Best Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2018

Introduction

Inbound marketing. Search engine optimization. Social media marketing. These terms likely have some meaning to you and your business, whether you have read articles about their effectiveness or have even researched and implemented the strategies yourself. Indeed, they’re all extremely valuable strategies that every business should apply on some level. But they’re tactics that must be executed on an ongoing basis to ensure long-term success. The key words here are ongoing and long-term. Marketers with experience know that a fist-page result on Google doesn’t happen right away, and that it often takes time to nurture new leads that visit your website.

So what can you do to achieve instant results? Like Amazon Next-Day Shipping, you’ll likely have to dole out a few dollars to for quicker service. But these methods can and should be utilized for major campaigns — launching a new product, announcing a partnership, or advertising a sale during a holiday or exclusive time period.

Fortunately, there are cost-effctive tactics you can invest resources in to get website traffic and leads quickly. The fie methods below can complement your ongoing marketing strategy and give you an extra traffic boost quickly for your designated time period.

1.  Submit a Paid Press Release

If you’ve tried using a free press release service, you probably realized that you get what you pay for. While there can be some SEO advantages to these services, the major newswires are the ones that will get your business’s name on the search engine map and drive traffic instantly. Another significant benefit to using newswires services is their targeting abilities: you have control over publications, regions and channels that read your news. That means:

a.) You can target the audience you want. Local and regional businesses can aim their press releases at certain states and/or regions.
b.) You pay for the audience you want — and that’s it. Many newswire services offr “microlists” so you can target even further by industry — that way you know your money is well-spent reaching relevant personas.

Paid press releases vary in price based on the audiences and channels you choose, but services like PRWeb and PR Newswire offer solutions with great channel circulation starting at around $200.

2.  Run a Google Adwords Campaign

Businesses tend to have mixed reviews about the cost-effctiveness of Google Adwords. Campaign performance varies based on your company’s products and services, and the competitiveness of the industry you’re in.

In many cases, however, pay-per-click campaigns can produce real results — you just have to do some research before launching your campaign. PPC managers investigate much more than keywords when setting up a Google Adwords campaign, including:

• • Location: Similar to press release services, Google allows you to localize campaigns down to the very mile — literally. A metal stamping shop in North Branford, Connecticut can increase their bid on searches from anyone within a 15-mile radius so that when someone in that radius searches for “metal stamping,” the bid increases — making it more likely for the searcher to see it in the results.
  • Ad-Landing Page Relevance: Often companies will spend all their time determining the right keywords and headlines in each Google Ad, and not enough time on the page that the ad links to. Imagine clicking on an advertisement that highlights a 50% of sale — only to be taken to the company’s homepage. Rather than spend the time looking for the sale on your website, those visitors will likely click the “Back” button and fid an ad with a more relevant landing page. Make sure you set up a page that matches your ad’s description and makes it easy for a visitor to complete the conversion.
  • Negative Keywords: It’s the diffrence between ranking among industrial trolley clamps and trolley tourism companies.

Bottom line: when the proper steps are taken, PPC campaigns deliver real results without putting a huge dent in your wallet. A $500 campaign travels far and can generate the leads you need within a monthly time period (or even longer).

3.  Set Up a Sponsored Blog or Article

Native advertising has been generating plenty of buzz for the past couple years. The days of pop-up ads and banner ads are over: people want to be able to choose the content they consume, not have it flsh in their face.

Native advertising refers to articles and videos that look like authentic content within the publication, but have actually been paid for by a third party. Native advertisements blend with website content rather than disrupt the consumer’s experience.

Taking on the form of advertorials and sponsored articles and videos, native advertisements should be compelling, informative and relevant to the website on which it is published.

Take this article, for example, that K&B Molded Products sponsored on ENGINEERING.com. The content fits the publication’s niche audience of engineers perfectly and informs the audience of something interesting. Best of all, the link at the end points this interested audience to K&B’s website to learn more.

4.  Create a LinkedIn Post or Ad

LinkedIn is the most effctive network for B2B social media advertising because of its audience: LinkedIn members are there to network and increase business opportunities, not share photos and hashtags.

LinkedIn offers two ways to advertise:

1.) Sponsored Updates. These posts appear directly in your LinkedIn feed, allowing them to blend in easily. The drawback: you can’t change the headline or content once it’s posted, nor can you select a targeted audience.

2.) Linkedin Ads. Advertisements look more commercial and are placed to the side of LinkedIn’s news-feed. Images are smaller and copy is limited compared to Sponsored Updates; however, you can continuously test new headlines and content based on the results, which you can track easily through LinkedIn Analytic. It also offers targeting by company size, job title, and geography.

Both ad opportunities allow you to pay by cost per click or cost per impressions. Since competition is lower than Google Adwords, you may be able to get a bigger bang for your buck.

5.  Retargeting

Have you ever visited an airline website to book a flght, and then notice “Cheap Airline Tickets – Book Now!” ads follow you wherever you go online? That’s retargeting.

Retargeting places ads in front of people who have already visited your website. It allows you to catch any visitors who may have left your website to compare services with a competitor, keeping your business’s name at the top of your mind. These ads can be placed on other websites and social media channels.

Let’s say a visitor checked out your page on control valves, but didn’t take the next step to request a quote. You can use retargeting to create an ad specifially about control valves — maybe even offring a data sheet about control valves to download, or explaining how easy it is to request a quote with your company. You can then set that ad to follow the lead to diffrent websites, social media platforms, and even mobile devices.