If a tree falls in a forest but nobody was there to see it, did it really fall? By that logic, if you launch a stunning website packed with brilliant copy and unique products but nobody clicks on it, did it really launch?

With so much online content competing for your audience’s attention these days, increasing your website traffic sustainably feels like an uphill battle. Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula for guaranteed growth. But there are a few magic tricks to put your website on the path to success, without spending a fortune.

What is website traffic and why should you care?

Stripping it back to basics, website traffic is the number of people who have visited your website, measured by tools like Google Analytics. You can break this number down further to get an idea of who your guests are, including:

  • How they found your website
  • How long they visited for
  • The pages they clicked on – invaluable data for understanding your conversion rate

The good news (or bad, depending on how you look at it) is that the internet doesn’t discriminate. Whether you’re trying to entice your 1st or 1000th visitor over the threshold, everyone has to work just as hard as each other to grow traffic.

Before going full steam ahead on fast growth, it's a good idea to check that your website can handle high traffic in the first place.

How to increase your website traffic

Although we can’t wave a magic wand to miraculously boost your site visitors, we can give you the spell-book with a few hints.

1. Find the right keywords

The website visitors you’re most likely to convert to customers are those who have intentionally searched for a solution to their problem – a problem your product or service can hopefully answer. This is why finding the best, most effective keywords to focus on throughout your website is a must.

Use a keyword planning tool, like Google Ads or Keywords Everywhere, to narrow down the search terms that are most relevant to your brand and likely to rank for SEO. If you’ve just launched your site, go for long tail phrases that have less than 10,000 searches a month. Gradually increase this as you add more and more content to your website, blog, or online store.

2. Crawl your site

If you’re primarily focusing on SEO, submit your website to a search engine for crawling – we promise it’s not as creepy as it sounds! This means that a bot can analyse your website and index information to increase your odds of ranking for relevant search queries. You can do it easily for Google using Search Console.

3. Run a paid media campaign

The fastest way to see significant traffic growth is by implementing a paid media campaign. Also known as pay-per-click (PPC), this strategy could see your business ranking among the big dogs on Google in no time. However, it’s important to keep an eye on your budget as PPC costs can rack up quickly.

When you link to another site, or they link to you, you’re essentially telling the search engines that you trust them. The more backlinks, the more trustworthy you are and the higher you rank.
Our tips:

  • Earning backlinks – Create good quality content so people find your website organically and link to your page as a useful resource on their website.
  • Creating backlinks – Comment on other websites, forums, or blogs.
  • Building backlinks – Reach out to other website owners and encourage them to share your site.

5. Keep an eye on your competitors

Whatever industry you’re in, there will always be competition – unless you’re doing something extremely niche like a Pet Psychic Agency (but hey, there might be more than one of you out there). A sure-fire way to come out on top is to outrank them.

Once you’ve chosen your keywords, try searching for them yourself to see where other companies rank and adjust your keyword bids accordingly. The bigger the business, the higher its marketing budget is likely to be. So compare apples for apples and look at similarly sized companies to get a fair representation of the keywords to compete for.

It doesn't stop there. Spy on your competitors’ ads, social media, and other channels that drive traffic. Note what works and what doesn’t and take the good bits to use in your own strategy.

Say goodbye to the grunt work

That was a lot to digest and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are infinite ways to tweak your site and streamline your strategies to continually improve traffic. But who has time for that?

We do. We’re here to take the load off. With our online marketing tools, you can keep an eye on everything in one place. And you don’t have to be an expert to understand it. From generating ad ideas to real-time insights on who’s saying what about your brand. Say ‘hello’ to hassle-free marketing!