Updated: 26 Nov 2020
If you’re a business owner who has a website that lacks visitors, you may have asked yourself how you can get more traffic. At some point, you’re going to come to the realization that a website that no one ever sees is more or less a worthless website – regardless of how much you paid for it.
Fortunately, this article is not only going to explain how to get more traffic to your website, you will also be provided a step-by-step guide on how to succeed using tested and proven methods. But be warned, following the guide to getting more website visitors will take time – it’s not going to bring a server-overloading amount of traffic overnight. However, by following the steps detailed below, you are going to get more website traffic. You simply have to be diligent, follow the instructions, and stick with it.
The online marketing practices in this guide that will help you to get more traffic to your website include:
Creating a Buyer Persona
Before you start using the methods detailed in this guide to get more website traffic, you must first decide upon whom you want to target. The best way to do this is to create a buyer persona.
According to HubSpot, creating a buyer persona is the process of documenting real data that is based on semi-fictional representations of your actual customers. When creating a buyer persona, it’s important to consider customer demographics, motivations, pain points, goals, and behavior patterns.
Also, keep in mind that a business can have one or more buyer personas and that they are not limited to just consumers; personas work for B2B efforts as well.
See also: How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template]
Four Ways to Get More Website Traffic without Paid Advertising
While there are certainly more than four ways to get more traffic to your website, the methods provided here are guaranteed to boost your sessions and page views.
1. SEO to Get More Website Traffic to Your Website
When utilizing search engine optimization, you have to determine your target audience and then conduct keyword research.
SEO Step 1: Determine Your Target Audience
Source: splashonlinemedia.com
How do you determine your target audience?
Let’s use Acme Carpet Cleaning Co. as an example.
Acme wants to clean more carpets, so they’ve put together a buyer persona of one of their ideal customers. They’ve determined that apartment property managers are one of their target buyers.
What does Acme know about their ideal apartment property manager? A few things… They know that he/she is most likely responsible for studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments. They also know that time is of the essence, as the next renters will be moving in soon – the job may need to be a quick turnaround.
There may also be some deep stains, possibly caused by pets or a spilled glass of wine. One thing Acme knows for certain is that the customer will want to know how much having the carpets cleaned will cost.
Finally, Acme knows the city, district, and/or neighborhood in which the apartment manager operates.
Buyer Persona 1: Apartment Property Manager (We’ll call Bill)
- Bill deals with multiple-sized apartment units.
- Bill needs the carpets cleaned fast before the next renters arrive.
- Bill is dealing with some nasty pet stains.
- Bill also has what appears to be coffee or spilled drink stains that have been walked over.
- Bill wants to know the cost of cleaning the carpets.
- Bill’s apartment building is located in the Phoenix metro area.
Another example of a buyer persona could be in relation to homeowners. Perhaps the second persona, who we’ll name Susie, is a stay-at-home mom.
Susie has two children under the age of six and lives in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. Susie’s main concern in life is her kids. She would do anything to keep them safe, including having her home’s carpets regularly cleaned by professionals.
She’s also concerned about the chemicals used in some carpet cleaning solutions and wants non-chemical, natural ingredients used on her carpets.
Lastly, like Bill, Susie doesn’t want to pay too much and would like to know the pricing beforehand.
Though this is somewhat vague, we can use this data to create a second buyer persona for Susie.
Buyer Persona 2: Stay-at-Home Mom (Susie)
- Susie stays at home to care for her children.
- Susie’s husband goes to work while she tends to household duties.
- Susie has two children – one who’s four and the other who’s 18 months.
- Susie has safety concerns and wants chemical-free products used in her home.
- Susie wants her carpets cleaned right by a professional.
- Susie lives in Scottsdale, Arizona where the median income is $72,455.
- Susie spills the odd drop of red wine.
- Susie thinks that pricing is somewhat important, but not a deal-breaker.
SEO Step 2: Determine Your Target Keywords
Source: kissmetrics.com
Now that we know who we are targeting, our ideal audience/buyer personas, we can begin conducting keyword research.
