Out of all the things business and website owners need to constantly work on, driving traffic to their website is by far, the most demanding, if not overwhelming. While search engines, particularly Google, always try to come up with algorithm updates to level the playing field for everybody, it is a known fact that established brands and domains already have a seemingly insurmountable head start. The challenge right now is to come up with new and innovative ways to tap people’s interest. The problem is, there’s an abundance of misinformation out there that leads people to do the same tired methods over and over, which doesn’t cause any positive results.
With that said, if you are struggling on getting more people to your website, know that you are not alone. A research in 2020 says that over 63% of content professionals are having difficulties in finding skilled staff in making effective content strategies that drives traffic to their website.
So how exactly do you solve this problem?
1. Aim for topics that people are actually talking about (and search for)
The search engine only works for those who rank high. Nobody really licks the 2nd page of search results, right? Thus, in order to increase your organic traffic, you need to work on driving interest. And to do that you have to throw your name out there whenever possible by talking about things that people are actually searching for (with regards to your niche, of course).So how do you find topics that people are talking about? Research the keywords. This is where keyword research tools like Ahref’s Keyword Explorer can come really handy.
When looking for keywords, check out both the Traffic Potential (TP) and the Keyword Difficulty (KD). The former refers to the estimated number of traffic you can potentially get from a given keyword, should you get the top spot. The latter refers to how difficult it is to rank for that keyword.
From there, filter through the options to narrow your choices down and then choose keywords that are most relevant to your website and business.
2. Fill the gaps in your contents
A single piece of content can rank for hundreds, if not thousands of keywords. While most of them are different ways of looking for the same thing, many may become important subtopics that you would have to cover in your content, eventually. Subtopics using “content gaps” can give your website a boost in terms of search engine rankings in your targeted keywords. So how do you find these content gaps? Ahref has a Content Gap Tool feature from their Site Explorer. To access it, simply head to the top section and enter a few competing pages. At the bottom, enter the URL of the page you want to check for. Then, click “Show Keywords”.
Scan through the list and look for any potential subtopics that you can write content for on your website.
3. Guest blog as much as possible
Guest blogging is exactly what it sounds like – you write a blog post for other people’s blogs, and in return, the owner/editor of that website will link it back to your website. This is one of the tested-and-proven ways to increase your chances of getting seen by more people through more referral traffic, and backlinks (which correlates with rankings), and improve your brand’s awareness. Obviously, you cannot just write randomly for any website. You need to look for sites that are relevant to what you do, your niche, and your keywords.
Content Explorer provides a convenient way to help marketers find the best opportunities for guest blogging. Simply enter a relevant keyword in the Content Explorer tool and set that keyword into a title. From there filter the one page per domain, exclude homepages and exclude subdomains. Then, filter for explicit results. You can also add a language filter for the language you are writing in. Then, add the filter for Domain Rating (30 – 70). You can also weed out low-authority sites and remove ultra-high authority sites (sites that you probably will not be able to pitch to…yet). Make sure you don’t forget to add a website traffic filter for about 5000+ to remove websites with low traffic. Also, remove sites that have not recently published content by setting the Published setting at the Last 90 days.
The results will give you relevant sites you can contact and potentially guest blog for. Don’t worry if you don’t see any advertising for a guest post like “write for us” on their site. Most websites don’t explicitly say this, but many will accept guest posts since that will be free content for them.
4. Refresh old and outdated contents
One of the many common mistakes people do in their SEO strategy is thinking that it is a one-time deal. Understand that even if you have managed to rank high for a particular keyword, the status of that content is not permanent. Google prefers fresh content over old and outdated ones, thus, your competitors can steal your spot. WordPress has an SEO plugin that lets you find which content in your site needs refreshing. This plugin will conduct an audit of your site to search for these contents and find out exactly what aspects of those contents needs updating.
No need to rewrite contents though, as most of the time, all you need is to refresh the outdated sections, like change some data or specific digits using new information from new surveys or research, etc. In some cases, however, you may need to do a full rewrite of certain content to make it relevant for today’s context, which is quite common in this industry.
