook.  You can set parameters like age range, geographic areas, interests (dogs), groups (dog-focused groups), etc.

You can also show ads on Instagram (through your Facebook Ads account).

If you’re offering is focused more to business professionals, then LinkedIn may be the better option.  It’s the same thing here, figure out your audience traits and show your ads to those folks only.

Youtube

In some ways, Youtube acts like a social media platform and in other ways like a TV with tons of channels in it.  It’s the second most used search engine behind Google (Youtube is owned by Google).  It really is its own animal.

Youtube is a great way to gain a following through education and/or entertainment.

This channel is a bit more advanced and will take more time.  It’s a long-term investment that can pay for years to come.

The length and production quality vary.  There’s no standard.  It comes down to what your audience likes, expects and responds to.

For example, if you are showing multi-million dollar listings in New York City, than a high quality production with background music and graphics is probably necessary.

Let’s say you are doing outdoors videos and you show your audience how to survive Death Valley with one ice cube and a broken toothpick, then you can probably want a lower production quality.

No matter the audience or production quality, the content is what matters most.

Social Media Influencers

Do you want to leverage someone else’s social media following?  Find influencers that already connect to your core audience.  This can be powerful, but it needs to be strategic.

Social media influencers are always looking to partner with brands that resonate with their audiences.  That is how influencers make money.  They are celebrities to their followers.

Before you think that it’s for teenagers, hop on social media and start looking around.  You may be pleasantly surprised to find someone you didn’t expect with a couple million followers.

If you think they have your audience, look for their contact information in their social account and reach out to them.

Tell them what you are trying to do and find out if you’re a good fit to work together.

From there you can work out compensation.

Host Webinars

Are you trying to get leads from the kind of prospects that are bit skittish?  If you host webinars, it’s a great way to connect through education as a marketing method.

A standard method

1. Create some educational content that shows your prospects how to solve their biggest problem.
2. Turn it into a simple slideshow.
3. Use one of the other marketing channels to get the word out.
4. Invite them to your website to register for the event.
5. The webinar can be live or pre-recorded, your choice.
6. At the end of the webinar, tell them that you can take it off their plate and solve the problem for them.
7. Invite them to schedule a call or meeting to start the conversation.

Build Email Lists

Email marketing is the method of educating and selling through regularly-timed emails.

This is a little more advanced, but the sooner you use it the better.

Start with one or two email groups (aka audiences:

1. Past and present customers
2. Prospective customers.

Past and Present Customers

If you have a business where you regularly collect emails from your customers, then there’s a real possibility they may want your advice and guidance down the road.

So, ask yourself “What would my customers like to know after they’ve done business with us?”  It could be updates about changes in the industry that if they knew, could help prevent future problems for them.  Why not tell them?  Then every so often, if you have a new product, service or event coming up, just let your customers know about it.

Worried about being too “salesly”.  Make sure to help more than sell. See the tip below.

Prospective Customers

Your prospective customers are on a buying journey.  They have questions before they buy.  So if you collect emails, let’s say through a free download, etc., create emails that answer questions.  As you answer prospects questions, you build trust.  One day they may buy from you.

A standard method

1. Set up an emailing service like Mailchimp or Keap.
2. Collect emails
3. Create a content schedule
4. Create content for each email
5. Upload them to the service and schedule them to go out weekly.

Tip: How often should you send emails?  Well that’s something you should test out to see what works for you.  The most common approach is once a week, but I’ve seen daily emails work as well.  The most common ratio is three educational emails and then one sales email. So a 3:1 ratio of eduction to sales.  Again, test different things to see what gets you the best results.  If someone no longer wants to hear from you, they can unsubscribe at any time.  It’s all built into the email services like Mailchimp or Keap.

Strategic Partnerships

Strategic partnerships are a wonderful way to tap into another company’s customer base and build relationships at the same time.

Are there closely-related business in your area that have customers you could help?

There are businesses with customers that have specific problems that are outside of that business’ core specialty or ability but their customers ask them about it all the time.

For example, let’s say you have a pool cleaning service.  The pool building companies around town may or may not offer pool cleaning.  Or they may not have a reliable pool cleaning partner to refer their clients to after the pool project is complete.

Sometimes larger businesses don’t want anything in return except to know that their customer is going to be taken care of and their business reputation isn’t tarnished.

A standard method

1. Identify your core specialty
2. Identify businesses in your area that don’t do what you do but have customers that want your services.
3. Create a “win-win-win” offer for your business, their customers and you.
4. Start “smiling and dialing” or emailing these businesses to make introductions.
5. Work out an arrangement.

Live Speaking Events

Live events are a great way to establish your brand, create curiosity and increase your rankings on search engines.

If we see someone on a stage giving a talk or seminar, it instantly establishes that business owner and their business as a thought leader in their city and industry.

Anyone even vaguely interested in that business or story will hop online, usually while they are still talking to look them up.  Some of these live audience members or someone in their circle of influence will turn into a customer.

Direct Mail

Direct mail are the mailers you get in the mail (aka junk mail).  And no, direct mail is not dead.

If your audience aren’t heavy internet users, this may be very effective and profitable for you.

A standard method

1. Use a digital channel, like social ads or search ads to test your message and offer.
2. Once you have a profitable offer, hire a local printer.
3. Show them what worked online so they can design a physical version.
4. Ask them to order a targeted mailing list that mirrors your online audience
5. The printer will mail out the mailers for you.
6. Track the results to see if you turn a profit.

Tip:  On average, people need to see an advertisement 5-10 times before taking action.  So sending mailers once, probably isn’t going to cut it.  Keep sending mailers to that same mailing list, over and over again.

Press Releases

Here’s a little media secret.  Your local media outlets (TV, radio, print) are always looking for fresh and engaging stories.  Press releases and local media exposure are great ways to get noticed and get traffic.  The trick here is to have a unique story that the outlet’s viewers will want to hear about.

This marketing channel is a bit advanced and may require that you hire a local PR firm.  You would want a firm that has contacts in the local media, understands what kinds of content the media wants and knows how best to craft a story for your business that is appealing.

Billboards

Billboards?  Yes.  Billboards still work, but they shouldn’t be your first option.  In fact, they should be one of the last marketing channels you leverage.

Look to billboards once you’ve maxed out most every other marketing channel.

Why?  Because you have no control over who sees your billboard and it can be very difficult to track it’s success.

A standard method

1. Drive around and find a few billboards that you think are getting in front of your prospects.
2. Use your best headline, one proven benefit and a simple call-to-action like a phone number or website address.
3. Call the billboard company to order the service.
4. Have the billboard company design it.
5. Keep. It. Simple.

Tip: One way to track billboard traffic is to use a specific phone number or website address for billboards only.  Then check your Google Analytics to see if it’s working.