website traffic

get traffic to your website - SEO - online marketing - organic - paid

Need More Online Visitors? How To Get Traffic To Your Website

By on February 1, 2018

Get Traffic To Your Website

Whether it’s growth hacking, lead generation, or whatever you want to call it; you need to get traffic to your website in order to get sales. That’s why you need your business to show up at the top of the SERP’s (search engine results pages). You will want to show up for keywords that, when your link is clicked on, will lead to a percentage of the users buying, filling out a lead, or some other conversion that drives your business goals.

The best way to get traffic to your website is to hire professional SEO & online marketing agency like Online Marketing Techs.

However, if this solution doesn’t fit your business, then keep reading. There are two major sources to consider when strategizing to get traffic to your website:

Organic

organic website traffic - get traffic to your website - organic

  • On-Page SEO
  • Google My Business
  • Content Marketing
  • Social
  • YouTube
  • Backlinks

Paid

paid website traffic - ppc - AdWords - Bing Ads

  • Search
  • Display
  • Video
  • Shopping
  • Extensions
  • Social

Keywords

get traffic to your website - keywords

Keywords are the foundation of both organic and paid strategies that get traffic to your website. When a browser user types a query into the search engine, the search engine will return the most relevant results based on the keywords they entered.

For paid search, it is essential to your success that you have quality keywords that will drive your business objectives. It is a best practice to have keywords that are not too broad. For instance if you sell guitars, you wouldn’t want to bid on the keyword “guitars” because you will be paying for clicks from people that are not interested in buying a guitar. A keyword like “guitar store near me” or “buy guitar” would be better choices.

Organic

On-Page SEO

get traffic to your website - on-page seo

One of the major factors of whether your website will rank in search engines is on-page SEO or search engine optimization. This will tell the search engines whether the code is semantically correct, clean and can help explain to search engines what your web page is about. There are many factors that determine ranking. Just some of the factors that are important to consider concerning on-page SEO are:

  • Mobile-Friendly / Responsive – Google, as the search engine trend setter, ranks sites that are optimized for mobile by having mobile versions or being responsive are ranked higher than sites that don’t. In fact, they have a mobile first search results now even for desktops.
  • Site Speed – Search engines want to provide the best experience to its users, and people hate waiting for web pages to load. That is why they rank sites that load faster higher. In fact, as of June 2018, site speed will be a much much bigger factor for Google ranking.
  • Title Tag – This has a lot of weight in on-page SEO ranking as it tells both the search engine and the website user what your page is about. This should be based on keywords that you have gathered in the keyword research phase.
  • Title Modifiers – Modifiers like “best,” “guide,” & “review” help the page to rank for longer keywords.
  • <h1> Tag For Title – The title of the page should be wrapped in <h1> tag. This tells search engines this is the primary content for the page.WordPress automatically adds the title tag.
  • SEO Friendly URL – The keyword should be found in the URL. Good structure is good as well. Categories should be nested in the url. For example example.com/guitars/fender. There should be no stop words like “the,” “a,” “and,” ect. Make it all lowercase. A shorter concise url is better than a long and bloated one.
  • Media – Images, videos and infographics make a huge difference. Make sure the keyword is in both the title of the file and in the alt text of the file.
  • Keyword In Content – It is good to have your keyword early in the text. You don’t want to have too many keywords because this will be considered keyword stuffing and will get you penalized. There is debate about the optimal keyword density, but 1-3% is in a good range. Also use other keywords that are similar to help build context for the search engine robots.
  • XML Sitemap – This is a list of the links to web pages that you want search engines to index and rank. It helps both the search engine crawl your site as well as easy navigation for your users.
  • Outbound Links –  You will want to link from your website to other websites that are relevant. Studies show that pages with outbound links rank better than pages without them.
  • Internal Links – You will want to link to 2 or 3 other pages from your website where it is relevant. This shows the search engines that you have good navigation in your site.
  • LSI – You will want to add keywords that are similar to your main keywords throughout the page to build relevance.

Google My Business

google my business website traffic

Have you ever wondered why some businesses are listed in Google Maps and some aren’t? Have you ever searched a business on Google and seen a widget in the search results that has the businesses website, phone, number, hours, etc.? Well those companies are listed on Google My Business. This is a great way to get traffic to your website using organic methods.  

Not only does this give you a type of widget in search results, but it allows you to edit and maintain your business listing in the world’s most used search engine. It also shows your business on Google Maps and allows you to use location extensions in AdWords.

In order to get started, just visit Google My Business and fill out the appropriate information. They will send you a postcard in the mail to your businesses physical address that has a pin number to verify your business. Once you are verified, you will show up on Google Maps, local search, and more.

