Tried and Tested Tactics to Drive Traffic to Your Website

As many businesses have discovered over the past couple of years, online visibility is crucial in building and sustaining business growth. Online marketing has become an essential part of a small business marketing strategy, as much as professional web design. To help you drive traffic to your website, we’ve put together our guide of tried-and-tested tactics to use. 

 

Probably the most effective way of driving traffic to your website is ensuring your website is fully optimised for online searches. Making sure all the metadata – that’s meta tags (descriptions) that contain the relevant keywords, HTML tags and headers – are added to your website is vital for Google and other search queries. They use this information to rank your website; the more accurate information they can find, the greater the exposure and higher up the search engine results your business will appear. SEO (search engine optimisation) can increase the opportunity of reaching your organic audience. Indeed, 86% of people click organic search results and 61% of B2B marketers say that SEO and organic traffic generates more leads than any other form of marketing. With 97% of users searching online to find a business near them, local SEO is one of the best ways to boost your business’s visibility in your area. 

 

Although keywords are an important factor in search engine optimisation, we think it deserves its own section. The reason is that it’s not just about defining and targeting accurate keywords and phrases on your website. It’s important to ensure that your relevant keywords are also incorporated into your online content, directory listings and social media channels. Google and other search engines look for keywords that are relevant to the user's search query. Ensuring your online content incorporates these keywords is critical to your page ranking. There are a multitude of keyword search tools that will help you discover the best keywords for your products/services and industry, such as Moz Keyword Explorer or Google Keyword Planner. 

 

In today’s digital online world, you can’t get away with just writing any sort of content. As Bill Gates once said, content is king. Poor or irrelevant content can cause far more damage than many businesses realise. 84% of people reading your content expect it to be informative, entertaining and solve their pain points. In fact, 91% of consumers will ‘reward’ a business if their content is authentic. Content marketing must include ensuring your online content – blogs and articles, videos, images, infographics, social media posts, directory information – is useful and connects with your audience. 

 

The majority of businesses have at least one social media channel, if not more. In the UK, 53 million people are actively using social media; that’s nearly 78% of the population. But just having a social media account or two is not enough; any small business marketing strategy must include regular social media activity. Social channels enable a business to penetrate and reach not only the target audience, but also a secondary audience as their primary audience reacts and shares content. Social media activity and website activity go hand-in-hand; what you publish on your website should be shared across your social channels. It gives you the perfect opportunity to build an audience, create interesting ‘stories’ about your business to increase engagement, and promote content to generate leads. 

 

the days of the big yellow book and thumbing through the flimsy pages to find a local business is long gone. Today, it’s digital online directories that are running the show and proving valuable to businesses. To build your online presence and increase your local SEO activity, making sure your business is listed in an online directory not only increases visibility, it is also an added benefit to online searches. Google is the most-visited website worldwide and has over 92% of the global search engine market. Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the biggest online directory and, together with Google Maps, is a crucial asset to being seen and ranked by Google in online searches. A great benefit to online directory listings is that you can incorporate far more information than you would have been able to with standard physical directories. So, along with your company name, contact details and web URL, you are also able to add a business description, business hours, your products/services, as well as add images. Another important aspect of a Google Business Profile listing is building trusted reviews. With 93% of consumers saying that online reviews influence their buying decision, asking for reviews via your online directory will ensure your online profile increases and drives traffic to your website. 

If you haven’t tried email campaigns before, it really is worth starting. Over the past couple of years, due to the pandemic, one of the most popular ways for businesses of any size to keep their customers informed of their latest products/services, discounts, special offers, latest courses and more was through email marketing campaigns. A personalised email to your customers has the ability to not only inform and educate, but also raise awareness and boost loyalty. It has the potential to build trust, authenticity and awareness whilst driving traffic to your website and increasing sales. Email campaigns are a highly effective method in communicating with your target audience, and a key small business marketing strategy. 

Another result of the pandemic was the push to be mobile-friendly. The trend towards ensuring websites and other online content was optimised for use on mobile devices was already making its way into online marketing strategies. However, the pandemic boosted this trend significantly. Today, 73% of consumers are omnichannel mobile shoppers and it is forecast that by 2024, mobile retail commerce could reach more than £100 billion. But it’s not just about ensuring your website is as responsive on a mobile device as it is on a desktop; businesses must ensure that all their online content is easily readable, too. 

 

Planning your online marketing as part of your small business marketing strategy is a key element in driving traffic to your website. 

 

Twickenham website design company delivers affordable, professional custom-designed websites that promote your business and brand successfully. As part of our ongoing expert support, we offer a free Website Health Check that will establish the areas where improvements can be made. Call us today to create the website of your dreams and turn your business into a success. Contact us for more details.