Sales have dropped, and traffic is slowly dwindling, it looks like you might have a problem on your hands.
1. Improve Your Website’s SEO
Having a strong SEO presence online isn’t an option anymore; you either fight for Google’s first-page ranking, or you’re doomed to obscurity (aka the second page).
When most people hear the word SEO, they start to overthink the complexities of SEO, and might even think that it’s only for trained experts.
That’s where they’re wrong. At its core, SEO isn’t complicated. It just takes consistency, a sound strategy, and time. You can’t tighten up your website’s SEO in one day and expect results in the next.
Whether you’re an expert or beginner here are some helpful facts to get you up to speed with SEO.
You also have the option of learning from SEO experts like Neil Patel, Brian Dean from Backlinko, and Rand Fishkin, or skip the learning curve and hire an SEO specialist to optimize your website.
But here are some simple tips you can use on your own to improve your website’s SEO:
Five Website SEO Tips Every Beginner Should Know
- Optimize Your Images for SEO: Use High-Quality Images with specific or relevant keywords words in the file name or ALT Text.
- Keywords Everywhere: Add specific keywords on each website page or URL
- Check Your Website URL: Ensure that your website URL is your (brand) name, so it’s easier for people to find you
- Optimize Your Website Pages: Write detailed and keyword heavy meta titles and descriptions for your website or blog articles.
- Add Keywords To Your Content: Whether it’s a video, blog, or your about page ensure that you add industry-specific keywords, so Google knows what your content is about helping your ranking online and make it easy for people to find.
2. Google My Business
If you haven’t done it already, you should claim your business on Google My Business.
Google’s business feature includes showing essential information people need to know about your business on Google Maps, Search, Mobile, and other Google properties.
You can also add your contact details and website so that potential customers can find everything they need to know about you on the first search.
3. Add & Use SEO In Your Blog
You’ve probably heard this a thousand times, but having a blog is a great way to promote your website and increase your brand’s online presence.
Here’s why.
Brands who blog receive 97% more links to their website. That means other brands or bloggers can referencing your products and articles to their audience, expanding your online reach. Add that to the fact that 57% of marketers say they’ve gained customers specifically through blogging.
At Wishpond we practice what we preach. Our marketing blog receives more than 200,000 views a month and traffic from our blog helps to convert readers into paying customers. This is partially due to the fact that 95% of B2B buyers see content as a primary factor in determining trustworthiness for a company when evaluating it’s products and services.
Need I say more?
Not sure what to write about? Why not create stunning gym infographics with statistics and guides to grab the interest of your readers.
Here are 21 Tools to Create Infographics Will Save You Tons of Time (And Your Infographics Will Be Stunning.)
Plus you can always be or hire a content writer for your marketing team or hire a freelancer to do the writing for you. I find the first option usually works best.
Whatever option you decide to go with you’ll need to Build a More Complete Content Marketing Strategy.
4. Create YouTube Channel
Over a billion hours of YouTube content is consumed each day. So you might not be surprised when I tell you that Youtube is the second largest search engine on the internet right now.
Youtube isn’t just a platform to post videos, it’s also a great way to promote your blog, products, and earn credibility with potential customers. In fact, 73% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a Video.
Check out these cool video stats by Tubular Insight
Unlike other social media platforms, YouTube videos have a longer shelf life because their growth isn’t solely dependant on instant engagement, but over time because they’re available to people via search.
If you’re thinking about growing a YouTube channel, check out these 18 Powerful Ways to Grow Your YouTube Channel Today.
5: Use Email Marketing
In 2017 Statista reported that there were over 3.7 million email users, and that number is set to grow to 4.3 billion users by 2022 (Statista, 2019).
That’s half of the world’s population.
And emails aren’t just limited to welcoming your new customers, it can also help to push customers to your website with promotions, deals, discounts, and contests.
Email marketing is now the norm so much, so that Oberlo’s Email Marketing Stats found that some subscribers want to get an email from their favorite brands, deals, and all.
But as great as emails are, the problem is you’re not the only one who’ll be sending to your prospective customers. As someone who receives up to 50 emails a day, standing out in the inbox is important…and difficult.
