Marketing + Web

How to Increase Website Traffic on a Budget

When it comes to marketing in our digital world, small business owners can feel like the cards are stacked against them.

You probably don’t have the same marketing budget as your larger competitors and sometimes you lack their prowess in the digital world. So how can a small business with a limited budget capture more traffic in a digital world overcrowded with chatter?

Let’s find out.

Use Social Media to Cross Promote

You should spend as much time promoting your content as you do writing it. Think about it this way: one share from an active user has the potential to put your content in front of millions of people. The one user who shares your piece of content has 100 friends, and their friends have 100 friends, and so on. Your website can reach one million prospects within just four generations of being shared.

Be careful, though. You don’t want your posts to come across as spam, so find unique and memorable ways to add value to each post. Adding value means creating strategic and appealing visuals, tailoring content for each digital platform, and ensuring your posts are something that prospects or customers want to share.

Create Magnetic Headlines

You only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention and the best way to do this is by creating a headline that grabs the audience’s attention. Unfortunately, no matter how good the content on your website is, if the headline is weak, people won’t keep reading.

How do you write a great headline?

Let’s start with the length.

According to Copyblogger.com, the ideal length of a headline is six words. Keeping a headline to a minimum of 6 words can be difficult, so focus on the first three words and the last three words.

Example: “10 Crucial Tips for Getting People to Click, Convert, and Buy Your Products.”

The formula still works for this longer headline because [10 Crucial Tips] + [Buy Your Products] (the first and last words) create a captivating concept for the headline.

Another great way to write better articles is to use formulas that are proven to grab your audience’s attention. Here are some ideas:

• Who Wants to ____: “Who Wants to Increase Website Traffic?”
• Little Known Ways to ___: “Little Known Ways to Get More Organic Traffic.”
• Five Proven Steps for ___: “Five Proven Steps for Converting Prospects to Leads.”

Write for Your Customers, Not Only for the Search Engines

Many business owners–both small and large–make the mistake of focusing solely on search engine optimization (SEO), forgetting that if the content isn’t relevant to the reader, they won’t stick around your website.

Your website content must be written with the end buyer in mind. The best way to write with them in mind is to create a detailed buyer persona prior to writing any content for your website. The persona will help you gain a better understanding of your audience and make it easier to write for their specific needs.

Keep up with SEO

If you’re new to digital marketing, the prospect of SEO can seem overwhelming. Google updates its algorithm around 600 times per year, so it can be difficult to keep up. However, there are a few guidelines that will help ensure your SEO is keeping up:

• Add relevant keywords to every page
• Add unique titles to ever page
• Add unique descriptions to every page

As a rule of thumb, keep an eye on your website traffic and performance. Look for trends. Watch to see if any of your key metrics change online or offline. If you’re getting less traffic and fewer phone calls, for instance, then it’s time to investigate your SEO and assess if any changes are needed.

Offer Quality Content Regularly

If you want to get more traffic to your website, create value-added content. Value-added content is relevant and customized to your primary purchasing audience. It does not talk about your product’s or service’s features while forgetting to explain how those features directly benefit the buyer. Show prospects how their lives could change if they buy your products/services or follow your advice.

Have you used any of these tips? Did they work? We’d love to hear your story.

If you need help driving traffic to your website on a budget, get in touch with our team!