How can I increase the traffic on my website?

 How can I increase the traffic on my website?

Build an email list.

Building a strong email list is not easy, but it’s essential for anyone who has a website. A good list and email marketing strategy can bring you a steady stream of traffic, as well as more clients and conversions.

One way to gather more emails in your list is to offer valuable downloadable content to your audience that requires a subscription. You want to avoid buying email lists, though, as those leads aren't qualified and could mark your emails as spam.

From there, make sure to keep your list updated to any new developments on your website, any new content that you’ve posted, and anything else you can think of that your audience would be interested in hearing about.

Blog regularly.

Blogging and content marketing has become a big part of digital marketing in recent years. Now it seems like most businesses and websites have their own blog, and for good reason – blogging drives more traffic to your site, helps you build better and stronger relationships with your audience, and can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche.

Blogging can be time-consuming, but with a good strategy and content calendar in place, it’s very much worth it. You can also repurpose your blog content by converting it into an infographic, slide deck, or ebook.

The better your content is, the more your audience will appreciate it and share it – which means more traffic to your site and more loyal fans who will visit your blog regularly.

Engage with audiences on social media.

Social media can be a great source of traffic, but it requires daily attention to get you the results you need. First of all, make sure you’ve added links to your website in your different bios.

From there, in order to grow your social media presence and subsequently, your traffic, you have to engage with audiences as often as possible.

Share any new, valuable content that you publish on your website on your social media and make sure to add social media sharing buttons on your website and blog so that your visitors can share as well.

Use social media ads.

The best way to get quick results from social media is to create ads.

Facebook, in particular, is making it especially hard for businesses and brands to get their posts in front of their audiences, but with ads, you can get a quick boost in traffic.

Most social networks have great targeting and different types of ads to suit most needs, and they also bring in good results.

Create an account on StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon can be an amazing source of traffic. I’ve often noticed huge spikes in visitor numbers from StumbleUpon even without trying to achieve that.

If you’re not familiar with StumbleUpon, it’s a content curation website where the best pieces of content – images, video, or text – can unexpectedly go viral.

The "secret" to StumbleUpon is pretty simple – relevant content that provides real value for its readers. You could be getting traffic from it without even using it, as I mentioned earlier, but to make sure you get more traffic, and more consistently, there are things that you can do.

Start by creating a profile, and link to your website and blog in your bio. From there, start building a following by stumbling great posts, and finding people to follow who share your interests.

Once you start stumbling, make sure to share other blogs’ posts as well, so that you’re not just posting your own stuff – that will definitely not go well with other stumblers, but it might also get your account suspended by StumbleUpon.

Do an SEO audit of your site.

Even if you don’t have the budget to hire an SEO specialist or SEO agency, or the knowledge to completely optimize your website, there are still things – like help online SEO tools – that you can do to make sure you advance in search engines.

To boost SEO, use keywords in your headlines, post and copy, add meta descriptions to your posts and alt text to your images, use tags and add links to your posts.

You can use a tool like Found to do a quick, free SEO audit of your website so you can see what you’re doing wrong and how you can fix it. For WordPress users, you can use a tool like Yoast SEO that will help you optimize your WordPress website easily.

Do more guest blogging.

Guest blogging is a great way to reach new audiences that could then visit your website if they liked what you had to say, as well as a way to get more links to your site.

One of the ways to find great websites for guest blogs is to search for key influencers in your niche and then to start building a relationship with them. You can use a tool like Respona to find the top content shared as well as the top influencers.

Once you start a relationship with these influencers, so long as you have already published valuable content in your name, you have a good chance of getting a guest blogging opportunity – maybe even a regular one if your post does well.

Another way to increase your traffic through guest blogging is to get someone to write a post for your blog.  So when you find influencers in your niche, don’t be afraid to ask them if they would be willing to write something for you.

Use internal links.

Whenever you’re posting new content, check to see if there are any words that you can link to other pages on your website. Make sure that the link is relevant, and don’t add too many links per post, as it would definitely put off your readers.

Internal links are very helpful as they help you with search engine optimization, and they also get some of your readers to spend more time on your website.

Leverage the power of visual content.

Images can make a huge difference to your traffic. Research shows that while people remember only 20% of what they read, they actually recall 80% of what they see.

Eye-catching, fun images, mean more shares on social media and they make reading a much more pleasant experience.

Make sure that whenever you share a post on social media you also add an image or else your update will probably not even be noticed.

Create infographics.

Infographics are great sources of traffic. All of the infographics I’ve published on my website have not only gotten a lot of engagement but also drove more traffic.

Infographics get a lot of shares and engagement because they’re much more eye-catching than a regular blog post, while also conveying a lot of useful information.

But what What really makes infographics great is that once you’ve published, you can submit it to infographic directories and contact influencers and other bloggers and websites to see if they are interested in posting your infographic on their sites. This leads to more exposure, increased brand awareness, and more traffic.

If hiring an agency or graphic designer is not in your budget, you can also try any one of the free infographic tools available online. Visme, for example, allows non-designers to create not just infographics, but also interactive slide decks, social media images, and other visual content.

Engage in forum marketing.

Forum marketing is an often-disregarded form of marketing; one of the reasons for this could be the fact it can take a long time to build up your profiles on forums and it’s an ongoing task. If you stick with it though, it can get you more targeted traffic and conversions.

To get started, research what the most popular forums in your niche are, but make sure they are active and not filled with spam. Then, create a profile and start interacting; in the beginning, try not to appear as if you’re only there to sell, but rather try to be helpful and engaging and show that you are informed.

Only once you start building a rapport with other users can you really start promoting yourself, but not too heavily.  Many forums allow you to add a signature that appears at the end of all of your posts that can include a link. Try customizing this signature in order to attract users to your website, or even better, you're sign-up form.

Comment on other relevant blogs.

Blog commenting is very similar to forum marketing, in the sense that you should take the time to show that you’re actually trying to be helpful when commenting with a link, rather than fishing for traffic. In an ideal world, you should try commenting regularly on blogs similar to yours.

This is great for backlinks and building relationships with influencers in your niche, but in this case, it also shows that you are a regular reader and commenter, so linking to one of your pages won’t make you look like a spammer.

When you do link to one of your pages, make sure that it actually complements the post you’re commenting on and that you explain why you’re sharing that particular link.