If you are a website owner/ manager then you probably already know the importance of bringing traffic to your site and while ranking at position one in the search results is still highly sought after, there also has been a shift in focus to what a user finds once the land on your site and what is going to keep them there. With the many algorithmic changes happening recently and the fact that no one knows just what Google has planned for the future, a reliance on search engine traffic only is not a stable long-term traffic plan. If you rely heavily on a single source for most of your traffic, your site is not secure. Bringing in visitors to your site that are targeted and are looking for your product or service is one of the benefits of ranking high in the SERP’s but it’s not the only method. There are a number of different ways of bringing traffic to your site and the more diverse your traffic sources are the better. Here are a few methods you can try as additional ways of bringing targeted visitors to your site.
Become the authority in your niche
By informing your audience with as much relevant info as possible, you can become an authority within your market. If you can continue to provide your audience with all the answers, it will become instinctive that when they have another question, your site will be the first site they visit. Direct to site traffic is a key way to determine how useful your site is to your visitors. They may originally find you via a search engine but if they continue to come to your site directly after that, you can be sure you are providing something they need and no longer will they have to use a search engine to find what they want.
Another effective way of becoming an industry leader is by having a presence in relevant online forums. By answering questions users are submitting in an efficient manner will help you developing a good reputation online but remember this won’t happen overnight.
Guest post on relevant sites
Once you’ve established yourself as an authoritative leader in your field, you can then reach out to smaller sites and offer to provide them some of your content (aka knowledge). You know the readers of these sites already have an interest in the topic and if you can provide some relevant information, they may be encouraged to visit your site to find out more. Even if they don’t come to your site immediately, you might spring to mind next time they are looking for advice in your niche.
Also, don’t be afraid to submit content to the many article sites out there. If you write content for an article site with a view of getting a quality link, you’re not going to get very far. But if you submit useful content, chances are you might start to rank for some longer tail searches and so users who are not directly looking for your site may stumble upon it. Also, don’t give away all your secrets here, give them a taster and then direct them to your site for more.
Be Social
Social media is only getting bigger and is unfortunately, is often overlooked as a traffic driver. But in order to use social media effectively, you need to create a strategy and work out what your KPI’s are beforehand. Whenever you create new content on your site, tweet about it or post it on your Facebook wall. But be careful, tweeting about how great your site is all the time is most of the time to your followers depending on what part of the buying cycle they are currently in. You need to be interactive with your followers and show there is a real person behind your brand. Using twitter as a customer service tool is great because people are able to get an instant response to their questions and their loyalties are usually much higher with a brand they know they can trust/rely on.
If you’re in the process of creating a business plan for your new online start up, make sure you creating a strategy that involves a diverse traffic.it will help your business be much more stable in the long-term.
Note this is a guest post!
