How To Drive More Website Traffic

Whenever I’ve done a presentation about digital strategy and web marketing, I’m always happy to be introduced as the resident “nerd”.  This is because, among many other things, I spend most of my days inside a variety of reports such as Google Analytics, AdWords, Webmaster Tools, and a number of other programs we use to analyze user engagement on websites, ads, apps, social, and the other dozen campaigns we could have running on a daily basis.

I live inside of those programs and get pretty passionate about metrics that my coworkers understandably roll their eyes over.  These statistics are our roadmap to understanding user motivation, engagement, and ultimately, what information helps them make decisions.  It’s definitely where the sciences of sociology and psychology meet with a healthy smattering of guess-and-check that help drive these actions, and that’s why understanding those statistics and on an even higher level, the importance of those statistics is crucial to online success.  I say all this because this is going to be a pretty numbers-heavy post, so buckle in!

We are closing in on 2 billion websites on the internet (not bad for 31 years).  If this seems like a dauntingly huge number, it should be. So how do you set yourself apart from everyone else and attract more people to your website?

How To Drive More Website Traffic:

Option 1: Pay For It (Pay-Per-Click)

Pros

  • Buying digital ads is an easy and immediate way to get traffic to your site.
  • If done correctly, digital advertising can expose your brand directly to your target audience.
  • Paid advertising can be quickly adjusted to react to market changes, A/B testing, industry trends and news, etc.
  • You only pay when someone clicks your ad to visit your website or calls you. In other words, when your advertising is working.  And it can be effective (with clearly defined goals) with almost any budget.

Cons

  • On the other hand, it can add up.  Quickly.  This is why those clearly defined goals are so important as well as understanding your visitors’ interactions with your campaigns.
  • While it has an easy entry point for beginners to dip their toe into, it can get very complicated to manage without having much experience in this arena.  A experienced and certified Adwords user can make the difference of driving a million random hits to your website that will leave immediately verses driving a thousand visitors who are actively looking for your product or service (and can help convert those leads into customers).
  • Using pay-per-click advertising is only a small part of a successful digital strategy.  Ultimately, it needs to be done while a solid content marketing strategy and SEO plan is chugging away in the background.  It’s the difference between a diet vs. plastic surgery.

The Numbers

  • Companies spent $145 billion on search advertising globally in 2021.
  • On average, a company will make $2 for every $1 spent on PPC.
  • 72% of companies haven’t looked at their ad campaigns in over a month.
  • 71% say they research a product online first, before purchasing.

Option 2: Earn It (Search Engine Optimization)

Pros

  • Getting people to your website with SEO is the ultimate long term strategy for building an audience.
  • Good SEO is about producing original, relevant content that your target audience is interested in reading and will come back to read more that you put out there.  Bonus points for videos.
  • While slow to get started and see results, the more good content you publish, the stronger your search traffic will be.  Slow and steady wins the race!

Cons

  • If you’re not comfortable writing or don’t have the skills for video work, you’ll need to outsource these efforts, which can get expensive.
  • Search Engine Optimization is an area of the internet that is difficult to research quality information on, partially because there are a lot of people out there trying to cut corners and game the system (which will hurt your site), and partially because it’s a game that has rules that change on a weekly basis.

The Numbers

  • 92% of the search market is driven by Google or Google products (YouTube included).
  • More than 67% of all web traffic is estimated to be organic as opposed to paid.
  • 92% of company who posted multiple times a week regularly convert leads to a customer via those posts.
  • 82% of online shoppers begin their search on a search engine.

Option 3: Send It (Email Marketing)

Pros

  • Email marketing is a powerful way to consistently engage an already cultivated audience and customers.
  • Whether you want to inform your customers about new products or services or upcoming events, traffic based on email marketing can easily produce engaged traffic and ultimately lead to sales.
  • It’s an easy and very affordable way to keep your brand top of mind.
  • It can be tied into other mediums such as pay per click (especially retargeting) to double up your opportunities.

Cons

  • Building email lists is slow to start and hard to encourage people to sign up for yet another newsletter.
  • A good email requires a bit of content creation and graphic design work, both of which can be time consuming or costly.
  • Additionally, email subscribers are fickle and will unsubscribe at the smallest inconvenience.
  • Additionally, you can potentially lose the ability to send your list if enough subscribers mark your emails a spam.

The Numbers

  • 78% of marketers in 2020 said email is important to overall company success, compared to 71% in 2019.
  • 69% return on investment for B2C companies via email marketing.
  • 17% higher purchase rate on email marketing vs social media marketing.
  • 60% of retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods and services companies are personalizing emails based on past purchases, versus 38% in 2019.

 

This is only just three pieces of a comprehensive digital strategy, but are very core components to driving traffic to your brand’s online presence.  If any of these numbers seem confusing or overwhelming, you’re in luck!  This is the stuff we live and breathe every day and would love to talk with you.

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