How Do I Get Traffic To My Website?
Good Question. If you're a new business or one that's just starting to focus on online marketing, this is a good question to get you started in the brainstorming process so you can decide which marketing channels will work best for you.
You probably shouldn't try to do everything, but focus your efforts on just a few and expand as you have success with each channel. It also depends on how much time and money you have to spend. Some channels depend more on time, like social media, while others require money, like Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
We're going to talk about the broad channels available to you to drive traffic to your website, but within each one are specific platforms you can use, so there are lots of choices and decisions to be made. So if you decide to focus on social media, then you'll also have to decide on which platforms to use, such as Twitter, Pinterest or the ever frustrating Facebook. I'm not going to dive into every option, that'll be for you to decide where to start.
My suggestion is before you spend any time or money trying to drive traffic to your site, is that you make sure it's ready to receive your visitors and hopefully turn them into customers. Good copy (the words on the page), logical navigation and a great offer/call to action are just some of the basic things you will need to make sure you have in place before you driving traffic to your website.
This isn't a complete list, I'm sure there are ways to drive traffic I don't even know about (after doing it for 7 years), but I've done all of the below at some point in time and know that they all work. It really comes down to how good you are at executing and how much resources (in time or money) you are ready to invest.
Current Contacts
This is usually a good starting point. You take your family, friends, former co-workers and just about anyone else you've ever come in contact with and ask them to check out your new website. Yes, you're probably not driving new potential customers, but they play an important role for your new website.
You want to ask them (or beg them) to do one of two things for you as a personal favor. You'll want them to Like, Tweet, Pin or Share your website on their social media channels which will give you some intital exposure and send some positive signals to the search engines that your new website is something worth checking out. The other thing you will want them to do which might be a tougher sell is to leave reviews online for your new business. Google reviews for your Google+ Local Page are my favorite, but it depends on your type of business.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) might seem mysterious to someone new to online marketing. It's one of those things that every business owner has heard of, they know they need it, but don't have a clue how to get started doing it. You're not alone. The SEO space moves so rapidly that people that do it as a profession (myself included) can have trouble keeping up with all of the changes. But if you are someone who has patience and is ready to invest for the long haul, SEO can be the most powerful channel for driving qualified traffic to your site.
The big issue with SEO is that it takes time. And depending on your industry and the resources you put behind it, a lot of time. You may be spending time and money on activities that may not see fruition for several months down the road. And if you do it wrong or hire the wrong people, you may be wasting your time and money.
My best recommendation? Work on shorter term channels first that will start delivering traffic and customers for your business first. Pay Per Click advertising is an example of a channel that will drive qualified traffic fast. And once you have some revenue going and get your feet wet online, look into planting some SEO seeds for your business. If you are one of the few (the majority quit long before they see results) that are patient enough to invest in good SEO, you'll be amazed at how it can snowball into a constant flood of high quality leads for your business.
Pay Per Click Advertising
If your campaign is set up properly, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising can be a great way to drive leads very quickly for your business. The problem? It's kind of complicated to setup and most people that try and do it themselves end up doing a poor job and wasting their advertising dollars. If you have no idea what PPC advertising is, click here to learn more about it.
PPC advertising works and it works fast. You can create a a campaign and start driving quality leads to your website in an afternoon. You just need to have someone set it up properly for you. You also need to have money set aside to pay for the advertising spend and possibly to pay for someone to manage the account for you. Google, which is the largest PPC platform online, will tell business owners it's really easy and they can do it themselves. They even have specialists that will help set up the campaign. As a Google Partner for the last 4 years, from my experience, it is not easy to setup an effective PPC campaign yourself and the reps they employ to help you setup an account often don't know much more than you do, at least from my experience.
Display Banner Ads
Display Banner Ads are the image banners you see when you go to sites like Yahoo or The New York Times. They can be images, animated images or videos. You can use a platform like Google Adwords to run your display banner campaign or you can work directly with a website that offers advertising and place your image banner on their site for a fee. Typically you will either use a Pay Per Click model where you pay only when someone clicks on your banner and goes to your website, or a CPM model, where you pay a set price for every 1,000 impressions your banner gets.