If you’re already sending emails but no one’s opening them, there could be one or more reasons your email marketing strategy isn’t working.
NEED HELP WITH YOUR EMAIL MARKETING?
Book a free call to learn how our team of email marketing experts can help you create high converting email campaigns today.
6. Keyword Research
I can’t stress enough how important keyword research is especially if you’re doing content marketing to drive traffic to your website.
When it comes to keyword research, you have to be in it for the long game.
Keyword research isn’t just for your blog; it’s for your Google ads, promotions, social media ads, and overall website optimization. You can find keywords organically or use paid keyword searches, at times you’ll have to do both.
Powered by Search shows how you can easily do Keyword research best:
If you need to SEO & keyword ideas, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner and search for related keywords that show up in your Google Analytics Acquisition reports.
5 Keyword Research Tools To Improve Your SEO
Here are five keyword research tools experts swear by that can help you to improve your SEO:
- Wordtracker
Use Wordtracker to Reveal high performing keywords in minutes with their online keyword research tool. - Moz Analytics
Moz Analytics automatically audits your site, tracks your rankings and link metrics, and shows you what your competitors are up to. A great way to highlight useful and actionable insights. - Keyword Discovery
Keyword Discovery is a keyword research tool that can help you in search engine website site optimization, managing pay per click keywords, and achieving top search engine rankings. - WordStream
A pay-per-click advertising tool to help you get more from your marketing budget. - Keyword Eye
Keyword Eye is a fast and visual keyword research tool that can help with your PPC and SEO campaigns.
7. Contribute Articles to Expert Sites
Find blogs or websites that are thought leaders in your industry, then submit articles that can put in front of their audience. This is also a great way to build backlinks and drive organic traffic to your website.
But know that contributing articles takes work, you’ll have to ensure that your current blog has quality work and the article you contribute has 10x more quality even to be considered. If you’re aiming to contribute to websites like Forbes or Huffington Post, you’ll also have to build up your credibility a writer online before you reach out to be a contributor.
If you’re ready to start contributing articles, you can start with one or more of these 54 Guest Posting Sites You Can Submit To For More Organic Traffic.
If you’ve been writing content you can also check out sites like [Business2Community] that reshares high traffic articles for experts in the industry.
To apply to get your content syndicated through Business2Community, check out their contributor page.
8. Create an Affiliate Program
Affiliate programs are an easy way to get people clicking to your website to learn more about your company. To date, 81% of brands have adopted an affiliate marketing program.
An affiliate program is a long-term investment; you’ll have to build a program people will want to join, try to get and manage quality affiliates so you can get the fruits of your labor.
When Shout Me Loud started their affiliate program, they found that 80% of affiliate sales came from 20% of the affiliates because 80% of the affiliates will do very little, or nothing at all that contributes to sales. So you’ll have to engage with affiliates via email or social media to keep the program going.
But once it’s up and running, you’ll have thousands of people placing, sharing and promoting your website and products, bringing traffic and clicks to your website.
I found The Daily Egg’s article on How to Start an Affiliate Program That’s Actually Successful to be the best one so far if you’re interested in giving affiliate marketing a try.
9. Use Guest Bloggers
Around 62% of people consider blogs that have multiple authors to be more credible. So if you’re the only one who writes your articles, you might want to consider accepting guest post.
At Wishpond, a lot of marketing and e-commerce content writers reach out to use to guest post on our blog. Some of which are so popular with our readers, they bring organic traffic, conversions, and help with our blogs SEO ranking.
Keep in mind with guest posts, you’re in control. To get the full benefits of having a guest post, you can select from high-quality articles, and reject low-quality articles. I find it best not to Accept Guest Posts Unless You Follow These 7 Rules.
10. Start An Online Course
It sounds like a tall order, but having an online course pays off big time when it comes to promoting your website and brand. Hootsuite is known for their Hootsuite Academy where they help social media marketers brush up on their skills.
An online course, along with your blog is also a quick stamp of approval that you know your stuff.