Content Marketing

online traffic form content marketing

Videos, eBooks, blogs, articles are all examples of content marketing. Their purpose should be to draw in prospective customers or clients with engaging and relative content that will ultimately result in a profitable action. These should be well thought out content pieces that your customer would really want to engage with.

Every time you create content, it lives on the web and creates links in the search engines. If your content is good enough to rank high for industry specific search terms, then you will gain significant and relevant traffic from each piece that does (especially compounded over time). The more quality content you can create, the better chances you will have of being found. Make sure you use on-page SEO for content published on your website in order to rank well.

Social

get sales on your website with social media

This is really a no-brainer. If you’re in business, you need to focus some of your efforts on social media. This could be Facebook & Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Social media is a great place for customers to find and research your business on platforms they are familiar with. All of the engaging content you create can be promoted on social. It also allows your business the ability to reach out and connect with your target audiences.

What’s more, is that search engine use social indicators when ranking web pages. All of the positive actions (liking, sharing, etc.) that happen on social tell the search engines that your business matters. All of your content marketing should be shared on social media. 

YouTube

website traffic youtube

Technically, YouTube is a social media platform, video sharing application, and a search engine. So, this also falls into the content marketing and social media categories. In fact, after Google, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine (and is actually owned by Google). So, as you might have guessed, videos that rank well in YouTube also rank well in Google.

However, you want to look at it, YouTube is a terrific way to create and share content as well as grow an organic audience to get traffic to your website.

The best way to achieve this is by having a YouTube channel with quality content your target audience will want to watch that is well optimized with a steady stream of video content. Try to do one video week if you can.

There are many great video ideas and you should try to come up with as many as you can. Some good ideas for compelling YouTube video content include:

  • Video Blogs
  • Reviews / Testimonials
  • Product / Service descriptions
  • Documentaries
  • FAQ’s
  • How To Videos
  • Team Introduction
  • Interview With Industry Experts
  • Case Studies
  • Behind The Scenes / Making
  • Event Videos (Conferences, Business Gatherings, Etc.)
  • Seasonal / Holiday Videos
  • Unboxing / Unpacking
  • Time-Lapse Videos
  • Before & After
  • Office Tour
  • Pre-Launch
  • Busting Myths
  • Thank You Videos

Backlinks

SEO backlinks

A backlink is a link coming from another website to your website. Backlinks are actually at the foundation of search engines and the internet as educational institutions like Stanford would use backlink citations coming from people referencing the content in order to rank the best education articles, studies, and research.

These were once the biggest factors in SERPs ranking as search engines would see that people that find the content valuable would link to it. However, SEO overdid it and forced the hand of search engines to reassess how they factored backlinks.

So, if you have links coming from spammy sites you will actually be penalized. If you get a lot of backlinks at once and then nothing, you will be penalized.

There are two types of links as far as SEO is concerned:

  • Do-Follow Links – These will give SEO authority to your link
  • No-Follow Links – These will not give authority to your link

You want to get do-follow links that look natural. Consistently build these links over time so that it doesn’t look spammy. There are many ways to build backlinks, but it takes a lot of work and consistency.

Paid Traffic

There are several ways to pay for paid traffic.

  • Cost per click (CPC) – you pay when someone clicks on your ad
  • Cost per impression (CPM) – you pay for impressions of your ad
  • Cost per view (CPV) – you pay when someone views you video ad
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA) – you pay for website conversion – this is only available to advertisers that have a certain amount of conversion data available in their account.

Search

search traffic google

Search engine marketing uses ads triggered by keywords typed into search engines to entice people to click and buy. When people are researching what they should buy, they go to the search engines. The standard for search engine marketing conversion rate is 1% – 2%. However, Online Marketing Techs average conversion rate for its clients is between 6% – 7%.

I will cover AdWords here. Bind Ads is very similar. In fact, you can import the campaigns you’ve created in AdWords directly to Bing Ads.

When an internet user types a query into the search engine that triggers a specific keyword, advertisers will bid on that keyword. The ad with the highest Ad Rank will win the auction. Ad rank is determined by this equation:

Bid + quality score + expected click-through rate

  • Bid – the max amount the advertiser is willing to pay for a website click.
  • Quality score – this is calculated by several factors including relevance between keyword, ad, and landing page.
  • Expected click-through rate (CTR) – this is determined by how likely Google thinks someone is to click on your ad. This is determined by many factors, one being historical CTR.

AdWords and Bing Ads are the main search engine marketing platforms. With both of these you will need to build out:

  • Keywords – the word that you bid on in the online auction.
  • Ad Groups – separate the keywords in to similar groups to deliver relevant ads.
  • Ads – compelling content used to entice potential clients/customers to your website.
  • Campaigns – These house the ad groups and are where you set the campaign targeting and settings.