The keywords we want to target should ideally have documented search volume and low competition. To determine search volume for Acme’s buyer personas, we’ve used Google AdWord’s Keyword Planner.
To find out the competition, we’ve done allintitle:your keyword here searches via Google. The “allintitle” search tells us how many webpages have the keywords in the meta title, which is an indication of how many webpages are optimized for the keyword/term.
According to Keyword Planner, the terms we listed below regularly get searched for in Google. Monthly search volume within the Phoenix Metro area is the first figure and competition (webpages with the term plus the word ‘phoenix’ in the meta title) is the second. We added ‘phoenix’ to an “allintitle” search as a modifier to get an idea of the amount of Phoenix-area competitors.
- same day carpet cleaning (20 Phoenix area searches per month / 10 competing webpages)
- carpet cleaning companies (90 / 269)
- natural carpet cleaner (40 / 2)
- chemical-free carpet cleaning (10 / 1)
- professional carpet cleaners (50 / 128)
- carpet cleaning services (260 / 361)
- carpet cleaning prices (90 / 159)
- pet stain carpet cleaning (20 / 33)
- pet carpet cleaner (170 / 17)
Non-geo targeted terms – searched everywhere, not just in Phoenix and without the modifier for the metro area.
- how to clean spot on carpet (110 searches per month / 29 competing webpages)
- how to get red stains out of carpet (1,100 / 98)
- how to get old stains out of carpet (880 / 428)
- how to clean carpet with baking soda (720 / 461)
- homemade carpet cleaning solution (1,300 / 510)
- all natural carpet cleaning (880 / 643)
- how much does carpet cleaning cost (480 / 261)
- baby safe cleaning products (480 / 513)
- how to clean carpet without a machine (320 / 136)
- best carpet cleaner products (720 / 707)
- best carpet cleaner reviews (2,400 / 951)
Now that we’ve managed to research some of the keywords we want to use in Acme’s SEO campaign, we can move on to creating content on your website that reflects them. When building content on your website, most businesses, namely those using WordPress, have two options: (i) creating blog posts or (ii) creating webpages.
What’s the difference, you ask?
A few things primarily differentiate them; especially when using WordPress. For example, WordPress has several extra features built into blog posts, such as tags, categories, and RSS feeds. Whereas pages typically do not.
How to Determine Whether to Create a Blog Post or Page Content
Typically, what we do is create pages for information directly related to the services being offered and use blog posts to answer questions, educate readers, and to automate our social media efforts.
We like to use our blog posts as gateway pages, aka top-of-the-funnel info, and our service pages as bottom-of-the-funnel info with the hopes of converting people into buyers with them. So, proceeding along these lines, the next two steps will explain how we use keywords to build pages and blog posts.
2. Building Website Pages to Get More Website Traffic
As mentioned above, we like for webpages to attract bottom-of-the-funnel leads. These are the people who are either ready to buy or really close to it, as they may simply want a question or two answered before doing so.
Ideally, these pages have all the necessities when it comes to converting visitors into leads. These pages should have a contact form, prominently placed click-to-call phone number, and possibly a call-to-action (CTA) that offers a coupon, discount, or something else of benefit to the visitor.
Source: marketing.com
Examples include an ebook, such as “Five Things Never to Use When Cleaning a Carpet Stain” or a whitepaper that educates the visitor on the advancements in carpet cleaning technology that Acme utilizes, i.e. chemical-free solutions. Another option would be a video, such as a before-and-after cleaning clip that would catch visitor’s attention. In many cases, putting a CTA on a page you want people to convert on may not be a wise decision, but if your visitor has scrolled past your initial value proposition statement, phone number, and contact form, you may as well give it one last “college try.”
When creating new webpages, we need to use data from the keyword research to determine which terms are a good fit. Here are the terms, based on Susie’s and Bill’s needs, which are complementary to Acme’s main service – carpet cleaning. While these topics are fairly straightforward, we’re going to explain them in detail.
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- same day carpet cleaning (20 searches per month / 10 competing webpages)
Meta title: Same Day Carpet Cleaning in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: This page serves Bill’s need in getting his apartment unit’s carpets cleaned in time before the next tenants move in.
