How to Get Traffic to Your Website: 4 Best Insights for Businesses

In 2018, putting up a business website looks like a commitment. Why? Simply because the question «how to increase website traffic?» will be bothering you since day one. The competition can be intense in specific niches, so working out ways to boost website traffic is crucial.

A website can get traffic from different sources. There are several types of traffic a business owner can draw to their website:

• Direct traffic is about brand awareness. If people type in a website URL into a browser input, congratulations, your business has enough recognition. Keep up the good work!
• Organic traffic primarily relies on the niche specific SEO activities. Getting your business website into Google organic search requires time and money but pays off in the long run.
• Paid traffic relies on PPC advertising and advertising campaigns run on platforms like Facebook, Google, etc.
• Social media traffic comes from social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Businesses can be successful at drawing social traffic using a combination of targeting options.
• Email marketing traffic is derived from email campaigns and newsletters.
• Referral traffic is based on the link building strategy used by a business. Choosing to buy backlinks won't do your online resource any good. According to Google guidelines, you're risking to get penalized if the backlinks come from bad sources.

Honest growth strategies work for most businesses as long as you're spending enough time and money. So, look at the insights to draw traffic to your business website:

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Increase Traffic Quality with Relevant Keywords

Most people think, there’s nothing special about keyword research. Does it take much to pick a bunch of keywords in a Keyword Planner? Selecting random keywords will only bring random traffic (if any at all).

Only carefully chosen relevant keywords will draw the traffic that will convert into sales. In doing so, using keyword suggestion tools and conducting competitor research will help a lot. So, what about the keyword research? Keyword suggestion tools provide a set of metrics to make keyword selection easier. Pay attention to search volume and competition rates (this one is essential for PPC campaigns).

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How to Select Keywords the Right Way?

The golden standard is “low difficulty, high volume.” Keyword difficulty is a parameter that shows how hard it is to rank for a specific keyword. It’s better to stick to the score below 60 because these are low competition keywords. Selecting low competition search terms for your business niche will allow ranking higher in a shorter time span.

Keyword search volume indicates the number of search queries for a particular keyword in a specific period. From the advertising perspective, high volume keywords with 100K-1M monthly searches are more competitive and expensive. If the niche allows using relevant keywords with up to 10K monthly searches, don’t neglect the opportunity.

Qualified SEO specialists use an arsenal of keyword suggestion tools to discover relevant search terms with sensible competition scores. Business owners should not disregard competitive research. Having a sneak peek at competitors’ semantic core and positions will help you avoid highly competitive keywords used by businesses in your niche. Investing in competitor SEO/PPC research tools will pay off by giving insights on competitors’ traffic sources.

For instance, the business analytics platform Kissmetrics ranks for a selection of keywords. Organic traffic is driven by keywords like “quora” and “search/engines,” which are not super convertible or even relevant to their services. Still, they require significant investment if used in advertising.

Overall, Kissmetrics ranks for over 43,000 of search terms bringing over 241K of organic traffic in. At that, they get only 0.2% of paid traffic. Analyzing the keywords used by competitors in the same business niche provides those that might work for you.

Source: SE Ranking

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Conduct In-depth Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis in business is a great thing when done right. Still, people with little experience in SEO might be puzzled with some questions. Which tools to use for competitor research? Which metrics to analyze and keywords to target? MOZ competitive research template can help a business understand and compare the strengths and weaknesses of SEO strategies used by competitors.

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What Are the Best Tools for Competitor Research?

It’s no secret; there are some tools with a competitive research feature. Using these tools to understand your business rivals’ tactics will provide you with a bunch of valuable insights.

• SE Ranking is a comprehensive tool for competitor SEO/PPC analysis. It provides you with data on competitors’ keywords and ads used for both organic and paid search. Also, you get a keyword suggestion, keyword position tracking, and backlink monitoring tools in one package.
• SimilarWeb is well-suited for exploring the traffic sources and analyzing the acquisition strategy used by your business rivals. This tool can clarify how much traffic comes from referrals, search engines, social media, and display.
• Majestic can be used for raking through the competitor’s backlinks. By using the bulk backlink checker, one can get the maximum information on their competitor’s backlink profile. Create a database of backlinks to drive traffic to your website. The insights on competitor’s backlink profile can help to work out the link building strategy for a new website.

All above tools are great for specific search engine optimization activities. However, there are distinguished leaders regarding value for money. For instance, SE Ranking offers a bulk of top-notch SEO tools for small and medium business for only $7.00/mo for a Personal subscription. It’s a bit more expensive if you buy Enterprise subscription for $189.00/mo. And, if you hesitate to invest in SE Ranking, get a free 14-day trial to dispel any doubts.

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Long-Tail Keywords to Answer the Prospects’ Queries

Long-tail keywords make about 40% of a total number of online searches. Long-tail key phrases generate organic traffic because they correlate to how people search the web. This perfectly correlates with Google Hummingbird update in 2017. Search algorithms were adjusted to match exact phrasing and deepen the understanding of context.