You can host your online class in several ways:
- You can do an email campaign teaching people via email. Sending a course once a day until completion.
- You can host classes on video platforms like Facebook Live, YouTube and now IGTV.
- You can sign up for platforms like Teachable, Thinkific or SkillShare, all platforms where you can host a paid online classes.
Online classes come with their pros than cons, mainly you’ll have to work hard to maintain a community of students who’ll be looking to you for answers. You’ll also have to create a platform that has a good user interface, or students will get frustrated and leave.
If an online course is done right (paid or free), you’ll have a large community of students and fans who will advocate and promote your brand for free on or offline.
Does an online course sound like something you might try for your business? Here’s a guide on 10 Steps To Creating A Wildly Successful Online Course to help you get started.
11. Add Your Website Link To All Your Platforms
Adding your links to all your platforms allows you to optimize your website for more clicks.
When you forget to add your website to your social media platforms, you miss out on customers who might be actively or curiously seeking you out. Today and counting attention spans have shrunk by 50% over the past decade. Having your link right there and waiting helps to grab people who might get distracted while looking for your website.
What makes it worse is that the attention span shrinks even further to a whopping 18% due to stress, which means if your viewers have trouble finding your website they’re more likely to be quickly and go somewhere else. You can also ask employees to share your website link on their work profiles and social media.
12. Use Your Google Analytics Reports
Google Analytics allows you to access detailed information regarding your online store’s traffic and sales.
When it comes to measuring website traffic for e-commerce stores, Google Analytics is the undisputed champion. It gives detailed information on how many people have visited your online store, what pages they’ve been on, demographic details of users, and various traffic sources.
You can use your Google Analytic reports learning about your website traffic sources.
You can compare different website site traffic sources and periods (i,e 30 days or last seven days) to see if your website traffic is declining or increasing. This can help you to track:
- Where on your site or landing pages might be affecting your sales
- How well it’s performing, what links are providing the most traffic
- If you need to focus heavily on link building
- Notice any pages with errors that need fixing
- Create a better sales funnel or marketing funnel for your online store
13. Have a Backlink Strategy
You can drive more clicks to your website with a strong backlink strategy.
Google’s search engine uses links as one of the three most important search engine ranking factors for a website. It’s a known fact that the first page of Google always captures most of web search traffic. Google’s first result gets 36.4% more click-through rates than any other result page.
Believe it or not, you can improve your website’s SEO by backlinking your website in the article you contribute as a guest writer. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to backlinking.
Once you have a strategy in place, you’ll begin to see your website’s click-through rate increase and traffic coming your way.
Feel like diving into the world of backlinking? Check out Backlinko’s The Definitive Guide for Backlinking.
14. Host a Giveaway on Your Website
Hosting a giveaway on your website is a sure way to promote your website. Giveaways pack more of a punch for your business than you think. In fact giveaways do the following:
Brand awareness: If your goal is brand awareness, then you can ask contestants to use your products in the images or incorporate a creative concept that resonates with your brand’s message.
Increase Subscriptions: Allow contestants to give their email address to enter or subscribe to your email subscription to generate leads.
Drive Traffic: If you want to drive traffic and increase conversions on your website, then allowing your audience to sign-up on your website or be directed back to your site to sign up for your giveaway can help.
NEED HELP PLANNING YOUR NEXT GIVEAWAY OR CONTEST?
Book a free call to learn how our team of contest experts can help you create a high converting giveaway today.
15. Feature Industry Experts in Your Content
Incorporating experts in your industry in your content or on your website is a great way to promote your website. It also adds credibility and builds trust with your audience.
Reach out to experts in your industry have them do a guest post, video, or highlight their work in a way that compliments the content on your website.
Let’s be honest, sometimes experts busy, and attempts to reach out get unanswered. Don’t worry, there’s a simple way around it. Try to reach out via email or add some of their expert advice to your online content.
For example when I wrote this post: 15 Digital Experts Share Their Best Marketing Advice by looking at the tips and quotes, little gems that each expert had shared with others or directly from their own online content.
16. Create a Referral Program
People are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend that’s because 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals.
