Introduction

Since the introduction of the Internet to the public in 1994, our world has moved online. This has quickly been followed by money.

Whether you have a personal blog, business website, or are making money through online advertising, today’s currency of success relies, almost exclusively, on the science of cultivating more significant traffic to your website. The traffic that you bring to your website is crucial because it helps you increase your rankings on the various search engines, which is how potential customers can find your company.

It also helps you to gain expertise in your industry, which allows you to establish your influence on a particular topic, giving you the ability to earn money. Unfortunately bringing more traffic to your site these days can be a challenge. With millions of competing websites, it can be difficult for potential customers to find your site.

In fact, NetCraft, an Internet service company located in Bath, England, recently announced that there are now over one billion websites on the Internet. With so many websites competing for the same customers, the question becomes what steps you can take to effectively capture the attention of consumers and increase the traffic to your site?

The good news is that the multitude of consumers that search the Internet daily are funneled through the rather narrow search engines to the various websites on the Internet. This leaves the market far from becoming saturated regarding the division of resources. Therefore, there are still plenty of ways that you can effectively market your website to attract more people to your site successfully.

The bad news, most of the techniques that are being used today aren’t entirely understood by a majority of the population, leaving them unable to fully capture the benefits they can bring and forcing them to hire specialized marketing firms that increase their operational costs. The five powerful techniques outlined in this guide are geared toward a single purpose; helping you drive more traffic to your website. These methods that you will learn are easier than you might have thought initially and will bring you results within a week. As long as you follow the concepts outlined in the guide, you will start to see a marked increase in the number of visitors to your website.

1. Content Creation, SEO and Leveraging Analytics

According to Internet Live Stats, Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second, which translates to more than 3.5 billion searches every day and 1.2 trillion searches every year, worldwide. Add to these numbers the number of interactions with social media and mobile applications and ranking higher on the Internet can be downright overwhelming.

This makes focusing your efforts on organic searches the best way for companies to realize enormous dividends for their websites and blogs. Whether you’re new to SEO or looking for the most effective strategies to dominate Google, having a basic understanding of search engine optimization techniques along with knowledge of the latest algorithm changes will put you ahead of a majority of those trying to optimize their websites.

The first thing that you need to learn about driving traffic to your website is that all your efforts start from your own backyard. The first rule to building an excellent foundation for website traffic is remarkable content. Being a small business owner, you need to appreciate the immense array of new media tools that you have at your disposal.

(a) Developing Content

The first rule that you need to follow is to diversify your content among as many different media formats as possible. This includes textural, audio, audio-visual, etc. Every business, no matter what they sell, requires a specific set of skills to survive, and ultimately succeed. Unfortunately, many people shrug off these skills as everyday occurrences, which leads to those more willing to acknowledge their gifts receiving more attention, publicity, and more business through higher web traffic.

To provide the best content to consumers, you need to take the time to isolate your specific skills; those that qualify you to succeed in your chosen profession. Most small business websites that thrive, do so because they aren’t merely filled with business jargon, but because they are relatable and able to communicate the qualities of a great business through articles, anecdotes, etc. The general public can relate to and learn from this kind of content. So, in addition to the usual content, you need to you have a blog on your website that can serve as an educational and exciting target for consumers.

(b) Site Analytics

Analytics along with the different styles of content that you will need to decide on, you will also need to keep an eye on your website analytics. These are provided in-house by portals like WordPress or Google Analytics. You can complete the easy sign-up process for Google analytics and start receiving analytical information in three to four days.

The analytics will allow you to identify public favorites among your hosted content and check whether the new video or article has received adequate public approval. This is determined by the amount of time spent on average on that particular article by each audience member. If the analytics show that they sat through an appropriate amount of time to read it in its entirety, then you’ve done an excellent job with your content. However, if they move on from it after just 30 seconds, you may need to revisit your judgment regarding the style or topic.

Keeping an eye on your analytics, and tweaking your content accordingly, allows you to understand better and cater to that taste appropriately so that you can further nurture your growing visitor base. When your audience is happy, they will refer your website to others around them, which will help to drive more traffic to your site through word-of-mouth. The best way to encourage this is through maintaining high credibility with your existing base. In mind that you need to post new content regularly. Nothing will dwindle your existing visitor base faster than a stagnant website. People will only invest their time in websites that seem to be developing and growing.

