Remember it’s not just about getting traffic to your site, it needs to be the right traffic. There are several ways you can help the right people find your site. You need to understand these approaches; their strengths and weaknesses and how to optimise them. In this post, I’ll review several approaches and then add detail in future posts.
Direct Entry
This is where people type your url into their browser. It can be very important, particularly for local websites. You can publicise your site through posters, leaflets or business cards.
Search Engines
If you type the name of your business or website into a search engine, does it come top of the list or at least on the first page? Ideally it should but if it does, all it means is you have a distinctive name. No-one will find you by this route unless they’ve already heard of you!
It is more challenging to find the keywords people are likely to use for which you will be in the top 10, that is the first page that comes up. But if you do appear on a page searched for by hundreds or thousands of people, you might see a significant increase in traffic to your site.
Back-links
If you place a link on your site to another site, it is for them a back-link. The immediate advantage of receiving a back-link is increased traffic to your site from the site that links to yours. There are lots of reasons why another site might back-link to yours. Ideally, you want your back-links to be relevant to your site.
Back-links don’t only bring more visitors to your site, they also attract search engines. Once you have a few back-links, search engines will find your site and you may begin to appear in searches people make for certain keywords.
So, a blog might review your site or product. Or a site might represent a common interest and have links to lots of sites like yours. Or else someone who shares your market might include your site as a link because your service or product complements theirs.
Sometimes you might also want a link to a site that links to yours. If two sites link to each other, this is known as a reciprocal link. The advantage is increased traffic to both sites. However, a mild disadvantage is that search engines don’t count it as a link. Remember that you need some back-links that are not reciprocal!
Email Lists
Email lists can help people find your site although they are usually used to return people to your site when you want to alert them to new content or a new offer. They can bring new visitors to your site but they normally do it indirectly. If you tell your list of some new development on your site, your recipients will sometimes forward it.
Social Media
There are various ways of linking between your website and your social media. If you have a lot of followers on Twitter, for example, it is worth exploring how you can encourage them to visit your site.
Pay-Per-Click
We’ve all be irritated by a Google search where you click on the first link on the results page and discover it’s an advert. Close inspection of the results page shows the adverts have a very pale pink background. Grrr …
I’m not a fan of adverts but they can increase traffic to your site. The big advantage of ads is they show you where there is a market. Broadly if there’s lots of competition, this is a market where you too might make money.
Don’t forget you pay for ads. Normally I would use other methods before I tried pay-per-click.
Do comment and share how you encourage people to visit your site, especially if its something I’ve missed! If there are any approaches about which you would like more information, adding a comment will influence how soon I post about it.
