If you are a business owner, chances are you know just how important utilizing your company’s website can be to your bottom line. In this day and age, a company’s website and Internet presence is seen as a crucial, if not primary, part of their success and bottom line.
Ideally, your website serves as a place where you are in complete control. It acts as the central hub for all of your online marketing activities. While having social media profiles and purchasing ads is crucially important, you are ultimately angling to have everyone interested in your products or services heading to your site so that they can learn what you and your company is about and complete purchases to help you grow.
If you already understand the crucial importance of having a fantastic company website, you are already winning the battle! That being said, having a fantastic website with on-page SEO being kept in mind, you still do have to make sure that you are actually having people funnel to your site through a number of difference meant.
It is very important to not only invest in your website but also invest in building traffic through a number of different major traffic strategies. Luckily, there are a number of incredibly effective strategies that you can employ in order to ensure that you and your business are making the most out of your website.
SEO
SEO – or search engine optimization – should be the cornerstone of your site’s traffic strategy.
The acronym SEO gets thrown out a lot, but what does it actually mean? Basically, it is a series of actions that you can make both on your site and off your site to ensure that popular search engines such as Google and Bing look positively on your site. When that happens, a chain reaction begins that leads to you and your site ranking higher invaluable keywords and long-tail key phrases.
As a site owner, there are several things that you can do to make Google and other search engines consider your site as both useful to interested parties and relevant for a number of different high-traffic searches.
These are known as “ranking signals.” Here are the primary ranking signals to keep in mind.
- High quality and new content on your site. This is arguably the most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to SEO. You should set up a consistent posting schedule in which you are publishing useful, engaging, and well-written content to your site. If you do not already have one, it is a wise idea to set up a blog section to your site so that you can do this. This is especially true if you site is primarily used as an online marketplace. Keep in mind, with today’s search engine algorithms, well-written content is valued well above keyword prevalence. So stay away from keyword stuffing and take your time to make sure that your work is both engaging and informational.
- Other important on-site SEO factors to consider include that you are using media such as images, and videos. That your site is compatible with most mobile devices, and that your site loads quickly are also of the utmost importance.
- High-quality sites are linking to your sites. Years ago, it was crucial that you got as many links as you could from other sites no matter the quality of those sites. Today, one link from a high-quality site with high domain authority and organic traffic is far more valuable then scores of links from no-name or spammy sites.
Social media marketing
At the moment, Google does not technically consider social media to be a part of SEO, but that does not mean it is not incredibly important to your success. Think about it, if you could get a massive billboard set up on the busiest street in your city, would you? That’s kind of what a high visibility social media post on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube is like.
Social media is one of the easiest ways to promote your brand. Set up profiles on all major social media platforms if you have not already. If you think you have what it takes to organically create a following, do so. Some great ways to encourage customers and visitors to your site to follow you on social media is to include links on your site, in emails, newsletters, and more.
If on the other hand, you do not feel up to the task of managing your social media pages on your own, there is no shame in hiring a professional. These people know the ins and outs of the industry and can help you steadily grow an engaged following.
Another option to consider is to hire a social media ambassador such as an influencer inside your niche to promote your company, social pages, and site.
Email marketing
This may seem a bit old fashioned, but it is certainly still a good option to consider. While social media is a fantastic way to attract new visitors and audience to your site and brand, but what about retaining previous customers?
Studies show that it is far easier to keep old customers than it is to gain new ones, and that is certainly something you should consider when developing your online marketing strategy. One great way to stay on front of mind of previous customers is to set up a consistent email marketing strategy.
This does not mean you should be spamming your customers’ inboxes on a daily – or even weekly – basis, but it is helpful to send out news and other media on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. The best way to encourage people to sign up for your emails is to offer some kind of incentive, such as free shipping, a free gift, or a percentage off of some purchase to do so. On top of that, make sure that you include useful things of actual value in your emails. Sure, tell them what’s new with the company and what they should be excited about, but also offer coupons, promo codes, or something similarly valuable so that they not only are encouraged to open the email, but also head back to your site and take advantage of what you are offering them.
Utilize video marketing
Did you know that YouTube is predicted to overtake Facebook as America’s second-most popular website very soon? It’s true! That’s why it would be a huge mistake to overlook the massive value that video marketing offers you.
Yes, we have already briefly touched on YouTube in the social media marketing portion of this article, but it’s so important that I thought it was wise to focus on it even more.
Video marketing is becoming an increasingly popular way to reach out to potential customers and a good audience that could very well be looking for companies that offer your products or services. It is also a very easy way to funnel traffic to your site.
Basically, each video on YouTube offers publishers an offer to put in links and other pertinent information. You can use this to link to your content on your site related to the video. You can also offer a free resource to those who have watched the video. This can be another great way to get people to sign up for your growing email list.
Be creative!
This is a great list to get your gears turning on ways that you can improve your digital marketing to drive traffic to your site, but there are a lot of other ways ou there as well.
Don’t be afraid to get stick your fingers into a lot of different pieces of pie to see what sticks. While some ideas may seem obvious, there are other strategies that might be even more effective to you depending on what kind of audience you are trying to attract and what market your site exists in.
Be creative and try to think outside the box. Look for any new opportunities that are out there to generate increased traffic. A little bit of effort put into marketing can help you take your business and your site to that next level!
Brad is a content marketing expert and writer working at OutReachFrog. When he’s not working, he enjoys hanging out with his wife and dog and exploring the many hiking trails and beaches of Southern California.