A referral program is different from an affiliate program. A Referral Promotion allows your customers or fans to earn a reward in exchange for referring their friends to sign up or complete an action for your business.
Referral programs are a powerful way to grow your business by leveraging your current fans. Instead of trying to do all the heavy-lifting on your own, it allows your fans to do it for you.
Once your promotion is complete, you can use it to promote your website further.
17. Respond to Online Reviews
92% of consumers view online ratings and reviews before buying something, and 40% of them form an opinion of your business before contacting you.
Whether it’s a positive or negative review, you can use it to improve your SEO and promote your websites and services. Online reviews are seen on places like:
Google Online Reviews
Social Media Comments
Need to know where to start with your own online reviews Marketing Land can show you How to turn negative online reviews into marketing wins.
18. Use Influencers To Market Your Website
Influencer Marketing has been in the top five marketing tools and strategies for the past four years and counting.
Adweek reported that Influencer marketing would become a $10 billion industry by 2020. That’s how invested marketers are in influence marketing. You can use influencer marketing to drive traffic to your website.
That’s what lifestyle influencer did when she posted for SmartyPants Vitamins.
You can use influencers in a wide variety of ways. One way is to partner with an influencer for a do co-promotions like a giveaway, a special discount, or prize package.
Not sure where to start? Here’s An Essential Guide to Getting Started with Influencer Marketing.
19. Partner With Brands
Co-branding is a fantastic strategic marketing and advertising that can help to promote your overall brand.
You would have to pick a brand that has a service or product that compliments your own for it to work. If done right it’s a win-win for everyone.
When they say that two heads are better than one, it’s true, you have double the audience and double the manpower to do digital promotions, social media contest, giveaways, and promotional projects.
For example Uber & Spotify, two unlikely brands came together for their “Soundtrack for Your Ride” marketing campaign allowing fans of Uber and Spotify alike enjoy better experiences thanks to the app.
20. Stay Active on Social Media
90% of all marketers say social media marketing has increased their business exposure?
Back in 2013, it was estimated that 67% of consumers use Facebook and Twitter for customer service, and that was five years ago! Now over 8 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger each month alone.
The thing is people love positive interactions with brands on social media. It organically allows you to promote your website and products without coming off as a sell-all robot.
A perfect example is an Instagram favorite Peel; with each post, they ensure to comment and engage with their fans.
21: Fix Broken External Links & Errors
Broken external links, just as the states, are links that lead nowhere or give users an error.
Maybe your busy sharing other links from your site or there are some old content or web pages you forgot you deleted. Over time you’ll be losing potential traffic and clients if you forget to audit your site to find broken external links.
You can easily find these broken external links using tools like Ahrefs or Google Tag Manager.
Use this detailed guide to help you find & fix broken external links (the right way) so you can start promoting your website without any hiccups along the way.
22. Use Facebook tp Generate Leads
Facebook found that up to 78% of consumers using Facebook to find products and services, from business owners like you.
Facebook is still seen as an online business directory. You can create a business profile and add your business relevant contact information, most of all, a link to your website.
The first and most natural step you should take is creating a Facebook page for your brand if you haven’t already. From there you’ll have to optimize your Facebook page to get the most out of it for your business because believe it or not.
You can use Facebook to promote your website by sharing content that links directly back to your website or prospecting page. Feel free to try these 45 Best Facebook Business Page Tips, Tricks, and Optimizations to get your lead generation started.
23. Use YouTube Ad Campaigns
YouTube ads campaigns are an effective way of generating leads for your brand; earlier I stated that it was the second largest search engine online, well it’s also one of the top three social media with people worldwide watching over 150 million hours of YouTube every day.
Wouldn’t it be great to place an ad there for everyone to see?
Add that to the fact that 60% of people prefer video platforms to live television.
Get started and Setup a YouTube Ads Campaign in 10 Easy Steps. that leads viewers back to your website.
You can connect your Google Analytics account with your YouTube Ad campaign to monitor your progress.
24. Put Your Website On Your Business Card
Business cards still have a place in the business world, particularly at live events, seminars, and for local clientele.
