Creating a website is indispensable for any business, but without visibility its value is far less significant. Even more impactful, if your activity is solely online, you absolutely must attract people to it. We often think of visibility on Google through natural SEO, but this takes time — whereas diversifying your traffic sources is ideal, especially since you will quickly understand that these methods complement one another. So here are the 5 best techniques to generate traffic to a website:
1. Natural SEO
Natural SEO allows you to be visible on search engines such as Google. A bad idea would be to think that it is difficult to rank on search engines. In reality, apart from a few very specific fields, it is rather easy to rank on the 1st page. Another false idea would be to think that SEO can be done alone, automatically. That is absolutely not possible. To generate traffic, it is important to be visible on search engines by optimising your SEO — this is what is called SEO (search engine optimisation). Moreover, if you do not target the right keywords you could write articles and sales pages that no one is searching for, which is why it is important to know the basics of SEO. SEO is the best channel for generating a large number of visits at low cost — and on top of all that, daily. It would not be entirely accurate to say it is free. In reality, as with many things, to have a real impact it is necessary to call on a professional in the field, although in any case the budget will be very low compared to any other technique.
2. Create a Blog
It is indisputable: the 2 fundamental pillars of SEO are “links” and content such as blog articles. Thanks to a blog, your SEO strategy — and therefore traffic acquisition — will break records. By targeting the right keywords you could generate far more traffic than with only the monthly searches possible from your home page. If you apply the MIDM (man in the middle) method, you could kill two birds with one stone. This amounts to creating articles linking your sales pages and your potential targets. One could, for example, imagine an article like: “top 5 best products for a radiant face” while offering your beauty products — two birds, one stone! Not only will your website’s traffic increase, but you will also optimise your product pages as much as possible and therefore your sales.
Here are some tips:
- Create an exceptional blog: paying a copywriter €500 for 50 articles is pointless, just like spending 5 minutes writing an article. Your content must be relevant for users and for bots (these go hand in hand) and it will also be much more shared and potentially viral. Do not hesitate to create your own images, your own studies, etc.
- Publish regularly
- Update your old articles and favour “evergreen” content. “Evergreen” content is by definition content that never changes over time — so avoid article angles that will become outdated too quickly.
- Share your blog articles on social media — you will save a phenomenal amount of time producing content for social networks while multiplying your chances of generating traffic!
- Take the opportunity to create a Newsletter and do email marketing! This allows you to retain blog readers and bring them back.
- Next step: make your blog multilingual.
3. Advertising: SEA
Advertising is an effective traffic lever but above all very rapid — ideal for generating traffic quickly. However, we cannot compare it to natural SEO or social media which take much more time. On the other hand, advertising is expensive and does not last. When you stop paying, you are no longer visible. But advertising allows you to enrich your other strategies that generate traffic daily, and with a little knowledge and a good website it is not impossible to earn more money than you spend. There are a multitude of advertising platforms accessible to everyone, whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, etc. Ideally, target the appropriate platform based on your targets, although as a general rule Facebook is the most profitable channel. But it is also possible to appear on search engines by paying — whether Google, Bing, or others. This strategy is often less risky in terms of profitability since internet users are formulating queries they are already searching for. They will therefore necessarily be interested in your website and what you offer.
4. Social Media: SMO
You are certainly familiar with social media, and this increasingly interests businesses for very good reasons — which has moreover given rise to the profession of community manager. The interest in being present on social media is to create a community around you, to the point of naturally creating brand ambassadors. These people will visit your site, share your blog articles, etc. Moreover, it would be strange for a company with a website to have no (active) social media, would it not? You can also call on an “influencer” — someone well-known on social networks — to quickly boost your traffic and visibility on networks.
Here are some tips:
- Work on a maximum of 2 or 3 social networks rather than being present on all of them and succeeding at none.
- Take the opportunity to share your site’s content.
- Publish regularly and stick to an editorial calendar.
- Do not hesitate to place calls to action on your site towards your social media. A good technique is to display your social accounts on an article by offering to answer questions in private message. Your users will generally automatically follow you.
- Do not hesitate to join groups and offer your help through your expertise in the field.
Note: Do not forget that it is also possible to create a community on YouTube and that many people use this “search engine”. This will also benefit your social networks and enrich your blog posts. Three birds, one stone.
5. Build Relationships
Building relationships is and will always be effective for generating traffic to a site. You have certainly already been told that relationships are one of the fundamental pillars for succeeding with a brand — and it is true! Do not hesitate to go and find people in your field yourself and contact them rather than waiting for the opposite. Offer to write articles on their sites, do not hesitate to mention them on social media, etc. There are a multitude of possible applications for building relationships and it is important to dedicate time to it to grow your site.