Improving website traffic is integral to achieving your business goals. Like growing brand awareness, attracting leads, and increasing revenue.
That means it’s smart to invest time, money, and effort into increasing traffic to your site.
By the end of this article, you’ll know how to quickly improve traffic, some long-term ideas for generating traffic, and even why your traffic might be low.
Let’s start.
How to Improve Website Traffic Quickly
Paid advertising and influencer marketing can net immediate spikes in traffic.
But these tactics depend on your budget. The more money you invest into paid efforts, the more traffic you’ll likely get from them.
When your spending stops, traffic inevitably drops. Unless you also invest in long-term ideas for improving website traffic (which we’ll go over later).
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is a digital marketing model where you pay to have your ads shown to specific audiences.
For example, a sponsored post on social media or at the top of Google search results.
Common types include:
- Search engine advertising: Ads are shown at the top of search results in search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and others
- Social media advertising: Sponsored ads appear on the social media platform of your choice. Like Instagram feed ads, pre-video YouTube ads, and more
- Display ads: Ads are shown on online properties that are part of an ad network. Like banner ads on other websites.
Interested in paid advertising, but not sure where to begin?
The Advertising Research tool lets you easily explore your competitors’ PPC advertising strategies, so you can understand what works. And how to do it better.
Start by entering a competitor’s domain and location. Click “Search.”
Scroll down to “Paid Search Positions” to explore the terms your competitors’ ads are displaying in Google for.
To see the actual ads, click “Ads Copies.”
Review several competitors to gain inspiration, but don’t copy exactly what they do. Each brand has unique needs, tones of voice, and audiences.
Take time to learn about crafting and executing the right pay-per-click (PPC) strategy for your business.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is the collaboration between brands and individuals who have large online followings.
Investing in sponsored content and influencer partnerships can quickly increase traffic to your website.
For example, Walmart worked with Kayli Boyle to publish Instagram posts that mention Walmart and its products.
In the post description, Kayle encourages her followers to check out and purchase a specific hair care product line at Walmart.
To launch a successful influencer marketing campaign:
- Focus on audience alignment: Make sure the influencer is targeting the same audience as you
- Prioritize engagement over followers: You don’t need to work with the biggest influencers to see results. Explore smaller profiles with engaged audience bases.
- Provide creative freedom: Find an influencer whose style of posts you like. And allow them to infuse your brand into their content naturally.
How to Improve Website Traffic in the Long Run
Long-term tactics build over time and typically require lots of upfront effort and patience.
But they can produce lasting results, predictable website traffic patterns, and business results.
Let’s learn more.
Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
Using search engine optimization (SEO) practices aimed at improving your site’s visibility in search engine results can help you gain more traffic—and possibly more customers.
In fact, users are 10 times more likely to click the top organic search result compared to the 10th.
There’s a lot that goes into SEO, but the improvements you can make on your own website center around:
- Doing keyword research to identify relevant keywords (terms your audience types into search engines to find information, products, and services)
- Creating high-quality content centered on your keywords thatyour audience will enjoy reading and interacting with
- Using technical SEO best practices to improve the technical aspects of your site to make it easier for search engines to find and understand. And to make the experience better for users.
Knowing the keywords your target audience uses is an important first step to take before you can create content that addresses your audience’s needs and wants.
For example, a website selling bridal jewelry might want to rank for keywords like:
- “bridal jewelry”
- “wedding jewelry”
- “wedding jewelry for brides”
To identify the right keywords for your website, conduct keyword research.
The Keyword Overview tool is helpful for this. Let’s see how it works.
Open the tool and enter a keyword related to your business you think you might want to target. Then, click “Search.”
You’ll see an overview of the keyword with key metrics including:
- Volume: Average number of monthly searches
- Keyword Difficulty (KD%): A percentage which shows how hard it may be to rank in the top 10 results for this keyword
These metrics help you choose and prioritize keywords.
For instance, keywords with low difficulty and high search volume are ideal—assuming they’re relevant for your website and business.
These are typically easier to rank for. And still bring in more traffic.
If your initial term doesn’t seem like a good option or you simply need to find more ideas, head to the Keyword Magic Tool and enter a broad term related to your brand to uncover potentially thousands of ideas.
After selecting keywords, you’ll need to create and optimize content to rank for them. By:
- Understanding what users want: Review the content already ranking for each keyword you want to rank for. Analyze content format, length, and the information covered.
- Creating helpful content: Cover the topic thoroughly and present it clearly. Address search intent (the reason someone entered a specific search term).
- Writing for your audience: Write content that your audience wants to read and interact with. Because the search engine’s ultimate goal is to give users what they asked for. When you write for users, you’re also optimizing for search engines.
