If you find yourself stuck in traffic on the way to work, the best way to get through the situation is to imagine that one day, organic traffic to your website will be just like this.
Sure, you can always break out the wallet and spend on paid ads to immediately drive traffic to your website. But the people who go to your website do so because they were enticed by your ad, not by your business.
Not many know who you are, what you do, and your “why” or your purpose for starting this business. Without this backstory, it’s hard to build your brand and foster loyalty.
In other words, paid ads can drive traffic to your website but they might not even buy or stick around for long because they don’t know what your value proposition is.
Unpaid or organic marketing strategies can do this for you – build your business brand by enhancing your online presence. People go to your website not because they were enticed but because they were convinced.
Organic marketing doesn’t cost much or any at all and the rewards can be sustained for the long term.
Here are our top 10 tips for increasing organic traffic to your website.
1. Write For Your Audience…
…not for the search engines!
Yes, you should optimize your content for search engines for it to be found on the Internet. However, some Digital Marketers have taken optimization too far.
They use tactics such as:
- Keyword Stuffing – The recommended keyword density is 2% of the total word count. However, that hasn’t stopped some digital marketers from cramming as many keywords into the content as possible in order for the content to get indexed frequently. This is a strategy that’s done on product guides and sales copy.
- Link Stuffing – This is the practice of linking to high-ranking sites that aren’t even relevant to the content in order to get more views.
- Unnecessarily Long Blogs – As we’ll explain later, writing long-form blogs are great for enhancing your reputation as an expert – but the content has to make sense.
There are some digital marketers who create long-form content that reads like a Congressman filibustering on the floor. The content serves no purpose except to keep the reader on the website longer.
Using these tactics is an attempt to game the search engine algorithm but results in content that isn’t useful to the readers that matter most – your audience.
To drive more traffic to your website, you must create content that offers value to your audience. How do you do this?
- Create an audience profile by reviewing your website and social media analytics.
Find out their demographics; where are they from, which types of content do they like to read, and what device do they commonly use to access your content.
- Conduct surveys in social media; get recommendations and suggestions from your followers on the types of content they want you to create.
- Visit your competitors’ websites and social media accounts. What are they writing about? Check the engagement level on the content that’s published on the websites and social media pages.
In short, optimize your content for search engines but write the content for your audience.
Lastly, don’t try to impress them by using technical terms. You’re the expert, that’s why they went to you. Write in a manner that’s easy to understand. Your audience won’t find the solutions to their problems if your content is causing more confusion.
2. Create High-Quality Blogs Frequently
Blogging is a proven way of driving organic traffic to your website. We’ve written several articles about the benefits of blogging for your business. Here’s an updated list of statistics on why you should blog:
- 20 billion blogs are read by more than 400 million people every month.
- 77% of Internet users read blogs.
- Websites that blog get 97% more indexed pages than sites that don’t blog.
- Internet users agree that blogs are the 5th most trusted source of information.
- In 2021, 93% more marketers used blogs to drive traffic to their websites.
Before you start blogging, read our article “Why You Should Have A Blog” to bring you up to speed on what blogging is and how to come up with content that drives traffic to your website.
The biggest misconception about blogging is that everyone can do it. All you have to do is write your ideas and thoughts on a word document, publish it on your website, and distribute it.
In theory, yes, but no one will find your blog unless it’s optimized for the search engines. Optimization is a skill that involves keyword research, strategically embedding these keywords into your content, while adding backlinks, and ensuring uniqueness and quality.
You also have to identify your goals for blogging.
For example, if you want to enhance your reputation as an expert, you should create optimized, long-form blogs. These are blogs that generally exceed 2,000 words. Long-form blogs also keep the visitor longer on your page thereby improving your bounce rate.
Can you write long-form blogs? To give you an idea, it takes 3.5 hours to write a short-form blog that ranges from 800 to 1,200 words.
Google will also check the quality of your blogs. The search engine’s standards require your blogs to be fresh or unique, useful, informative, and engaging. This is a lot of work for someone who runs a business!
Your best option is to outsource blogging to a digital marketing company like us. At Mountaintop Web Design, we not only design and develop high-performance websites but we also help our clients create high-ranking content.
If you’re enjoying this blog at this point, give us a call!
3. Add Internal Links to Your Blogs
As you noticed in the previous section, we added an internal link to one of our blogs. Anyone who clicks on the link will find himself on another page on our website. This will encourage him to stay longer and possibly entice the visitor to check out your other pages.
And if you’re proud of your content, why not?
It’s possible that you created content that’s of higher quality than those you referenced on the Internet. Showcase what you’ve done to your audience. Internal linking will help build your credibility and reputation as an expert in your field.
4. Develop a Varied Content Strategy
We’ve discussed blogging at great length – but it’s not the only form of content that you should utilize to drive traffic to your website. An effective content marketing strategy involves a variety of delivery channels because not everyone prefers blogs.
Here is a rundown of other types of content that you might want to incorporate in your inbound marketing strategy:
- Video-based Marketing
Yes, on average a person spends 37 seconds reading a blog – but does he get it? Videos can deliver the message faster and with greater clarity because it’s easier for the mind to process visual images than text. Another study showed that videos can process information 60,000 times faster than text.
- Infographics
An infographic is a form of content that uses images to organize information. Usually, infographics make use of colorful graphics and a combination of different-sized fonts. The visuals are presented in a manner that makes it easier for the reader to understand the information. A study by One Spot revealed that an infographic can increase website traffic by 12%.
- Giveaways and Promos
Everyone likes to get something for free. The only cost is the time spent going to your website and filling out a form or liking a post. Hosting giveaways and promos are a great way of driving traffic to your website. You see promos and contests posted on Facebook and YouTube. The cost of the giveaway or discount can easily be recovered with a few sales.
