HOW TO GENERATE TRAFFIC TO WEBSITE
Have you put your website online and are still not receiving visits? Don't worry because at the beginning, it is normal to have traffic close to 0.
When I started creating the first websites, it was very different from now. There were fewer users, but there were certainly fewer competitors. I remember, especially before social networks existed, that it wasn't that difficult to get visits.
Let's always remember that what works today doesn't mean it will work tomorrow, so let's always stay on track.
An important thing is that you shouldn't entrust your business to just one channel: you need to diversify and get traffic from multiple channels.
When you put your website online and after a week the statistics counter doesn't move from zero, you may have difficulty moving forward and continuing the project, especially if it's the first time that you create a site and have no experience in this sense.
It is easier to abandon the entire project, lose heart, feel defeated, rather than be patient and persistently continue working on it. You don't have to give up. Sooner or later, if your project is good, it will be successful. You just have to persevere.
In this article, I want to give you some real tips that will help you bring traffic to your site.
GIVE VALUE AND QUALITY, BEFORE ASKING FOR TRAFFIC.
Before getting your hands on a digital project, whatever it is, you need to be aware that to be successful you need to offer a lot of value and quality.
Before thinking about traffic, think about the content you want to share with your users. Always give value and aim for quality rather than quantity.
ARE YOU READY TO GET TRAFFIC?
You're starting from scratch; no one knows you, no one knows your business, and what you have to offer; not even Google knows you.
First of all, make sure you have done things well. Ensure that you have done a market analysis, that you have known the competitors in your niche, that you have chosen a small niche.
Imagine a restaurant. I'm wandering around the city, and I find a poster with the address of a restaurant and a photo of fish dishes. Mmm, good! Then, I take the address and choose to have dinner in this restaurant.
I arrive at the restaurant. I go in, and the innkeeper tells me that there isn't enough food. In short, they weren't ready for my arrival. The restaurant loses a customer (that would be me), and my visit was useless.
I made this up on the spot, but if you think about it, it's a bit like entering a site and not finding anything of what you were looking for.
The main problem is that we cannot see internet users; they almost seem like simple IP addresses wandering around the network. In reality, behind every IP address, there is a real person. We often forget about it. It's not our fault, but we must reflect and think that somewhere on the internet, there is a person who is looking for something, and we could solve his problem.
If I search for something on Google, it's because I want to solve a problem. The problem could be of any type, such as "What is the weather in London?", "How to create a website", "How to do meditation", and so on.
HOW TO GET FREE TRAFFIC?
A static site with just a few pages is unlikely to receive much traffic, which is why it is often recommended to also connect a blog to the site. Before putting your blog online, make sure you have written at least 10 consistent articles.
There are several ways to receive traffic for free. The first that I would like to suggest is to obtain visits from search engines by optimizing the content. The second is to work on social channels to obtain free and targeted traffic. Another method is to receive direct traffic or visits from emails.
• Traffic from Google
• Traffic from social media
• Direct traffic
• Traffic from personal emails
• Traffic from your contact list
• Buy Traffic from facebook ads
In the next paragraphs, I will tell you one by one how to receive your first traffic from each of these "channels.
01. Get free traffic from Google.
Traffic from Google is my favorite. I have always aimed for visits coming from Google, and I have worked on that. That doesn't mean I haven't also focused on other types of traffic.
Optimizing a website for search engines, doing in-depth keyword research, trying to understand both the user's search intent, and then how Google works is exciting for me.
In this article, I want to leave you with something constructive, something you can apply immediately if you have just published your website, or precisely a blog, and are waiting for your first traffic.
To be optimized, an article must answer the user's questions. And what do we know what the user wants?
Each post/page must contain the keywords that the user types into Google. Besides all this, one important thing you need to do is to report your site to Google. If you don't do this, how do you think Google will be able to find your site, index it, and show it in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)?
To make your site known to Google, you must create a sitemap (a map with all the links connected to the pages of your site) and submit it the Search Console.
I would like to be even more specific. I will certainly do so in another article, while now I want to give you an outline so you can understand more quickly how to get traffic.
Ultimately, to get free traffic from Google you need to:
• Do some keyword research
• Write articles based on keyword research
• Try to be as comprehensive as possible
• Give more than what our competitors give (very important)
02. Get free visits from social media
I would like to point out that I am not familiar with all social networks; I don't have TikTok, and I have an empty account on Twitter. I'm just reporting my personal experience with the social networks I use.
Some of the social networks to focus on to get free traffic are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube.
Each of these social networks has different benefits and purposes. For example, on Facebook, long posts (text) are fine, on Instagram, everything focuses on the image and video.
Not all social networks might be right for you. The only way to find out is to see how your competitors move on certain social networks and do some tests yourself.
If you are on Facebook, you can create a page and decide on an editorial plan beforehand. Publish a post periodically, keeping in mind that Facebook has an algorithm that shows posts to your users when a certain condition occurs. To give you an example, if you publish a post with an external link, fewer people are more likely to see this post than a text-only post with an engaging image.
In summary, to receive traffic from social media, you must:
• Create a page
• Publish valuable and engaging content
• Have an editorial plan
• Publish periodically
3. Receive direct traffic and referrals.
By direct traffic, we mean all the traffic that arrives simply by typing the site's URL in the browser bar. This traffic doesn't go through any other source; it comes completely directly.
For example, your dentist gave you his business card with his website address inside. You turn on the computer and type www.dentistdoctor.com Here, this is direct traffic.
To get direct traffic, you need to get people to know your site. Some ways to receive direct traffic could be:
• Write the site address on your business cards.
• Insert your site inside the flyers.
• Write your site's domain at the end of each email (if it is not linked, the recipient could copy and paste it into the search bar).
• Include the website URL in the images you post on social media.
• Bring the URL back into ebooks, PDFs, infographics, and all those multimedia elements you left lying around the internet.
• Be active in forums like quora and reddit.
Over time, the user may get to know you, remember you, and type your site URL directly.
04. Traffic from personal emails.
Every day, I send and receive numerous emails. In each email, I have a signature at the end where I include my name, surname, and a link to my website. One method to get more visits is by including a link to your website in the signature of each email.
05. Receive visits from your newsletter subscribers.
Having a mailing list and sending out newsletters is now an almost obligatory choice for every professional who puts their digital project online. Having a contact list has a unique advantage that no other type of marketing can give you: you have direct contact between you and your users.
I am subscribed to some "newsletters". I open them and read them regularly because I'm interested in what the authors have to tell me. Often in the newsletters to which I am subscribed, I receive news about the new articles that have been published on the websites of these professionals.
One way to receive visits is to create a contact list (or newsletter) to which you can periodically send emails, in which you can insert the link to the site's home page or to new articles.
06. Buy traffic from Facebook Ads.
If you want to receive traffic immediately, the right thing to do is to start advertising campaigns. There are two leading platforms: 1. Google Ads and 2. Facebook Ads. In this case, I want to talk to you about how to receive paid traffic by creating an advertising campaign on Facebook.
Our goal is to receive targeted traffic. We want to reach Facebook users who might be interested in our niche.
To get traffic, we start by "sponsoring" the posts we have published on Facebook. In this way, we will obtain visits to our post linked to our site, and in the meantime, we will also aim to receive other types of interaction, such as a "like" or a comment.
Another idea for receiving paid traffic through Facebook ads is to direct the user to a landing page and convert the visitor into a customer.
Conclusion
To drive traffic to website you can opt for the longer route, that is to rank yourself on the first page of Google for some keywords, receive free traffic from social media pages or channels by publishing valuable posts.
To receive traffic more quickly we can focus on advertising campaigns.