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- chemical-free carpet cleaning (10 / 1)
Meta title: Chemical-Free Carpet Cleaning in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: To meet Susie’s demand for a natural carpet cleaning solution that she believes is safer for her children.
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- professional carpet cleaners (50 / 128)
Meta title: Professional Carpet Cleaners in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: To educate both Bill and Susie on the difference that a professional can have in regards to getting their carpets cleaned. Versus, perhaps, a hardware store-rented machine.
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- carpet cleaning services (260 / 361)
Meta title: Carpet Cleaning Services in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: To let Bill know that Acme cleans apartment carpets and to alert Susie to the fact that they have a special treatment for pet stains. Basically, a page that offers detailed information about all of the services Acme provides.
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- carpet cleaning prices (90 / 159)
Meta title: Carpet Cleaning Prices in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: This article answers the one question just about every potential customer has: “How much will it cost me?”
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- pet stain carpet cleaning (20 / 33)
Meta title: Pet Stain Carpet Cleaning in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Bill’s former tenants had a puppy that wasn’t house trained and now he needs several stains removed.
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- all-natural carpet cleaning (880 / 643)
Meta title: All Natural Carpet Cleaning in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: To catch Susie’s attention when she’s looking for a company that doesn’t use chemicals, or at the very least gives customers the option for chemical-free cleaning.
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- carpet cleaning companies (90 / 269)
Meta title: Carpet Cleaning Companies Near Me in Phoenix | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: To attract visitors in the Phoenix area doing research on more than one company. This would include Bill and Susie’s shopping carpet cleaning prices.
3. Blogging to Get More Website Traffic
Blogging… Yeah, we know. Blog, blog, blog… But don’t discount the power of blogging just because everyone you’ve ever talked to about internet marketing mentioned the word. The truth is that blogging is your opportunity to engage customers, educate them, and most importantly, earn their trust. Without trust, sales will inevitably plummet. A perfect real world example is Subway’s “yoga mat” catastrophe a few years back.
Blogging Step 1: Produce Content Your Customers are Reading
How do you know what content your customers are reading?
The simple response to what your buyers are reading is the answers to all of their questions regarding the product or service that they’re considering purchasing. When in doubt, start by writing blog posts that address your frequently asked questions.
One thing you’ll notice right off the bat is that most of the keyword research is going into creating blog posts. And this is fine, as Acme’s potential customers’ questions about carpet cleaning heavily outweigh those who are looking to buy immediately.
As mentioned above, blog posts typically attract top-of-the-funnel buyers and it is your mission to take these visitors from being merely looky-loos to paying customers. Lead nurturing is a topic for another blog post; first, you have to get people to your site and handing over their contact info, so that’s what we’re going to discuss here.
Blogging Step 2: Include Conversion Points
As with standard webpages, you’ll want to include some basic elements with each of your blog posts. You should have a contact form in the sidebar (just in case you’ve attracted someone ready to buy), your phone number easily accessible and easy to find, and you should most certainly have CTAs on all of your blog posts. Having one or more CTA on each of your blog posts, such as in the body, at the bottom of the text, and in the sidebar, is your opportunity to engage with each visitor.
You can try to send users who click on them to your related service page, where they can call or send a message if they’re ready to buy. Another call-to-action would be to bring them to a landing page in order to offer them something for free in exchange for their contact information – back to the ebooks, whitepapers, and videos.
Blog Posts Acme Can Publish
Here are some blog topics based on our keyword research that Acme’s potential customers will want to read. These terms are from our non-geo targeted keywords.
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- best carpet cleaner reviews (2,400 / 951)
Meta title: Best Carpet Cleaner Reviews in Phoenix Metro | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: This blog post can attract people like Bill and Susie looking for a reputable carpet cleaning company. It also suggests that the visitor is ready to buy, because somewhere in the neighborhood of 81% of online shoppers research before they buy.
Creating this page can be as easy as displaying your third party and internal customer reviews accompanied by some unique content. There are some advantages to using a blog post for displaying reviews if using WordPress. One good reason is you can use an RSS feed to display this info across your website and/or syndicated social media accounts.