(c) Search Engine Optimization

After you’ve focused on the quality and frequency of the content you develop, the easiest way to bring more traffic from the outside is to build your Search Engine Optimization, (SEO). The first step in developing SEO is to make sure that you’ve submitted your website links to the various search engine platforms. While not every URL provided will make it onto the search indexes, a majority of them do without any problems. Completing this first step allows Google’s crawlers to index and display your website within their search results. This can also be done for other search engines like Bing and Yahoo.

Once you’ve submitted your website URL’s for indexing, you need to perform SEO on all of your current content. You will also need to keep this in mind as you move forward. SEO is basically about allowing the search engine crawlers, or virtual bots, to categorize and classify your site in order of relevance to keywords. The higher the significance of a particular site in response to a specific keyword, the better its chances of appearing higher up on search lists.

Appearing higher on the search engines is vital. This is because all your efforts aren’t necessarily geared towards people who already know about your site and can directly access it by inputting its URL, but rather towards those who aren’t aware of your business and are looking for options based on the keywords in their search query. SEO has become an extremely competitive field. You have to be able to understand the mind of your customers and create lists of possible keywords that you can use, so your customers can get to the topical content that you’ve provided.

Take some time to look at the content that you’ve already created. Make a list of possible keywords that you would use to get to content like this on the Internet. The keyword phrases that you determine should be between two to four words long. To help you compile your list faster, use one of the keyword phrases and enter it into the Google search bar. After you hit search, scroll to the bottom of the page. Here you will see roughly eight to ten related searches and keyword phrases.

Take a look at the list and see if it might be able to help you find a few more keyword phrases that you believe are strongly related to your content. Repeat this process several times with different keyword phrases. This will allow you to find a broader range of keywords that are relevant to your content. After you’ve identified 15 to 20 keywords and keyword phrases, go back through your current content and make sure that the keywords that you’ve determined are present in the content. You will also need to rewrite your title and subtitle to ensure that one of the more distinct keyword phrases is present.

When it comes deciding on your keywords, avoid using more archaic or abstruse words in the hope of being unique. Your goal is to find the right keywords and phrases that are the most realistic depictions of search engine language that a majority of your visitors would use to find your site. However, where your ingenuity comes in, is finding ways to express the same set of keywords in different ways. Your challenge is to discover the configuration of words that will help to lead your visitors to your site successfully.

Unfortunately, the problem with SEO is that today’s higher tech-savviness means that using shorter keyword phrases tends to bring up too many results and too much competition. However, two-thirds of all searches are performed using long strings of keywords, so finding the right longer keyword strings can lead to more customers finding your site.

2. Different Social Media Channels

With the increased rise in popularity, social media has become one of the best ways to promote your business. It has now become a full-time job to try and leverage the power of social media marketing to promote products and services. Unfortunately, it can be easy to get lost in the online activities to promote your business and drive traffic to your website, resulting in lost hours with little accomplished.

The truth is, you don’t need to spend hours a day marketing your business on social media. In fact, you can create a simple routine of interactions that will take you about an hour a day. With a bit of common sense and some of the convenient tools that are available, you can build your social media presence through, mostly automated, postings on the top social media platforms. Carefully planning your social media marketing activities can provide you with an excellent opportunity to drive more traffic to your site, generate more leads, and earn more profits.

There are so many pieces to the puzzle that is online marketing that it can be easy to overlook one, or not see where it fits into the whole picture. Many businesses opt for a “scatter-shot” approach when they are planning their social media marketing campaign. They decide to hit every single platform in hopes of hitting it big and going viral. Unfortunately, because their efforts are so scattered, they often fail and don’t see any return on their investment. It will be more beneficial for you to take a “rifle” approach, hitting your marketing targets with precision.

(a) Facebook

Facebook is by far the largest of all the social media platforms, and despite some of the recent complaints against the company, it is still an extremely popular network, with more than 2 billion users per month. It has a lot that you can do and see. You can share posts, videos, memes, and more with a main page or wall with your specific interests and recommendations. Due to their strict rules, Facebook’s ad network has not been ruined by spammers. It offers both free and paid work in conjunction with each other and is cheaper to use than Google AdWords.

It allows you to promote your site and posts you know to be popular. It provides a logo indicating a “hot post” to promote and a suggested budget. You also have access to a lot of paid and free features. These include events, polls, special offers, giveaways, contests, and more. The great thing about these features is you can experiment with all of them to see what results you get, without having to spend a ton of money.

