Everyone wants their website to get visitors. But not everyone knows how to make that happen. It’s probably the most frequent question I get asked. How do I drive traffic to my website?
So today, I’m going to break my advice into two different ways to get traffic. How to get traffic today, and how to get traffic in the future.
How do you get found today?
If you build it, they will come.
When it comes to websites, this is most definitely not true. There are many factors involved in getting traffic to your website, but you won’t have visitors just by virtue of having a website. The Internet doesn’t work like that, I’m sorry to say.
If you want to be found today, then the only surefire way is with ads. Digital ads are available in a number of ways. You can run Google or Microsoft Ads, which are pay-per-click. This means you pay when someone clicks on your ad after performing a keyword search in Google or Bing.
You can run social media ads, like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and have your ads show based on demographics you choose, such as location, age, gender, or interest.
Ad Myths:
- Ads are expensive.
This is not necessarily true. Ads can be expensive, but they can be very inexpensive. The cost of the ads will vary depending on your targeted demographic, your industry, and other factors. If you are a small, locally based service business, it’s possible you can run a successful ad campaign for as little as $100 a month. Some of our most successful ad campaigns we’ve managed for clients have been small campaigns. Of course, if you are a personal injury lawyer in New York City, then expect it to be a lot more.
Additionally, you can select your own daily budget. Say you want to spend $10 a day and no more, then you can set your budget to that and your ads will stop showing when you reach your budget. - Facebook ads don’t work.
Most of the time, when people complain that ads didn’t work, it has more to do with the choices they made when creating the ads than the ads themselves. Items such as targeting, reach, type of ads, and ad content can make a huge difference in success of ads.
That’s why it’s really important to fully understand how to set up ads, create audiences, and create ad content that works.
Running an ad campaign is probably not the answer you wanted to hear when I told you I could tell you how to get traffic to your website today, but it’s really the only instant traffic generator.
How to get traffic tomorrow?
Everyone comes to us asking for SEO, because SEO is important. But they usually don’t understand that SEO takes time and continuous work to be successful. But if you want to know the real secret to getting traffic in the future, the answer is to create great content with regularity.
The best way to get found in the search engines is to be an expert, providing expert content that can be trusted, and to do it regularly.
“I tried blogging and it didn’t work!”
I hear this a lot actually. My questions are always the same. How long did you try? How long were your blog posts? Where did you share your posts? These are all important.
What normally happens is that people write two or three blog posts, don’t see an instant uptick in traffic, and quit writing. And that’s just not how it works. If you follow this blog, you probably know I write frequently. And the reason I do it is because it works.
You can’t expect to write a handful of articles, publish them on your site, then never write again and to see a surge in traffic.
You need to write content, write it regularly, and keep doing it over a sustained period of time. The content needs to be quality content. Posting a 75 word blog post doesn’t cut it. Great, quality content that you share across social platforms. That’s how you get started.
Content Marketing Myth:
If I share all my secrets, people will do it themselves and not hire me.
This is false. Never be afraid to share your knowledge. It will build credibility with your audience and with the search engines, and will drive traffic to your website.
Almost everybody knows how to mow their lawn, but lawn businesses haven’t gone out of service. The person who decides to DIY was probably never going to hire you anyway.
The more knowledge you share, the more inquiries you’re going to get, and some of them won’t hire you. There are tire kickers everywhere. You will see more tire kickers when you get more traffic, but that doesn’t mean that your content is making people do it themselves.
The last aspect of this is that you need to put your content where people can find it, such as sharing it on social media.
I wish I had a magic bullet to drive traffic to your website immediately for free, but that’s not how it works. We can help you with PPC management, SEO, or content strategy. Contact us today for a quote.
Amy Masson
Amy is the co-owner, developer, and website strategist for Sumy Designs. She's been making websites with WordPress since 2006 and is passionate about making sure websites are as functional as they are beautiful.