- Podcasts and Webinars
Podcasts have grown in popularity over the last few years. Statistics show that the percentage of podcast listeners jumped up from 44% in 2018 to a remarkable 57% in 2021. Webinars are also increasing in popularity. Businesses report that webinar attendance has increased by 87%. Meanwhile, 73% of marketers state that a webinar can generate 500 leads.
5. Maximize Social Media
Social media has been around for decades but its popularity continues to grow. According to Backlinko, there were 4.48 billion social media users in 2021 compared to 3.89 billion in 2020. This figure represents a year-on-year increase of 13%.
There are many ways that you can capitalize on the size and reach of social media to drive more traffic to your website:
- Share your blogs and always include a link to your website in the lead-in to the post.
- Stay top-of-mind by posting frequently but make sure to post content that’s relevant and useful to your followers.
- Minimize sales-type content as it may appear spammy to your followers.
- Actively engage with your followers by responding to all comments. Remain professional and courteous – even to negative comments.
- Encourage your followers and customers to leave reviews about your products and services. It might seem risky but the not-so-good reviews can be used as an opportunity to show your professionalism and willingness to extend support.
- Respond to private messages as soon as possible. The accepted turnaround time on inquiries is 24 hours.
Always keep in mind what “social” means in social media. It means humanizing your business by communicating, engaging, and acknowledging your customers and followers as important components of your value chain.
6. Stay Active Within Your Community
Social media has become a force that draws together like-minded people and businesses. Every social media platform has formed its own sets of communities that cater to distinct interests.
Whether you’re involved in health and fitness, education, telecommunications, Information Technology, manpower recruitment, business consultation, or engineering, you’re bound to find your interest group in social media.
Join a few of these interest groups and stay active by regularly participating in discussions. Here are a few do’s and don’ts to remember before joining a group:
- Don’t sell your products or services right away! Don’t even promote your business website the day after your membership gets approved.
- Win the group’s trust first by showing the other members that you’re there to contribute your knowledge and experience.
- Create a discussion forum once in a while.
- Be respectful to all members regardless of differences in opinions.
- Strictly abide by the rules and regulations of the group. If the guidelines state “no discussions on politics”, don’t test the rules by posting about your political beliefs.
- If you’re not sure if your post conforms with community guidelines, seek approval from an administrator by sending a private message.
If you stay active and successfully build a good reputation within the community, you’ll receive private messages inquiring about your business.
7. Improve On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is also called Technical SEO and focuses on improving your website’s performance and functionality.
As a web developer, the following items are on our Technical SEO checklist:
- Website page loading time
- Crawling errors
- Broken outbound and internal links
- Duplicate content
- Simple site structure
- Optimized XML Sitemap
To learn more, read our article “What Is Technical SEO?”
If the items listed above pass our on-site audit, your website will generate a better experience for visitors. Over time, your website will develop a good reputation as a reliable resource that consistently makes it easy for visitors to find content. As its reputation grows, you might find your website crawling higher on page 1 of the SERP.
8. Only Link to Quality Sources
Backlinking is a great way of increasing traffic to your website because you enhance the credibility and reputation of your business in the industry.
But there’s one caveat.
You must backlink to high-quality, reputable websites that have a good domain authority ranking. Doing so can help push your website up the SERP and give your reputation a big boost as a valuable resource in your industry.
The websites that you’ve linked might return the favor and give you referrals through mentions in their respective sites and community groups.
9. Incorporate Local SEO Strategies
If your business has a brick-and-mortar outlet, sign it up at online search directories.
For example, if you’re selling vinyl turntables, a person launching a query on “best vinyl turntables near me” might see your listing on the search directory’s results page.
Among the best online search directories to list your business are:
- Google My Business
- BOTW
- About Us
- Spoke.com
- Bing Places
To get solid results from your listing, it’s imperative that you provide correct information about your business. These online directories will require you to give the following information:
- Website URL
- Directions
- Hours of Operation
- Address
- Phone Number
- Location Map
Getting one of these pieces of information wrong will cost you more than foregone sales. It can damage your reputation.
Take your time when creating your directory profile. When writing a description of your business, always include high-ranking keywords. Use images with excellent quality and resolution. Lastly, keep your business profile updated.
10. Use QR Codes
We’re sure you’ve come across these images made of pixels that are placed at the cashier station and entrances at malls, banks, and other commercial establishments.
QR codes have been around for years but gained popularity during the pandemic because they allowed businesses to have a contactless way to process transactions. Scanning a QR Code not only makes it easier for a visitor to go to your website, but it can help the marketer collect data about your customers.
This is one reason why retail giant Walmart decided to create its own digital wallet app instead of having Apple Pay accepted at its locations. Walmart’s digital wallet, Walmart Pay, uses a QR code that collects customer information.
Similar to a CTA, make sure you give your followers a good reason to scan your QR code. Also, place it at a location on your social media pages and other forms of content that make it easy to find.
Conclusion
All of the strategies that we discussed in this article have been proven effective in delivering results. Now, if that statement brought a smile to your face, there’s one more thing we need to explain to you.
It takes time for organic marketing strategies to deliver these results. The keys to a successful organic marketing program are consistency, adaptability, patience, and dedication.
For example, to get the best results in blogging, you have to create and publish content 11 to 16 times a month. That’s a lot of writing!
Going from four blogs per month to 16 blogs per month doesn’t happen after 30 days. It will take longer because you’re consistently fine-tuning your content creation strategy and adapting to the changes in the online behavior of your audience.
But with patience, dedication, and consistency, you will see results – more organic traffic to your website!
If you need help with your digital marketing, give us a call and we’ll design an effective organic marketing campaign specifically for your business.
And if you found this article informative and useful, feel free to send it to someone who’s thinking about digital marketing.