In the era of voice search and personalized search queries, a business must grasp the opportunity of using long-tail SEO to draw local traffic. Businesses can benefit from using long-tail keyword targeting. Typically, there are two approaches to long-tail SEO for business:

1. Viewing long-tail keywords as a group of narrowly targeted and highly specific search phrases presenting a high value to a business. This approach is productive since these search phrases have low competition scores. No need to optimize a website for a gazillion of keywords. Even a dozen can be enough to convert if they precisely match a user’s search intent.
2. Viewing long-tail search terms as a vast range of keywords covering a variety of targets. This approach requires creating massive amounts of content to match the search intent of your prospects. A business website can be optimized for hundreds of long-tail keywords. However, parsing thousands of keywords to get the wording right is cumbersome and counterproductive.

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What’s the Perfect Formula for a Long-Tail Search Term?

Long-tail keywords are niche specific and primarily related to searcher’s intent, so there’s no universal blueprint for these search terms. Still, there are specific patterns as to how people formulate long-tail search queries. These patterns have become evident due to the rise of SEO for voice search. The study of voice search queries reveals they are likely to contain questions words like who, what, why, how, are, where, which, when. The “where” questions demonstrate the highest degree of intent meaning a user is ready to act.

22% of voice searches are related to local businesses. Typically, these are so-called “near me” searches.

Source: Neil Patel

Google Trends reflect the rise of this type of search queries in the US, especially for retail and delivery business niches. To adapt these insights for your business, try including the following into your SEO strategy:

• Phrases typically used for the neighborhood description
• Phrase “near me” – into the meta title and description, internal links, and anchor text
• Names of the landmarks near your business location
• Names of local institutions relevant to your business

And, most importantly, create content that answers the direct questions posed by users while searching. If a person is asking, “Where is the Italian restaurant near me?” they’re expecting to get a definite answer with a map location and client reviews. Using schema markup in business SEO to provide client ratings and other relevant information in the search results will increase the probability of a visit.

Using the possibilities of a voice search and long-tail keywords, you will get highly relevant traffic and avoid competition within your business niche.

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Promotion on Social Media

Only the laziest haven’t mentioned the latest Facebook algorithm updates. In 2018, local news from credible sources will get a higher priority in the Facebook news feed. Local businesses are given a chance to benefit from Facebook’s emphasizing meaningful interactions. Mark Zuckerberg’s creation is outgrowing social media to become a commercial platform for drawing organic traffic.

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Which Social Media are Good for Business Promotion?

Most likely, your business is present on social media. But are you sure you’re doing your SMM right? In case your SMM strategy doesn’t do anything for you regarding traffic, it’s time for social networks presence revision:

• If your business is related to design, photography, or DIYs, your best choices are Pinterest, Instagram, and Behance.
• If your business targets other business professionals, influencers, and niche experts, go for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
• If you’re looking for more audience coverage irrespective of the niche, go for Facebook.

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What to Expect Doing Business Promotion on Facebook?

Here’s the thing with Facebook for business promotion - it has countless possibilities for ad targeting. However, depending on the industry or business niche, the advertisement performance may vary. So, may the audience coverage and cost per click (CPC), which influences the cost of advertising. In 2017, the average advertising costs of a Facebook ad were as follows:

• Cost per click (CPC) - $1.72
• Cost per action (CPA) - $18.68.
• Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) ~$10.

Due to flexible targeting and budget settings, it’s quite easy to control the advertising expenses. As a result, the final conversions will turn out up to 20-30% cheaper. Speaking of Facebook targeting options, it’s possible to set the ad targeting by demographics, interests, behavior, etc.

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Which Facebook Advertising Options Can a Business Use?

Speaking of multiple advertising options, a business can use desktop and mobile news feed, as well as right column ad formats. Mobile news feed ads get better engagement because of their native advertising features. In 2017, 88% of Facebook's advertising revenues came from mobile ads.

As for the content types to promote, Facebook favors visual content. Despite making only 3% of the total social network’s content, videos have the highest engagement scores. The study by Quintly shows that a single video post is capable of generating roughly 2,183 interactions a month. Meanwhile, photos make 54% of the content shared on Facebook.

Local ads on Facebook will work for a business having a physical location to drive real foot traffic to. Also, Facebook has boosted posts as media of paid promotion. These are posts that initially show on the page as organic content. Boosted posts are effective for audience engagement and driving traffic to the business webpage directly.

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Bottom Line

Getting website traffic is a pressing matter for all businesses. The lion’s share of traffic a business can get comes from organic and social media sources.

Don’t buy into things like “fast” traffic, because in the end, it will only undermine your SEO efforts.

Competitive analysis will provide you with valuable insights on where your business rivals’ traffic comes from. Invest in competitor research tools to develop an effective SEO strategy.

While creating content for social media, think quality. Spending an extra dollar and time, in the beginning, will pay off eventually. Answer the queries of your target audience directly.

Use niche appropriate social platforms to promote your business. In 2018, Facebook provides a variety of possibilities for comprehensive promotion.

Conduct continuous website traffic analysis using special tools. Invest in legitimate ways of gaining organic traffic. Sometimes it’s about trial and error, but the result is worth it!

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