If you use WordPress and have a blog, many great plug-ins can help you take advantage of these features on Facebook. You can also post your article headlines to Facebook automatically. If you are using A Weber, you can share your email marketing messages the same way. All you have to do is connect the accounts and choose whether you want to post the content to Facebook when you send out the email.

(b) Twitter

Utilizing short post of no more than 140 characters, Twitter has become known as a “microblog.” Rather than one post per day, people often make multiple posts throughout the day, telling people what they are doing. People sign up as followers of a business or person. This is usually based on a niche topic that they are interested in. Once they sign up, they will start receiving tweets posted by those they follow. The tweets are piquing interest and keeping the followers informed.

In some cases, a follower might be so interested in the information, that they re-tweet the original tweet out to every one of their followers. When numerous people re-tweet the same tweet, it can be said to be going viral. The comments that you might get can range from personal to professional. People will often click on a Twitter link to read a full article, whereas they might tend to ignore it if you were to send it in an email. To get the most out of your tweets, you need to treat them like a great headline.

Twitter, over the years, has become popular due to its fun, immediate and compelling format that causes people to want to interact with it on a daily basis. Perhaps its popularity is because it is so similar to the newspaper or blog headline. Twitter also makes it extremely convenient to contact any follower who happens to be online at the same time you are. Since so many people are now using the Twitter app on their phones, many people are only a tweet away.

The best business use of Twitter is staying in touch with your followers and making yourself highly visible by tweeting at least once a day. It can also be used to send reminders to people, post news of contests, etc. Twitter provides a quick personal connection to all your followers and can help you drive traffic to your full articles and blog posts.

(c) LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another one of the networks that you shouldn’t ignore. It helps you connect with like-minded individuals in your niche in a professional capacity, rather than a personal one. It was designed for professionals who want to stay linked, even if they don’t work for the same company. LinkedIn is designed to showcase your skills and experience, be located by others regarding new opportunities, and stay in touch with colleagues and friends; with the latter being particularly handy given the state of flux in the current job market. Chances are, if someone is on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to find them sooner or later.

For freelancers, the networking site can provide instant access to quality contacts from the moment you join. You can also join special interest groups and follow industry insiders, allowing you to know what is going on in your field. Top-level clients and prospective employers routinely look at the LinkedIn profiles of anyone they are thinking about doing business with. The site’s strength also lies in the recommendations, which your network members are prompted to provide for you.

The site was initially designed to cater to the college-educated, professional demographic, but has become much friendlier over the last several years, allowing you to take part in ongoing discussions with both individuals or groups. As a business, you should use LinkedIn to profile and position yourself as an expert in your industry. It can be an excellent source for new contacts and a place to provide targeted information and showcase testimonials, specialties, and accomplishments.

(d) Google +

Much like Facebook, Google+ allows a range of content. It is a highly visual platform that is preferred by chefs and photographers. The “Hangouts” area of the platform is a great place to post webinars. It allows you to cross-post your content with Twitter and YouTube and can be accessed through Gmail and YouTube accounts. It is slanted more toward a younger male audience.

(e) Tumbler

Tumbler is also similar to Facebook in the types of content that you can post. Unlike Facebook, it will accept your YouTube video embeds, as well as allow you to upload your videos to the site directly. You can use the share buttons on YouTube to post a still image or thumbnail of your video. There are currently 550 million users on the site which spans 16 languages. The demographics tend to lean toward the Millennials, with more than 80 percent of them accessing the site from their mobile phones.

(f) Pinterest

This site is a virtual pinboard, shopping site, and vision board. It can be used for a range of marketing activities. Nearly 90 percent of the users of this site are women, and more than 50 percent of the users have made a purchase based on something they saw on the site. If you have high-quality images that you want to share of your products, this is a great place to market them.

(g) Instagram

Instagram is another extremely popular photo-based site that is popular with the younger audiences. Because Facebook now owns it, you can advertise on the site via your Facebook account. It also allows you to target mobile uses only.

(h) YouTube

YouTube has become the number one video sharing site in the world, along with being one of the top five social media platforms. It leans a bit more towards a Millennial male audience but is utilized by just about everyone. Creating your own channel is like setting up a TV station with playlists, with your content organized by niche. It is also a social network where people can chat, comment and vote. It is important to monitor the activity on your account because users have been known to misbehave.