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- natural carpet cleaner (40 / 2)
Meta title: Nine of the Best Natural Carpet Cleaner Solutions | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Susie doesn’t want chemicals used on her carpet, so at some point, she’s likely to do some research and a list of the best natural cleaners is something she’s probably going to want to read.
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- pet carpet cleaner (170 / 17)
Meta title: Which Store-Bought Pet Carpet Cleaner Works Best? | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: We know that if people are reading this article, they likely have a pet stain on their carpet. Plus, we know that the store-bought cleaners don’t compare to Acme’s professional equipment. There’s also the fact that Bill just wants the stain gone in time for his next renters to move in.
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- how to clean spot on carpet (110 / 29)
Meta title: How to Clean a Spot on the Carpet | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: This article is designed to attract the right buyer – someone with a carpet stain that needs cleaning. After all, if that spot doesn’t come out, who are they going to call? The company they’ve come to trust – Acme, of course!
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- how to get red stains out of carpet (1,100 / 98)
Meta title: This is How to Get Red Stains Out of Carpet | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: If Susie or Bill can’t manage the stain on their own, they may call on the people who tried to help by providing this information.
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- how to get old stains out of carpet (880 / 428)
Meta title: One Trick for How to Get Old Stains Out of Carpet | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: If Bill has an inkling that he could clean the stain himself, he’ll likely look for an article like this.
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- how to clean carpet with baking soda (720 / 461)
Meta title: Steps on How to Clean Carpet with Baking Soda | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Everyone has heard of the mystic powers of baking soda and Susie only uses all-natural baking soda, so this could be a viable option for her stain.
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- homemade carpet cleaning solution (1,300 / 510)
Meta title: Top-Rated Homemade Carpet-Cleaning Solutions | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Baking soda combined with tonic water, or apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice, etc. is something of a homemade carpet cleaning solution, and, let’s be honest, this is right up Susie’s alley. If she is facing a tough stain, she may just give a homemade solution a try.
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- how much does carpet cleaning cost (480 / 261)
Meta title: How Much Does Carpet Cleaning Cost? | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Bill, Susie, and just about everyone looking to hire professional carpet cleaners want to have an idea of what the process will cost. Some companies list pricing and if this is the case, use this data to populate this post. However, if you’d rather not list pricing, you can always give an approximate number that’s in the ballpark of your costs.
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- baby safe cleaning products (480 / 513)
Meta title: Ultimate List of Baby Safe Cleaning Products | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Acme can create an article that lists a dozen, or so, certified “baby safe” cleaning products that parents like Susie will undoubtedly want to read and share with her friends on social media.
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- how to clean carpet without a machine (320 / 136)
Meta title: How to Clean Carpet Without a Machine | Acme Carpet Cleaning
Purpose: Bill is still considering the possibility of cleaning his apartments’ carpets on his own, so he might be looking for an article like this. Ideally, Bill will learn that the process takes far too long and it would be more cost-effective to hire a professional.
4. Social Media to Get More Website Traffic
Once Acme publishes content on its site, the content needs to be shown to the right people. Who are the right people? They are all of the Susies and Bills around the world. But more specifically, they include the Susies and Bills in the Phoenix metro area who need their carpets cleaned.
Source: visual.ly
Fortunately, we know two places that Susie and Bill often frequent – Facebook and Twitter. Acme’s ideal buyers may be on other sites, like Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, or Snapchat, but for the sake of this article, we are focusing on the big two – Facebook and Twitter.
Here is how to effectively share your content on social media.
How to Share Blog Posts & Connect with Customers On Social Media
By following the steps outlined below, you should be able to promote your website content on social media and get measurable results in return.
Social Media Step One: Post at the Right Time
Posting at the right time means that you are publishing your content on social media during the times that your ideal buyer is online. For Acme’s Bill persona, the right time may be between 7:00 a.m. and noon because Bill is either getting to work and checking his email or just realizing that he needs to get a unit’s carpets cleaned.