You can also use your email signature as a virtual business card so every time you send an email, your leads know where just to find you if they need you.
Offline or online cover your basis when promoting your website. You can use Canva to easily create professional business cards in seconds.
25. With Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are images or videos that you can upload on your account that disappear after 24 hours. Just like that it’s gone.
If you have more than 10,000 followers, you can add a ‘swipe-up’ link to your story and direct viewers to your website. You use this guide to learn How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Story.
You can incorporate Instagram Stories to your social media marketing plan. Shopify’s step-by-step guide on How to Use Instagram Stories for Marketing (And Why You Should) can point you in the right direction to get started.
26. Use Twitter To Promote Your Website
About 400 million people use Twitter every month; that’s why Tweeting about your blog can be an incredible way to reach out and connect with your consumer. With over more than half of the tweet population ready to retweet content for you it’s time to drop a link to your blog or website in your tweet and let the world see what you’re made of.
If you use Twitter well, it can drive tons of traffic back to your blog. But simply tweeting the title of your blog post with a link back to your site will not work.
You need to be pro-active on twitter at all times or you’ll lose momentum with readers. Try not to make these 9 Most Common Mistakes on Twitter along the way.
27. Use LinkedIn Profile for Your Business
If you’re a B2B business, LinkedIn is the ideal place for you to connect with your market, develop relationships, and drive traffic back to your blog. With over 500 million users worldwide LinkedIn is your go-to social site for business networking.
If you want to drive traffic to your website from LinkedIn, then you need to be active, and frequently post on the site.
- Post status updates a few times a week. The more you’re seen by your connections, the more trust you build, and the more likely they will click through to your blog. Additionally, this trust can develop into potential clients or partners.
- Don’t spam your network. Use your judgment (or analytics) to determine how many times a week, you should be posting.
- Post article links to your blog. Use LinkedIn to nurture relationships further, by inviting your contacts to connect with on your business blog too.
- Post links to other articles. If you don’t have two or three articles in a week to post, post links to other articles too — for example, post articles about news in your industry, or from well-known industry leaders.
To help you off on the right start, you can try these 6 Experts Advice to Develop an Engaging LinkedIn Content Strategy to have your profile driving sales and traffic to your website.
28. Create an Online Webinar
Online webinars are one of the most popular and effective ways to capture and nurture highly engaged buyers. You can use webinars to promote your products, teach a class, or build relationships with new leads. The choice is yours, just ensure it’s engaging and it’ll capture the attention of your target audience.
Maybe you’ve tried doing a webinar but didn’t get the results you wanted. It’s time to Turn Your Webinar One-Night Stand Into a Relationship with this easy 3 step formula.
29. Automate Your Marketing
Think about it, automation is the way of the future. We’ve come a far way from 2011. According to recent studies, marketing automation on average drives up to 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.
More than 11x more companies are using marketing automation these days than back in 2011.
You can automate your email, chat, ads, and social media cutting your workload in half and allowing your marketing efforts to be active while you work on other projects.
Here is Wishpond we offer marketing automation for a business like yours. From emails to ads and then some. Click here to see what our marketing experts can do for you.
30. Review Your Website Marketing Strategy
One of the most important things to do to ensure your online presence is growing is to review your digital and website marketing strategy. Take time out to see what’s working and what needs improving as you invest more time and money into your strategies.
So how do you review your website marketing strategy?
You check your analyze your website traffic and data along with your brand’s keywords and SEO placement. The best place to start is Google Analytics.
If you’re completely new to Google Analytics and need help from start to finish, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you set up Google Analytics in 10 easy steps.
Summary
There you have it 30 proven website marketing strategies to get more clicks. If I’m honest, choosing one method just won’t cut it, you might need to use as many as you can if you want to start making a dent online.
There is a lot of competition online. Your website isn’t the only one of it’s kind, which isn’t to say it’s impossible it just takes consistent action to keep driving clicks and traffic to your website.
You’ve got this.
Are you currently promoting your website? Comment below what’s been working and what you might need help with your website marketing strategy. I’d love to know.
Source: wishpond.com ~ By: Victoria Taylor ~ Image: