How to get fast traffic to your website

So you just launched your business website... now what? If you’re wondering how to get those first visits to your website, this article is for you. We included a few guidelines on how to get started with a few digital marketing tactics to help boost your traffic right from the beginning.

Launching a website is a daunting task. From planning to execution, you’re normally going through an extensive period of work, not to mention financial investment. When the project finishes and the website is finally ready to go live, launching it feels like an exciting milestone to celebrate. We’re sorry for the bad news, but unfortunately, it’s no time to rest yet. Once the dust has settled, you’ll need to work a bit further to ensure you get your first visits. But hey, don’t let this put you off, your first organic visitor is also a reason to celebrate :)

Let’s start...

Get fast traffic to your website with SEO & Content

SEO consists of multiple strategies, actions, and best practices, all of which have the end goal of improving your website’s position in search engines—which is why it’s called “search engine optimisation". But why would you want to improve your position on Google or other search engines at all?

Users trust search engines, and achieving a top spot in search engine rankings signals to online users that your site is a credible source. The higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will generate. SEO also improves user experience, making it more likely for customers to become repeat buyers.

There are two kinds of SEO: on-site and off-site. The first is related to tactics used to improve the content of your website, while the second includes tactics you can use to leverage other websites to help you improve your rankings. Let’s take a look at how each one of them can help you boost your traffic:

On-site SEO tactics

Here at Itag Media, we always recommend and assist our clients with SEO prior to the website launch- it’s not only easier to work with on-site content while the website is still draft but it also avoids duplicate work, in case you need to change a lot on the copy after the website is live.

Keyword research

Everything starts with the keyword research. Keywords are the terms and query people type on Google when they are searching for your product or service. Have a think about which words you would use to describe your company, it’s a good start. Typically your keywords would include product and service names. It’s important that your main keywords are present on your website, but how do you select which keywords you should be using?

Nowadays, there are simple tools available online that can help you with a basic keyword research. Take a look at Keyword Tool and Keyword Finder - these are great free resources for beginners. Here at Itag Media, we use robust software that collects history data, keyword search volume, competition, and ranking probabilities before we decide which are the best keywords for our clients. If you would like to know more about our SEO processes, click here. 

Incorporating the keywords into your content strategy

Next step is to match the search intent behind the keyword (where the user is at in terms of pain points and challenges) with the content of your website. Here at Itag Media, we categorise keywords according to each stage of the buyer’s journey they are at Awareness, Consideration or Decision. Feeling lost? Here’s a quick definition of the buyer’s journey according to HubSpot:

“The buyer's journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, consider and evaluate, and decide to purchase a new product or service.”

Let’s work with a specific example to better illustrate this concept. Suppose we are creating a website for an app development agency. Below you find three examples of keywords for each stage of the funnel:

• Do I need an app? - Your audience is starting to think about the idea. But they are not sure whether they will require your service yet. At this stage, they are just “looking around”. You could target this keyword in a blog post for example.
• How much does an app cost? - Your audience decided they want an app for their business. Now they want more information about the development process, including timeframes and costs. This would be a perfect keyword for a white-paper or a quick downloadable guide.
• App development services “name of the city” - This keyword targets the decision stage of the funnel. This is a service keyword, so your target audience will search for it when they are almost ready to make a purchase. Including this type of keyword in your service page is fundamental to attract and convert leads.

Targeting all stages of the buyer’s journey is an effective strategy for increasing traffic because you won’t be targeting a specific group only (which is commonly the case when people only optimise their website for product or service related keywords). The more SEO (and user) friendly content you produce, the better your rankings will look like in the long run.

Keeping your website content fresh is one of the most important factors that directly impact your SEO. It’s important to constantly update your website pages and your blog with new and interesting content to keep organic traffic increasing. The best thing about it is that the more traffic you have, the higher are your chances of converting this traffic into customers. Marketing guru Neil Patel did a study on the importance of content marketing for generating leads and what he found out was quite interesting:

Source

As you can see, the number of people who find a product or service through a blog post and eventually become customers is increasing each year.

We won’t get deep into the on-page optimisation itself (as this topic probably deserves another blog post), but just as a quick overview, it’s important that you incorporate your list of selected keywords into the website code of your website such as meta title, description, headings and copy. Keep your content engaging and informative and check what your top ranking competitors are publishing to get some inspiration.

If you are wanting to rank better locally, then you should get a free local SEO report below, that is full of information to help your site perform better. 

Off-site SEO tactics

What else can you do to increase rankings and get more traffic? Apart from ensuring on-site content is top quality, it helps if other websites link back to you. You will normally here SEO experts refer to this as off-site SEO tactics. Generally speaking, backlinks show search engines that your content is gaining industry recognition and that it provides value to both users and websites.

How to get quality backlinks to your website

So how do you get backlinks on other websites? There is a lot of work and relationship building involved in link building. Here’s a quick process to help you get started:

Determine which websites you will target: For Google, if you have a backlink from The Australian is a much better signal than having a backlink from your youngest sister’s recently launched blog. Nothing against your family’s creative aspirations, but search engines give preference to reliable sources when it comes to backlinks.

Look out for top influencers and media outlets in your industry and create a list to help you organise your work. If you are not sure whether that local blogger is indeed a reliable source, check out their activity on social media to analyse their popularity and also take a good look at their own on-page content. Does it seem spammy, with too many ads and commercial links? Do they copy content from other publications without giving credits? If that’s the case, you are better off without a link on this website.

Leverage paid software. Here at Itag Media, we use specialised SEO software to analyse websites and investigate whether they are a good fit for our link building strategies. If you would like to know more about our SEO processes, feel free to get in touch with our team.

Identify the best strategy before reaching out - Made up your mind and would like to reach out to top newspapers in your city? Great! Now it’s time to identify the best strategy for link placement. We included a few great ideas in the list below. They can be used for reaching out to newspapers, blogs, magazines and other relevant media.

• Guest posting - You write an article as a thought leader in your industry and they publish giving you the credit (it's very common for these sites to want payment for this, especially high quality ones).
• Be a “source” for stories - Journalists always need experts to comment on their stories. You can become one and be available whenever they need an expert opinion.
• Content Marketing - You can produce interesting content, such as videos and infographics which influencers and journalists might want to publish and give you the credits
• Being an information provider - Let’s suppose you found out something interesting in your latest customer survey? Journalists would love the first-hand information!
• Become a columnist - Forbes is an example of a media outlet that has a dedicated space for external columnists. They select experts in different fields and publish articles written by them on all sorts of topics. Reach out to journalists and provide a few examples of articles you could produce. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.

Ideally, you create a personalised outreach strategy for each website you are contacting. This is because not all newspapers accept guest posts, or not all blogs share external content at all. Sometimes the best strategy is to just become a source and be available whenever they need you to comment on something.

Would you like to deepen your knowledge about website design and marketing strategies that effectively bring you more traffic? Check out our ebook The Lead Generation Black Book for exclusive practical tips to convert the increased traffic you will be getting from the above outlined SEO tactics. Ready to unleash the potential of your website? Speak to our team about your business goals and challenges you might be facing. We have years of experience across all industries and would love to help you make the most of your website.