When website traffic starts stagnating, sliding or slumping, it's easy for marketers to whip themselves into a frenzy. But rather than panic, there are some small and simple ways you can start increasing website traffic without having to invest a lot of time or money in a whole new campaign. Best of all, these steps may continue to boost traffic even long after you've implemented them.
1. Beef Up Your Social
Social media is a huge driver of referral traffic — AdWeek reports that Facebook now drives more traffic to digital publishers than Google does. Of course, making sure your website is SEO-friendly and that you're targeting the right people with your SEM campaigns is important, but it's just as vital to make the right moves with your social strategy. Adding more posts to your schedule and interacting with your followers and fans on a more regular basis can mean the difference between website traffic that's simply satisfactory or truly great. Encourage your audience to become more social, too. One simple way is to add prominent social sharing buttons to every blog post, coupon and page you post to social media. A unique tag at the bottom of each post further encourages sharing.
2. Optimize Your Layout
Although your website may have a great layout, if it's been more than a year since you've last updated it, you may be losing traffic. Make it a priority to ensure your website is loading in under three seconds on both mobile and desktop. Also ensure that your content is readily visible on your site and has a generous text-to-image ratio, which makes it easy for visitors to read and click through. While you may need a website overhaul later down the line, optimizing your current layout will go a long way toward boosting traffic in the short-term.
3. Get the Most Out of Your Great Content
Not all blog posts are created equal. While most will get moderate traffic, every once in a while, you'll find a blog post that really resonates with your audience and generates massive traffic. If the content is evergreen, you can repost it periodically as you gain new social media followers. This is a great way to introduce new users to your most popular content and establish yourself as an authoritative brand while also increasing your website traffic. Another way to get the most from your content is to split long blog posts over multiple pages. Although not advisable for content that's less than 500 words or that has a low image-to-text ratio, if you can spread lengthy posts out between two (or more) pages without sacrificing visual integrity, you should see a boost in traffic.
Of course, coming up with new marketing campaign ideas is a great method for increasing website traffic in the long-term, but trying these simple steps in the short-term should also produce favorable results.
