For many years, all website owners depend solely on Google as their source of traffic. They depend entirely on the giant search engine to gain visibility and exposure in the virtual market. Almost every site visit emanated from search. It’s the very reason why Google also became the most visited website in the virtual universe. In fact, Google’s influence triggered the advent of search engine optimization (SEO), an industry designed to make websites follow Google’s requirements so that they can be visible online.
A majority of providers of digital marketing services centered their optimization processes on Google.
It was the norm until social media emerged and allowed people to socialize online. When social media made its presence felt in the virtual world, it became an attraction for a majority of people from all walks of life. Social media became even more interesting when it evolved into a place where publishers can showcase their content to attract direct traffic.
While Google is unarguably the biggest source of traffic, you should consider other sources. This will be your measure to protect your business from consequences in case Google rolls out an algorithmic update that will affect your website. You can’t expose your site to the risk of losing traffic just because Google is changing its own game. Preserve your site’s ability to attract traffic with efficient digital marketing solutions.
The way things are currently going on the internet, it’s really prudent to consider other means to attract traffic. While it is true that SEO can do wonders to your site’s visibility, you also have to accept these glaring facts:
- You can’t get more than 4 percent of clicks to your website if it isn’t in the top 6 of the search results
- You can’t expect to get organic traffic if your website doesn’t appear on the first page of the search results
- Your website is considered invisible if it doesn’t appear on the first two pages of the search results
If you can envision how difficult it is to get to the top spots for high search volume keywords, you’d certainly think of finding other means to attract traffic.
That said, you must find a sustainable source of traffic for your website other than Google, and here are the steps to make it possible:
1. Get the Email Addresses of First-Time Site Visitors
Even with the advent of communication and messaging platforms on the web, email is still the number one social channel where you can connect and converse with your audience. With its high conversion rate, email is actually outperforming search and social media. Even though it is underrated by many, statistics prove that email is still the best marketing tool by far.
Here’s how you can use email campaigns to increase direct traffic to your website:
- Offer a Lead Magnet – No one visits a website for no reason. When people come into your site, offer them something that can arouse their interest like a free eBook, an email newsletter, or an email course related to your niche.
You may also upgrade most of your popular content from time to time. This can help to boost your conversion rates and lessen your bounce rate.
- Equip Your Site with Lead-Capturing Tools – Setup lead-capturing tools such as a left sidebar sign-up form or a pop-up to convince users to give their email. You don’t have to annoy them with a pop-up that immediately appears each time someone opens your website as it can translate to bad user experience. Give your visitors a little more time like 30 seconds to see your content before introducing your pop-up.
- Onboard New Subscribers Properly – One way to impress new subscribers is to welcome them with a warm email. It is your chance to connect with them. Take it as an opportunity to make them feel valued. One of the best ways to encourage interaction is to ask them their most pressing problem related to your site’s topic.
- Use Interesting Subject Lines – An engagement with your audience begins only after they have opened your emails. One way to make it happen is to use interesting subject lines.
2. Write Quality Guest Posts and have These Published on Authority Blogs
Having guest posts published on authority sites and blogs can help you to get traffic from the publishing site’s followers. Some sites even notify loyal followers via email every time it has published a new content. Again, this eliminates the need for a search engine.
Many sites and blogs have long disregarded guest posts because of the links they carry, but if you can find a few that are willing to publish guest posts, that would be great.
Just in case, here are a few points you can consider to get potential traffic from your guest articles:
- Target authority blogs where your audience can be found. Understand its niche and objectives then make these as the basis for the topics of your guest articles. It’s a great way to get your guest posts accepted.
- Focus on quality rather than quantity. After all that’s what host sites and their audience want.
- Spend time to upgrade your guest posts. Doing it can do good both to the host blog and your website in terms of engagement and traffic.
3. Interview an Influencer
Influencers have lots of followers who make decisions based on the influencers’ beliefs and recommendations. It is in fact the main reason why they’re called influencers.
Interviewing an influencer can be beneficial both to you as the interviewer and to the influencer as your resource person. The interview itself introduces you to a new audience and allows your interviewee to produce fresh and authoritative content to his audience.
After the interview, give your guest a copy of the interview file and ask him to share it on social media. This could drive thousands of organic traffic to your website.
If you are confident that you already have a lot to offer in terms of expertise on your niche or trade, you may volunteer to get interviewed by an authority blog. This could also give you a lot of traffic from the interviewing site’s followers.
4. Sponsor Ads on Facebook
As an operator of a business website, you know that sometimes, you need to invest on something to get results like organic traffic.
The advent of social media has made visibility easier especially if you sponsor ads on social platforms like Facebook.
To ensure the exposure of your products on social media, you should not rely solely on your followers. Invest in ads once in a while to boost your exposure and potential to drive traffic.
Another way to extend your reach and drive more traffic to your site or blog via social media is to select your most engaged post on Facebook and boost it. This will cost you only a few bucks, but the returns will certainly be higher.
Relying solely on Google search results for your online visibility can be beneficial. This is unarguably true especially if you have a working SEO and analytics process in your backend.
But with the threat of Google’s algorithm updates which are unpredictable, there’s really no guarantee that you can maintain your ranking in the long term. Do not depend solely on Google for traffic and conversions if you want your business to last long in the virtual market.
By tapping other resources such as social media, you can be sure that your business will stay visible online. Make it possible and flawless with the help of experienced digital marketing services like Muzeum Marketing.
Call us at (321) 341-9090.