Display

GDN google display network

The Google Display Network (GDN) is comprised of Google Properties and partners sites & applications across the web. This includes YouTube, over 2 million websites, 650,000 apps, Gmail, and Blogger. It allows you to show a type of contextual banner ad of many sizes across the GDN.

The display network offers a plethora of targeting options to reach your target audience. You can target by Topic, Keyword (site content), Interest (user interests), Custom Audiences, Demographics (gender, age, household income), Placements (specific websites, apps, YouTube video or channel), and more.

I recommend only picking one targeting method per ad group. If you have two options selected, both of those criteria must be met in order for the ad to show.

Video

AdWords allows you to create video ads that show on the YouTube Network with TrueView ads. The targeting options are similar to the GDN.

There are 3 main types of video ads you can promote on YouTube:

  • TrueView In-Stream – these are the 5 second skippable ads that everyone who  uses YouTube are familiar with. Although it is recommended to show ads that are 30 – 60 seconds or less, your ad can be any length. You are only charged when someone has watched 30 secs of your ad or your entire ad if it is less than 30 seconds.
  • TrueView Discovery – these ads show the video thumbnail displayed next to relevant videos, search results and the YouTube homepage across YouTube.
  • Bumper Ads – These are five second non skippable ads shown before videos that match your targeting criteria.

Shopping

Google Shopping

If you’ve ever searched for a product on Google, you may have seen product ads with images, description, and pricing. Google Shopping allows retailers and product advertisers to promote products across Google Search, Google Shopping, and Google Search Partner websites (including YouTube & Image Search). This uses the CPC bidding and uses the product description in the data feed for targeting. Advertisers typically pay much less for a Shopping ad than a regular text search ad.

In order to advertise on Google Shopping, you will need a landing page where a physical product can be bought, a data feed, Google Merchant Account, and an AdWords Shopping campaign. Other great product advertising platforms include eBay and Amazon.

Extensions

Extensions allow you to expand your ad with helpful and relevant information. When you use an extension, it also increases your expected click-through rate. Because you are now taking up more of the page and giving more information, you have a greater chance of an internet user clicking on your ad.

  • Sitelink Extension – this allows you to show up to 4 extra links at a time to your website with headlines & mini-descriptions below your ad.
  • Callout Extension – this allows you to markup your ad with unique offers like free shipping, 24-hr customer service, college credit, etc..
  • Structured Snippet Extension – this extension allows you to extend your add with any features you provide with the following headings: Amenities, Brands, Courses, Degree Programs, Destinations, Featured Hotels,  Insurance Coverage, Models, Neighborhoods, Service Catalog, Shows, and Styles.
  • Call Extension – this will provide your phone number that users can click and call when searching on a mobile device.
  • Message Extension – this extension allows to extend your ad with an option for the user to text message you.
  • Location Extension – this extension interacts with your Google My Business listing and adds content from there (map, phone, hrs, etc.)
  • Affiliate Location Extension – this will display retailers or affiliates that sell your products/services.
  • Price Extension – This allows you to show multiple products/services below your ad with the name, price, description, and landing page URL.
  • App Extension – this extension allows you to promote your app below your ad.
  • Promotion Extension – this allows you to offer scheduled promotions and discounts

Social

social media marketing

Facebook / Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are just a few of the social media platforms to promote your business. These platforms allow you to target your core audiences in many different amazing ways. I will cover some of the Facebook advertising features here.

Facebook / Instagram

For those of you that don’t know, Facebook owns Instagram. So when you advertise on Facebook you have the option of displaying those ads on Instagram as well as long as the picture is the appropriate size. Facebook requires you to have a Facebook page in order to market on their network.

Campaigns

When you build a Facebook campaign, you have the option of creating specific types of campaigns that are designed for specific goals. These campaign types include:

  • Brand Awareness
  • Reach
  • Traffic
  • Engagement
  • App Installs
  • Video Views
  • Lead Generation
  • Messages
  • Conversions
  • Catalog Sales
  • Store Visits
Ad Sets

In each campaign you will build out ad sets that have your targeting and settings. Depending on the campaign type you are using, your targeting options will vary. Typically you will be able to target by age, gender, location, languages, interests, page interactions, behaviors, detailed targeting, custom audiences, lookalike audiences and more. You will also select if you want to advertise on Instagram or not.

Ads

This is where you will put your ad creative. You can connect this to your Facebook page so that any action taken on the ad will be associated with your FB presence. Depending on the campaign type you will be able to show an image or images, video, collection, products (from feed), post, headline, text, display link, news feed link description, and call to action.

All of these methods are great ways to get people to your website; especially when they are all used together. Contact Online Marketing Techs to get more visitors to your website.

 

 

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