increase your website traffic

The process of making your website stand out on Google is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. When your website and digital customer experience become more and more optimized with best practices, your website is listed higher and higher on Google’s search results to people who are looking for products and services like yours! I’m often asked by my clients how their website can be shown on the first page of Google search results, so I’d like to share three steps that you can take to increase your SEO!

website health to increase website traffic

First, your website should be the focal point of your digital experience with your customers. This is where your curious audience will find more information about your products and services, as well as where they can interact with your business through a contact form for phone link. Your website needs to be a priority for your business! When I’m doing client research, I’ll often see that a business owner has put an emphasis on digital marketing efforts that ultimately lead traffic to a shady looking website. This is not a good experience for your potential customers! 

Website health is an important component to SEO. This means ensuring that your webpages are loading without issues, plugins are being kept up to date with necessary updates, and links displayed on your website are valid and working. Additionally, it’s a best practice to ensure your website has a dedicated home page, about page, contact page, and privacy policy page – so be sure that all of these are accounted for on your own site. 

Your website is also a great place to produce content! You can keep your website updated with relevant information through a blog. Each blog post you write becomes a new opportunity to add important keywords and phrases to your site that help match users who search for those keywords or phrases on Google’s search engine. Additionally, each blog post you write becomes a new page on your website that Google can index!

 

organic marketing to increase website traffic

A second option for increasing your website traffic is to build up your organic marketing and content strategy! Organic marketing occurs when you promote your business through various FREE strategies, including: 

  • Social media marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Word of mouth marketing
  • Blog posts
  • Google Business Profile
  • YouTube videos
  • Podcasting

There are of course a plethora of ways to get your business in front of new audiences, but the only way to do this is with consistent content creation. By continuously creating content, you are giving your audience more and more opportunities to interact with your business. I highly recommend that every business pick two or three of these organic marketing strategies and create a system around producing consistent content for each! Post 2-3 times a week on your social media platforms; write a new blog every 2-4 weeks, create helpful videos about your products and services that provide value to your potential customers! 

The best part about organic marketing is that you don’t need to put budget dollars behind getting your content in front of people. With a little dedication and creativity, you can generate a healthy amount of buzz around your business that drives more and more traffic to your website where people can find out more about what you have to offer! 

 

paid marketing to increase website traffic

A third option for increasing your website traffic is to use paid digital advertising to capture your audience’s attention and send them to your website. Paid digital advertising includes social media ads, Google search ads, YouTube ads, etc. A benefit of this option is that, by putting budget behind your campaigns, you are essentially paying to get your brand in front of an ideal audience for your business. When I say ideal, I mean that you have the ability to control – in a general sense – what types of people see your advertisement, which allows you to target your ideal customer who would most benefit from your products or services.

With social media advertising you can target people based on demographics and interests. For example, if you are promoting a product like motorized window coverings, you can target homeowners who have an interest in smart technology. 

With Google advertising, you can target people based on the keywords they are searching for in Google’s search engine. If you own a dentist office, you can target phrases like “dentist near me” so that when someone physically near your office searches for that phrase, your business will pop up as an option for them. 

While paid digital advertising is a great way to expand your brand to new reaches and to get in front of new potential customers, it also requires you to have a monthly budget that you can continue to put towards your advertising. Additionally, be prepared for it to take two or three months before your campaigns are fully optimized as Google and social platforms like Facebook have their own machine-learning period to determine what kind of people best interact with your ads. 

While I love paid advertising as a resource for businesses to grow their audience and get in front of new people, one common mistake that I see businesses make is a total reliance on paid advertising to bring in new business. Depending on your budget, you may consistently get a good number of new customers every month from your ads. However, as soon as you stop paying for any of your campaigns, those potential customers also stop flowing in. 

Having a strong focus on organic marketing efforts will bring in customers that you don’t have to pay directly for. It might make sense in the beginning of your marketing journey to place a heavier emphasis on paid advertising while you work to build your organic marketing presence, but over time I would want to see you lift your foot off of the gas pedal of paid marketing channels as your organic channels begin to bring more and more customers to your business. In my opinion, paid marketing options should be used more so to spread awareness of your incredible online presence and should not be relied upon as the sole lead generator for new customers. 

 

If you’re looking for additional support for your marketing efforts and actionable strategies for your business, Spruce Media is here to help! You can also catch our exclusive podcast, Audience Business, on your favorite podcast streaming service, or watch full episodes on our Audience Business YouTube channel!