Posting to match Susie’s times online could vary significantly due to morning activities, such as feeding her children. So afternoons, when the kids are napping, may be a better opportunity for Acme to connect with her.
Social Media Step Two: Embrace Online Communities
If you want to target a buyer persona, you should try to make your way into the communities and groups that they are a part of. By “make your way,” we are not suggesting that you constantly post information about your company and its services. Instead, by interacting with others in a natural way and becoming useful to the group. Brands like Acme cannot join groups on Facebook; however, a representative of the company can with their personal accounts.
For example, we’re going to break down how Acme can be of use to Bill in an online community. Acme can join property manager groups on Facebook and answer questions that members have about carpets, including how to clean them, tips to keep them clean, and maybe even the best carpets to buy. Acme can also create a special discount for members of the group and a property manager like Bill, who often needs carpet cleaning, will want to save money everywhere he can.
Similarly, Susie is likely a member of several social media groups herself. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was in a parenting group and possibly a local neighborhood group. If this the case, an Acme representative can join these groups and offer useful information about chemical-free cleaning and post special deals for the neighborhood.
Social Media Step Three: Post Your Content More than Once
If you have a great piece of content, and we know Acme has plenty, you shouldn’t try to perfectly time your buyer persona every time you post. Instead, post content more than once. If you posted a blog on how to clean a stain on Tuesday at 11 a.m., post it again next Wednesday at 9 a.m. If the article performs better on Wednesday, post it again a week later, then a month later, then several months later until the likes, shares, and retweets die down. Evergreen content could be useful for years down the road, so maybe certain pieces never stop being shared.
Social Media Step Four: Connect with Influencers
According to Followbright, “Key influencers are people, personalities, or businesses that already have the attention of your target audience.”
That statement sums up influencers well and should give you some insight as to why Acme wants to connect with them. For Acme, there may be a mommy blogger in the Phoenix area that has a ton of Susies following her. Or perhaps there are a bunch of Bills who follow an influencer that has a video series on how to do DIY jobs, such as patch holes in walls, replace bathroom fixtures, clean stains out of carpet, and other small projects an apartment manager may try to tackle.
See also: How to Reach Out to Influencers So that They Can’t Say No
Social Media Step Five: Reach Out
We’ve touched on this previously when discussing joining groups and being helpful to members, but reaching out can go much further.
We’re going to consider Bill’s needs – an apartment manager that needs carpets cleaned in Phoenix. Acme can actively target the Bills throughout Phoenix by searching for them and connecting directly. For example, Acme can go to Twitter’s Advanced Search and target people in the Phoenix area who meet Bill’s criteria.
Acme representatives can reach out to their Susie persona in the same fashion, but instead, they target stay-at-home moms who live in Scottsdale.
After identifying people Acme wants to follow, we simply “follow” them on Twitter and have a representative “friend” them on Facebook. If some Bills and Susies don’t follow back and accept the friend invite immediately, at a later date Acme can send direct messages with useful information related to their cleaning needs, or alert the person that there is a mention of them on Acme’s profile page, trying to win them over with kindness and get them to eventually follow.
There are thousands of ways to reach out to your buyer personas via social media. Do some Googling and get creative and you could land a massive resource pool of clientele.
Turn to V Digital Services for More Organic Website Traffic
This article is intended to educate business owners on how to get more website traffic without paid media. There are many more internet marketing strategies that we did not touch on that are also vital to successfully growing your business from the traffic your website receives, such as lead conversion, lead nurturing, and offsite search engine optimization.
If you have questions or would like more information on organic SEO or some of the topics covered in this article, please use the contact form to contact us at V Digital Services. We look forward to speaking with you.
*The information provided in this blog post was considered accurate at the time of publishing; however, some data may have changed since.
Blogging, Buyer Persona, google, HubSpot, Influencers, Keyword Planner, keywords, Scottsdale, Search Engine Optimization
Hey, I have used social networking sites as with a view to getting more traffic on my website. I got a huge amount of traffic from the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram but, the bounce rate got increased tremendously! I did not expect that. How can I get bounce rate in control when I post on the social networking sites?