5. Show up in podcasts
There is a reason why people embrace new media like podcasts. They are entertaining, informative, up-to-date, inspiring, and even relaxing to listen to. Also, it allows them to listen on the go, or while doing something. For brands and businesses, podcasts offer a great opportunity to get your name out there. It can get you the exposure you need, links, referral traffic, and more.
Obviously, you want to choose a podcast within your niche, or at least relevant to it.
6. Collab
Gone are the days of “me against the world”. Today, collaboration is the key; it allows you to reach more people and tap into other brands’ audiences. There are plenty of non-competing brands out there for you to target. You can contact them and come up with ways to help each other (cross-promote) and get access to an entirely new user base.
7. Add an FAQ section to your site
Most often than not, people will usually have plenty of similar or related questions when researching certain topics. Why it is advised to answer most of them, there are times when it is simply impossible to write full content to answer certain questions. Also, some questions can be difficult to answer without compromising the natural flow of the content. This is where the benefits of having a Frequently Asked Questions section on your website come into play. Moreover, FAQ sections let you target potential long-tail keywords, which means an opportunity for more search traffic. The best way to find which questions to answer is to simply type in your target keywords at Google and look at what questions people ask, regarding your niche, market, and industry.
8. Share essential posts on Reddit
Many people forget how powerful Reddit can be. With more than 330 million active users, this platform is essential for promoting your business. There is only one challenge though, and it is a big one – Reddit hates marketing. If they catch you doing marketing and self-promotion on their platform, your post will get deleted or downvoted, and you may be banned from the subreddit. A lot of stubborn marketers have already been blacklisted in their domain. There are, of course, ways to subtly get your name out there. While the users of the platform hate spammy posts, Reddit loves valuable and helpful content. What you can do is pull one piece of content out of your blog, strip them of all internal and external links, format it in markdown, and voila! You are ready to share your posts on a relevant subreddit. You can add the link back to your original blog post at the end.
Also, don’t worry if your post can be “tl:dr”, if it is worth it, and has lots of meaningful and helpful information, people will read it. Make sure you don’t promote every new post you publish on your website to Reddit. This will make you look like a spammer.
9. Create Twitter threads
Ever hooked by a series of Tweets that started with “a thread”? Well, that is because Twitter threads are extremely engaging. They want the easiest way to consume content; they get more information using just a few characters and words. Threads are also great for telling stories and starting conversations, which should be your goal on Twitter. You don’t need to make threads entirely from scratch though. You can make use of your existing content or blog posts and repurpose them to fit the character limit of Twitter.
10. Reach out to amplifiers and influencers
These are people with a large following on social media, a huge audience on their email list, and more. They can share your content (and brand) with a larger audience and send them straight to your website. The easiest way to find relevant amplifiers and influencers in your niche is through SparkToro. It lets you run up to five searches per month, more than enough to get you started. Note that these amplifiers and influencers are not obliged to help you. So when you contact them to ask for their help, make sure you have something for them in return, something of value. Make it beneficial for them to work with you.
Focus on building relationships with these people. You may eventually need their help in the future.
11. Post on LinkedIn regularly
Too many businesses underestimate the power of LinkedIn. The beauty of this social media platform is that it can connect you to people relevant to your industry and niche. And while it is not as sexy as the more popular social media sites, they still have enough numbers to crank up your website’s traffic. While it is good to create fresh contents to share, you don’t always need to do that with LinkedIn. You can always repurpose your existing content or repost what you have already shared on Twitter.
12. Run ads
If you have the resources, then might as well invest them in stuff that can give you good ROI. Paid traffic from Facebook and Google is extremely helpful for any business. However, note that you are not limited to these two options. There are other excellent sites for running ads as well, such as YouTube and TikTok. Quora also lets brands run ads for cheap.
Experiment your way through various websites. Before you know it, you will realize running online advertising is not as expensive as most people thought.
