Maybe you’ve just launched your website and you’re a bit disappointed because you’ve been expecting tonnes of interest in your freebie or people signing up to your email list or in your offers, zoom classes, and coaching sessions – but then nothing happens.
Well, the problem probably isn’t your website or the quality of what you’re offering, the problem is that not enough people are seeing it. In this post, I’m sharing 3 strategies to boost your website traffic and get your offerings in front of more people.
Start A Blog
Blogging is not a short-term solution – it’s not going to help you double your income overnight. However, it’s one of the main foundations of my business and it’s what I credit with long-term success in my business. I still get website traffic from blog posts that I published in 2017/2018 because Google is still indexing these pages, and showing them in search results.
Think of blogging like this: a normal website will have 5 to 8 pages on it for Google to scan and use to drive traffic to your website. If you blog every single week that’s an extra 52 pages that Google can use and show in search results! Blogging can really help to show people what you do and also establish you as an authority.
Whether you’re blogging daily, weekly, or monthly, just make sure to be consistent with it and keep building a content library for people to come back to. Google loves to suggest websites in search results that really talk about a specific topic and that match the exact keywords people are searching for. This is ideal for those of you who have already picked your niche and can consistently use those keywords in your content.
If you don’t like writing, you could create a podcast or a YouTube channel. With this, I would still suggest hosting it on your website. For example, create a new post, embed your video or podcast episode onto it, and then write something about the context of the video. This is really important because your website is your hub, and where all of your best content should live. It has longevity and will show up forever – you own it (unlike your social media profiles).
There’s nothing wrong with social media – it’s a great place to connect with your audience and help them get to know you, but what you post on there will be old news in a week’s time as the content will most likely get lost on your feed. So, focus on the content on your website and then repurpose and share it on social media and direct people back to your website.
Get In Front Of Other People’s Audiences
This can work well if you don’t have time to create original content on a consistent basis right now – for example, you might still have a full-time job, young children keeping you busy, or life just getting in the way! This is why it’s great to utilize other people’s audiences to drive traffic to your website.
If you want to launch your brand new online course that you’ve worked really hard on but your audience is pretty small and you only have 100-200 people on your email list, you’ll want to get in front of someone else’s audience. There are a couple of ways to do this; guest blogging, and being a guest on someone’s podcast.
If you’d like to build backlinks to your website and also get your content shared on another website, you’ll want to pitch yourself to someone else to write a guest blog post for their content library, where they credit you and link back to you. It’s best to start with smaller businesses first as this can take some practice and you might not get accepted the first time you pitch. If this happens, make sure to ask for some feedback about how you can improve or what they didn’t like about your article. Don’t lose motivation, and keep trying.
When pitching to other people’s podcasts, make sure to think about what story you can share, what would be beneficial for that person’s audience, and if it’s related to what they’re talking about on their show. Make sure to mention where you’re going to share the episode and how you’re potentially going to be giving them exposure too. Again, this will take time, and each time you pitch it will get easier, and you’ll be more likely to get accepted once you’ve been on a few shows.
For me, the best thing about podcasting is connecting with people and having great conversations. When you have your own podcast you can suggest podcast exchanges too (offering for them to be on your podcast if you can be a guest on theirs). Remember, they don’t have to be really big and have thousands of followers – make sure to really do your research and start with smaller podcasts and you can work your way up.
Use Paid Advertising
Using ads is like gasoline – it can really lighten up your results. It can help you get more traffic very quickly and it’s definitely something I recommend using – but not when you’re just getting started.
You need to make sure that you’re focusing on organic traffic and not relying on ads right from the start of your business. It’s just too unpredictable – you could get kicked out of your ads account, the ad section could be down, the cost of ads could skyrocket, and you can’t control how long these problems persist or how much of an effect this will have on your business. If you only rely on paid ads in your business, it’s a high risk.
I also don’t recommend ads for a new product or service that has not been proven to sell yet. For example, if you’ve just created a new online course that no one has bought yet or got results from, you shouldn’t be promoting this using ads. If your own audience hasn’t bought this offer from you, why would someone who doesn’t even know you or know what you do buy it from a Facebook ad? You need to have a couple of testimonials at least as some evidence of other people buying it before you start promoting it on ads.
Using paid ads strategically is still a smart strategy and necessary for most of us to scale and build a sustainable income, but experiment with them first – maybe test them out on a freebie or just spend around $10 a day on them for a month or so and see how you get on.
Generating traffic and putting all of these strategies into action is a lot of work and it can be exhausting and overwhelming. The biggest tip I have is to find out what works for you and what brings you joy. It’s necessary to get traffic to your website, you have to put in the work so people will actually see your offers and what you’re doing.