You’ll also want to fix any technical issues that could be causing a poor user experience or negatively affecting your rankings.
The Site Audit tool can help you fix these problems.
Issues are grouped into three categories:
- Errors: Things you should fix as soon as possible
- Warnings: Things you should fix after dealing with errors
- Notices: Things that aren’t considered issues, but it’s recommended you fix them for better results
Click “Issues” to see a list of all issues and the number of affected pages.
Click “Why and how to fix it” to understand each issue and get advice for how to solve it.
After resolving issues, re-run the Site Audit. The errors you fixed should disappear from the list.
Earn Backlinks
Getting backlinks from authoritative websites act like votes of confidence that signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and deserving of rankings.
This can lead to greater visibility. And ultimately generate more traffic.
Links on other sites can also lead more people to your site from that page. Increasing your referral traffic.
The best backlinks are those from reputable, relevant sources. And they add value to the content they appear in.
To attract more backlinks:
- Turn unlinked mentions into links. Check if your site is mentioned online without a link. Then, ask website owners to include a link to your site.
- Become a guest author. Write content for reputable websites in your niche and include a backlink (if allowed)
- Go on podcasts and interviews. Become a guest on podcasts and include links to your site in the bio you send out to your interviewers
- Become a source for journalists and writers. Use services like Help a B2B Writer and Qwoted to share your insights and be featured in reputable publications
Use the Backlink Gap tool to help you find link building opportunities quickly. By looking for relevant websites that link to your competitors but not to you.
Enter your domain and up to four competitor domains. Click “Find prospects.”
You’ll see a list of websites that link to your competitors but not to you.
Explore these opportunities to find easily replicable backlink opportunities.
For example, a podcast where you can be a guest.
Build Your Social Media Following
Social media can be a great website traffic source.
Claim your brand name and create profiles on all relevant networks, so your audience can find your profile (and website) wherever they spend time online.
That doesn’t mean you should focus immense effort on every social media channel. Instead, focus on a few channels where your audience is the most active and responsive. And where it makes the most sense for your business.
Use One2Target to find out where the audience in your niche is the most active.
Open the tool, enter up to five competitors. And click “Analyze.”
Click the “Behavior” tab to explore platforms.
Review the “Social Media” section to find out which social media networks your target audience uses the most.
For better social media results and increased website traffic:
- Experiment with different types of content
- Maintain a consistent content calendar on your key platforms
- Engage your audience by consistently responding to their messages, questions, and comments
Encourage Visitors and Customers to Return
Engaging an audience that already knows you is easier than attracting a new one, so encourage past visitors and customers to return to your site.
To win back previous visitors:
- Send out a newsletter: Keep your audience engaged by sending consistent newsletters with latest content and updates
- Enable SMS and push notifications: Inform your former customers about the latest deals and promotions on your site. But only contact customers who’ve consented to be reached in this way.
- Offer customers to join a rewards program: Incentivize your loyal customers to come back to your online store
Mention Your Website in Other Locations
Mentioning your website in other marketing materials is a quick and easy way to increase website traffic through activities you already do or plan on doing.
Here are some examples:
- Events: If you’re organizing or sponsoring an event, include links to your website in promotional material/email invites
- Out-of-home (OOH) advertising: Investing in billboards, posters, or transit advertising? Include your site here as well. Just make sure the link is short, simple, and easy to remember. Or use a QR code.
- Email signatures: Make sure all company email signatures contain a link to your website. To make it easy for the people you’re in touch with to visit your site.
- Press releases: When issuing a press release, add relevant links to your site. Which can also increase the number of backlinks (just note that they might contain an attribute that makes the SEO impact less).
Here’s how jewelry brand Kendra Scott highlights important links in press releases: A link to the collection they’re promoting as well as their home page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Is My Website Traffic So Low?
Your website traffic could be low for many reasons.
If it’s new, it can take time to see traction. Or you may not be optimizing your pages to give your audience what they’re looking for.
How Long Does It Take to Increase Website Traffic?
It depends on your chosen strategies.
If you invest in paid advertising, you could see increased website traffic within a few days, depending on the quality of execution and budget.
Long-term approaches like SEO may take up to six months to gain traction.
Start Improving Your Website Traffic Today
You’re now equipped with many ideas on how to improve website traffic.
Naturally, some options will provide better results than others. So, monitor your metrics and double-down on activities that bring the most value for your business.
The Semrush toolkit supports you throughout this entire process. Including finding keywords, discovering link building opportunities, tracking your rankings, and fixing technical issues on your site.
Sign up for a free 7-day trial to explore how you can improve your traffic.