My Website Traffic is a Trickle!

The scenario:

You hire somebody to build your business website, spend hours tweaking every last detail to make it perfect, flip the switch to go live, and then sit back and watch the flood of traffic pour in continuously. Right?

Oh if only it were that easy.  In reality the traffic flow is more like a trickle.  Some days it goes up a bit and we are elated, others days when it drops to almost nothing we become dejected and contemplate throwing in the towel.

If that sounds familiar you’re not alone, the number one question we get regarding websites is how to drive more traffic to them.  Whether it be a blog, business website, or a sales page we all understand business is a numbers game. You get enough traffic seeing what you do and you’ll make sales.

How do you go about driving potential customers to your website?

Here are some of the tips we suggest most often, and as you will see none of them are “hard”, and you can do most of this yourself for free,  but they do take some effort. If you do these things consistently, over time, you will most certainly see your traffic improve. It will then be up to the quality of your products and services to convert traffic into sales.

1. Optimize Your Website

We won't go into great detail about search engine optimization (SEO) here, as there is a wealth of knowledge on the Internet related into this field. A simple Google search turns up tons of great advice on SEO.  Simply put SEO is a first step in getting the search engines to know you exist. Just going live with your website isn't enough. Make sure it's optimized and indexed by the popular search engines.

• Ezine Article on SEO
• Gerald, a frequent contributor in the comments on this site, writes some nice, easy to understand, articles on his SEO Consulting blog
• Google It

2. Publicize Your Web Address On All Communication

This seems like a no-brainer, but in reality it's overlooked more often than not. Think of all the ways you currently reach your customers. Do you advertise your web address through those channels? You should be. At the very minimum you should have your web address on:

• Your email signature
• All of your printed materials
• On all of your social networking profiles
• Business cards
• Verbally mention you have a website when appropriate "check out our website which has all the info..."

3. Get Active

If you don't have a social media presence, you're missing the boat. Pick a couple social networking sites you think are interesting and start using them.  Social media does take time, but I promise the investment will more than pay off with increased traffic. Twitter alone can drive 100's of visits to your website daily. 

4. Forums, Blogs, and Comments Oh My!

Find every forum and blog in your niche and start adding to their conversations. I don't care how obscure what you do or sell is, there will be blogs and forums devoted to your topic. Again, you are there to participate, and add to the conversation, not just promote your products and your website. Consider Google your best friend in finding these blogs and forums

• Make relative comments on all the blogs you can find. Doing this for only 10-20 minutes a day can get you 20-50 additional visits to your site daily. Over time this will add up!

• Get into forums and help people solve their problems. ALWAYS have your website in your email signature. Not only will you be building a reputation as a trusted source for information in your niche, but people will visit your website through your email signature. A nice benefit here is you should convert more of these people to sales since they have built a rapport with you in the forums.

5.  Blog

If your business website is fairly static (content doesn't change often) consider adding a blog to it. This doesn't have to be an extensive undertaking, a couple posts a week is probably sufficient. Why is a blog helpful in driving traffic?  Blogs are naturally search engine friendly because the content is constantly being updated and is fresh. It also builds up more content over time by which people may find your site. Write about what's going on in your company, what exciting new products are out there, trends in your industry, or anything that may be of interest to a customer looking for your product or service.

6. Submit Articles, Be an Expert

Have something to say about a topic in your field?  Why not write an article and submit it to one of the major article repositories on the Internet?  These don't have to be big articles, but they will be indexed quickly and include a link to your website.

• Ezine
• eHow

7. Work at it Consistently

This is the one nobody likes to hear, but they know it's true. It's going to take some time and effort to see results. Working consistently at it over time is the only way to build traffic to your site. You can't go great guns one week, and then take the rest of the month off. It just doesn't work that way. Be consistent in your efforts in order to see them pay off.

• Comment on blogs - Daily
• Participate in forums - 3-4 times a week
• Post to your blog - 2-3 times a week
• Submit an article - 1 time a month
• Maximize SEO - Bi-monthly checkup

Summary

Nothing earth shattering here on how to drive traffic, but if you do the above you will begin to see your traffic numbers go up and stabilize.  You will not see results over night, and sometimes it just won't seem like it's worth the work. But if you put the time into it that is necessary you will be rewarded with more traffic...that's a guarantee. Keep in mind that nobody knows your website exists until you tell them it does.

Did we miss any useful tips?  Let us know in the comments below.

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