My suggestion is to use a platform like Google Adwords to run your campaign as it gives you the ability to show your banner ads on thousands of websites in your target market. Just like with Pay Per Click, it's not something you would want to try and set up yourself as you can waste a ton of money is wasted advertising trying to get it working right.
I'm actually not a huge fan of banner ads, but it's a good and cheap way to get your brand in front of lots of people online. It works sort of like an online billboard. The real power of banner ads is if you run a remarketing campaign where you can pretty much follow people online after they've left your website and show your banners wherever they go. If you want an example of how it works, just go to any major online shoe store and look at some shoes. After you leave the site, watch what happens as you surf the net. Click here if you want to learn more about remarketing.
Social Media
I'll keep this section short and sweet. Everyone knows what social media is and what the major platforms are. If you want to drive traffic using social media, you'll need to decide what platform is best for you and start building a following by being super useful and interesting.
This is a channel that does't really cost anything but can literally suck up every minute of your day (without results) if you don't manage it properly. Social Media Examiner is a good site for learning all about using social media.
Social Media Advertising
Every major social media platform has some sort of paid advertising available for businesses. It comes down to which platform has your target market. LinkedIn is good for BtoB, Twitter is good for younger and tech savvy crowds and Facebook can be good for a wide range of consumer audiences.
The thing with advertising on social media is that you still have to keep it social. People tend to frown upon direct sell ads (unless it's an insane deal you're offering) so you'll have to be a bit more creative with your offerings. This also means that you might be taking a roundabout way of getting customers which might not drive sales right away. You may have to start with trying to get people back to your site to read an interesting article or trying to get them on your email list and then trying to sell to them. Click Here for some examples of where you can advertise online.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is probably an advanced marketing technique, especially online. But you can start an affiliate campaign online or offline and drive traffic to your website. In short, affiliate marketing is when you offer another person or business a percentage of your profits if they send leads to your business and they end up making a purchase.
The nice thing with this model is that you only pay when a sale is made, saving you lots of money up front. The downside is that you usually have to offer a big piece of the pie (sometimes over 50%) to get others to want to participate in your affiliate program.
For a new business, an example would be to work out a deal with another business that has a similar customer base as yours. You strike a deal with them where they will promote your business or specific offer to their customers and whenever a sale is made, you cut them a commission check. You might track this with a special offer code or use affiliate software if you are making sales online. Pretty much every retailer has some sort of affiliate marketing program setup. Amazon.com has the largest, you can learn more about it here to get some ideas.
Email Marketing
A good email list can be your most powerful online method for driving sales for your business. But as a new business, you may not have a big list to market to. A great option is to leverage another businesses email list. Find a business with a similar customer base and see if you can work out a deal with them. One of the easiest methods I've found to to run a contest or promotional offer exclusively for that business's customers. Maybe give away a gift basket of your stuff or a gift certificate or create a special discount code. It's a great way for that business to reward their customers and a great way for you introduce your business to them.
Some people (especially social media gurus) will tell you that email marketing is dead. What I will tell you and what every serious online marketer will tell you is that your email list can be your best source of sales for your business. You have a direct pipeline to your customers inbox, without the distractions of cat videos or vanity quotes to distract people from your message.
Offline Marketing and Advertising
Yes, offline advertising can be a great source for driving traffic to your website. Doesn't matter what the medium is, whether it's direct mail, newspaper ads or just your business card, use your offline marketing to drive people to your website. Car wraps and branded t-shirts may be a bit hokey, but they all help to drive interest and traffic back to your website. Just make sure your website is prominent in all of your marketing materials.
Once people get to your website…..
Once people are on your website, you can expand on what your offer is, demonstrate your value proposition and start guiding them to take the next step in your sales funnel. Just make sure your website is setup to do this or else most people are going to leave before finding out more about your business.
So these are some of the ways I drive traffic to my business website. There are other ways of driving traffic to your site as well, using forums, directory listings, blog comments, etc, but the above is what I use and what has worked for me and my business.
Good luck driving traffic to your website. If you want to learn more about growing your business, check out my podcast, The Small Business Express!
Gary
Latest posts by Gary (see all)
- Top Local SEO Strategies for Flooring Companies: Building Reputation and Driving Traffic - October 31, 2024
- How To Conduct a Competitor Analysis for Local SEO - December 11, 2023
- The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO: Optimize Your Webpages Like a Pro - October 15, 2023