When you post a new video on your page, you can cross-promote it on Google+ and Twitter. You can also share it on Pinterest, Tumbler and other sites with their easy to use share buttons. These are the most significant social networks that you can use to gain a considerable following as long as you take the time to learn the rules of each one.

3. Link Building

While this may be a bit more time consuming, it pays a steady, long-term return on your investment as compared to the other methods discussed in this book. Unlike links you post on social media, the links you post in the comments sections of forums and other websites, remain visible, for anyone who finds the particular post of discussion on the forum.

You want to find sites where people may often visit to read up on material that pertains to your own product as well. Remember, you only want to post a few links on each website, to avoid their administrators from taking action and removing any link that points back to your page. When you make a meaningful comment on another website, add a link to any content on your site that can add value to your point or even broaden the scope of the topic at hand.

(a) Posting to Forums

Apart from posting links on competing websites, there are several forums as well where you can post your link and request feedback on your content, style, or layout in general. Aside from the added advantage of gaining a fresh perspective on your site, doing this will also open the door for potential visitors who like what you have to offer. This can lead to them referring your website to others. Since these forums differ regarding topical interest, finding the right forum that works for you may take some time, especially if you have a highly niche business.

One thing that you may want to do is find a sub-Reddit that is relevant to your content and business. Make a genuine contribution to the discussion and post your links there. You have to be careful when posting links on this site because the populace is extremely good at dealing with spam-posters. So only add links to the site when you feel like you’ve made an established addition to the ongoing discussion. If you are seen as promoting content that is unrelated to the topic at hand, your credibility will dive, so be very careful when selecting the content and article that you are trying to promote through the posted link.

Given the large number of people who visit the site, the links and referrals will be driving traffic to your website for a long time. Aside from driving more traffic to your site directly through the links that you post, your efforts will have another massive influence as well. Search engine crawlers operate by creating inter-connecting networks between various sites on the Internet.

All of this build up toward nodal connections that can drive visitors through hundreds of paths. With the operational procedures behind the coded crawlers, the higher number of links that you have between your business site and other relevant or popular sites, the higher your ranking will be on the search engines. Therefore, if you can build a stable number of links between other important websites in your profession and your site, the higher up your company will be displayed in the search engines.

4. Guest Blogging

If you are trying to increase traffic to your site, collaborating with other, more established Internet personalities is an excellent method to try. The simplest way to do this is to offer to contribute guest blogs to other sites. When you post content on another person’s blog, you will be able to reach an already established audience within your particular niche that is ready to find out what you can offer them.

Utilizing this marketing tool can help you boost your business faster and more effectively than just publishing content on your own site or sending out a couple of tweets. Guest blogging is a win-win situation because you get to create great content for the blog owner and in return, you get to increase your traffic in less time. When it is done right, a single blog post can help you more than a 15-minute TV interview that no one is going to pay attention to.

(a) Advantages of Guest Posting

There are many advantages for both you and the blog owner where you post your guest blog. First and foremost is that you are building a good relationship with other bloggers in your industry. Building these collaborations will allow you to be linked with them more profoundly. With time, your content may even start to be shared with their online community without you even having to ask. This can bring even more significant exposure for your business.

Thanks to the extra visibility that guest blogging gives you, your reputation and image will see a boost, along with the traffic to your website. The increased exposure will allow more readers to learn about your work and your professional skills, enabling you to become an authority on the subjects that you write about.

Another advantage of utilizing guest blogging is that it diversifies the source of traffic that you receive to your blog. Your articles as a guest will help you obtain more qualified traffic to your own blog. Readers will be more likely to go and search for more information about your business when they enjoy the content that you post.

(b) Finding Blogs to Write For

When you decide to try guest blogging, you’ll need to find blogs that are relevant to your niche. While there are several ways to do this, one of the easiest is through a Google Blog Search. Google Blog Search is a specific tool that Google created to help users search specifically for blogs relevant to their search query. It allows you to facilitate the task of finding blogs that accept visiting authors.

As you look through the list of blogs, you want to not only look for blogs that are open to guest bloggers, but also look for those who have relationships with your niche and target audience. You can also visit other websites in your niche, to see if they accept guest bloggers. Look for phrases like, “upload your article,” “write for us,” “guest author,” “columnists,” or “join.”

