How do I get more visitors to my website?
This is probably a familiar question.
I often hear this from sole traders and small business owners. Nowadays you can’t do without online presentation because people search and buy online more and more.
The sale of products through internet has risen significantly in the second quarter of 2016. Consumers bought 25% more products online than the year before.
Most website owners actually have no idea how to get more visitors.
I will show you in ten steps how to attract more visitors to your website in an easy way.
Step 1, use the best content management system. The first thing you need to do to attract more visitors is to use a good content management system (CMS), like WordPress.
It is the most popular cms in the world and so there is a whole industry behind it which is constantly developing the system. WordPress has also become easier to operate over the years and has been made more user friendly so it is easier to use for non-technical people.
There are a lot of manuals and videos to get to know the system.
It is also search engine friendly and you can update WordPress yourself so it stays secure and up to date. So the first step is: Use WordPress.
Step 2, determine your target audience. Who is the website meant for? Which visitors do you want to attract? Who are they? Which sites do they visit now?
You shouldn’t aim for the largest amount of visitors, you should aim for the right visitors that have an actual need for the topics and the content of your website.
They will also easily become interested in anything else you have to offer. This can be a product, a service, an e-book or something else you want to offer. And they will eventually contact you much faster. So defining your target audience is the second step.
Step 3 is creating a list or a spreadsheet of the most important questions that are amongst your target audience. If you have a company in lawn mowers, your customers will often have questions about the garden, the maintenance, etc. Someone who gives courses in yoga will make a totally different list with questions that customers might have. How do I relax, what is stress, etc.
This list with important questions is a preparation for the next step. But first analyse your target audience with the use of the most important subjects and keywords.
Step 4 is creating quality content for your target audience. In the last step you determined what your customers want to know and so now you can think of topics that relate to this on which you can write blog posts.
Instead of writing short articles that you can often already read everywhere on the internet, it would be better to write high quality content that can’t be found yet, but which there is a need for.
It’s not always easy to write these articles, you really need to think about how to piece it together. But if you are an expert in your own area of expertise, you will know more than the average consumer and you can add a lot of valuable information to your article.
So write at least one blog per week where you answer your visitor’s questions. When you find out who your visitors are and what their worries and needs are, it will be easier to attract them to your website.
Number 5 is to make sure that the content on your website is SEO friendly. In other words: you need to be easy to find on Google or other search engines.
With WordPress you can use plugins to optimize your website for SEO. One of the best plugins is Yoast SEO which helps you to optimize your website and also every article for the search engines.
This way, your website and articles are easier to find for your visitors.
Number 6, interact with your audience and look for them on other websites. One of the biggest mistakes that website owners make is to think everything happens on their site.
But this is not the case. The surfing behaviour of people is ever changing and they zap from one website to another.
You can go to other websites where you can comment on others, you can be active on forums or in groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Answer people’s questions and they will click through to your website. In the comment form there is often the possibility to fill out your email address aside from your name. This is then clickable alongside the comment you gave.
The same goes for influencers, people who have an important role in your area of expertise. Read their messages and comment on their posts. You will receive appreciation from them when you for example react positive on their blog post.
Then there is a chance that such an influencer will share your article on their social media, which often has a much wider reach.
7. Build your social presence. When you have published an article on your own website it is just as important to spend time on spreading it.
So don’t just wait for them to come to you, but spread the word.
Make it publicily known on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, depending on which social media you use. Take part in discussions on your social media and share valuable content on these social platforms.
Nowadays you can also share exclusive content through these channels for example through Facebook’s Instant articles. Also through LinkedIn you can publish and share your own articles.
And now the last tip I can give you to attract more visitors to your website.
8. Measure what happens on your website. Google Analytics is a great tool to see how many visitors you get and where they are from.
This is something only few website owners do, but it is something very important.
You can discover all kinds of things from how often an article has been clicked on (this is how you find out if there is a need for a certain topic) to the click through ratio from your social media channels (so how often there is a click through from Facebook to your website).
Well, these are simple tips to apply, but very important. If you stick to these tips then I can guarantee you that you will attract 2 to 3 and maybe even 5 times more visitors.
It won’t cost you anything, the only thing you have to invest is time and energy.
Good luck and share any gained success on WPjournalist!