Another way to start guest blogging is to reach out to other bloggers. You want to maintain contact with at least ten other bloggers in your niche. If you don’t already have these kinds of connections, start reaching out and making them. Some of the best chances to write guest posts are through the relationships that you have with other bloggers. Establish contact with those who are leaders in your market, get to know them, and ask them if they would like you to write some articles.

(c) Selecting the Best Blogs

Once you’ve found a substantial list of possible blogs to approach for a guest blogging assignment, you’ll need to narrow down your list to the most appropriate blogs that will give you the highest exposure to a broader audience. To do this, you need to consider the following.

(i) Traffic: It is important to choose blogs that have a greater traffic outlook than yours. You can find this by looking at the Alexa Rank, which is the number of subscribers or followers they have on Twitter. You must be very careful when looking at the traffic numbers of other blogs. You want to find ones that have more traffic than your site, but that doesn’t have such a huge difference, because the host may tell you that they aren’t interested, because they need the collaboration to be beneficial for them.

(ii) Participation: When it comes to guest blogging, traffic isn’t everything. You also need to look at the participation level of the audience. You want to verify that there are comments for each post that is published on the blog. It is vital that the blog already has an engaged audience. This is accomplished through the frequency of publication and length of time it has been active. It is not the same to post on an active community, chatting and sharing experiences in a personal blog, then a blog whose sole mission is to spit out the news.

(iii) Frequency of Exposure: Some blogs and websites publish content several times a day. This is because they are designed as blogs of multiple authors. With blogs and sites like these, you will only be on the cover for a couple of days. If you managed to create content that stands, great, but, on these kinds of sites your post will soon be forgotten.

(iv) Selection of Niches: You must find blogs that publish in your niche or in those that are directly related to yours. Some audiences will not do you any good. The more specific you can be with your selection, the better results you can expect to see from your efforts. You would never post about your specialty cake design business on a laundry service website, so make sure you choose wisely.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be divided into two main styles; bulk email marketing campaigns, and opt-in letters and updates. While both of these methods are dependent on the medium of email to maximize your visibility, both of these methods work in drastically different ways.

(a) Bulk Email Marketing

These types of marketing campaigns usually deal with having to purchase a bulk mailing list from organizations and sending mass emails to the addresses on the list with information that contains excerpts, commercial advertising, newsletters, promotional materials or offers, etc. However, since you obtained the data from a third-party, your efforts may result in many of the email recipients sending your email blasts directly to their spam folder.

This will result in your credibility being lowered in accordance with the parameters of the email service provider. Once your credibility is lowered, any promotional materials that you would send to these recipients would automatically be flagged as junk and immediately placed in a junk folder, never to be seen again. Taking this approach to email marketing will not increase your traffic significantly.

(b) Opt-In Email Marketing

While this method will require more time and effort on your part, it has been shown to perform better. If you have an email list stored in an email program like Outlook or Gmail, you don’t really have an email list. To build a professional, legal, and valuable opt-in only email list, you will need to learn how to use an autoresponder. An autoresponder allows you to create an email list where every single person on the list has asked to be on your list, and their information has been verified.

The first step in building a legitimate email list is to get an autoresponder. Your autoresponder is the key software system that manages your email list for you. You must choose one that is reliable and take the time to learn how to use it as best you can. There are numerous free and paid autoresponders on the market to choose from, so you’ll need to do your research to determine which one will work best.

6. Conclusion

There are dozens of methods that you can use to increase traffic to your website. The techniques listed here are basic ways that will allow an average, everyday business professional to maximize their viewership and achieve the true potential of their hosted content. While you may have various reasons for wanting to increase the number of visitors to your website, the bottom line is that there are enough visitors currently online for everyone, as long as they know you exist.

While you work on creating your emails and content on your website, it is important to remember to add relevant alternative content with the proper keywords, titles, and brief descriptions to avoid having your search engine ranking decrease due to the crawlers’ formulae. As you being to undertake the process of driving more traffic to your site, you may become disappointed at the slow progress that you are making.

Be patient and know that all the efforts that you’ve put into this process will soon pay off as you begin to notice a rising tide of increased viewership, as long as you follow the principle paths that have been outlined in this guide. You should never be afraid of making your own creative interpretations for the techniques in this guide for increasing the traffic to your site.

If you feel that an unorthodox approach may fail, never give up the idea before you’ve thoroughly tested it and are beyond certain that it won’t succeed. Generating traffic will take time and effort on your part, but it will be well worth it as you watch your audience and subscribers increase exponentially.