The biggest hurdle that an entrepreneur faces when they launch their startup is getting traffic to the company website. After a lot of hard work carrying out market research, getting funding and setting up the operation, it can be frustrating when you are ready to start selling, but nobody is visiting the website. This is because people are not aware of your brand and you will not be highly visible online, so all of the traffic is going to the competition. Fortunately, there are a few steps that you can take which can direct more traffic to your website and help you to establish your brand in the marketplace.
High-Quality Website
First, you need to make sure that you have a high-quality website. There is no point in putting in work trying to get more traffic if you have a poor website which is unattractive, and hard to use. Companies like Slickplan can make it simple to create professional, sleek, easy-to-use and functional websites that will cover clicks into sales. You must also optimize your website content with targeted keywords to rank high on search engines.
Social Media
Being active across multiple social media channels is a highly effective way to direct traffic to your company website. Be sure to post relevant content that links to the website and engage with your target audience to build both brand awareness and reputation. Make sure that the link to your website is clearly visible on your profile so that people will click through when they visit your social media profile. In addition to this, it is also worth paying for ads on Facebook and across the web.
Create Engaging Content
Content is king in today’s marketplace, and a great way to direct traffic whilst also establishing your company as an authoritative source. Try to inform the public of the latest news or trends or attempt to solve problems so that the user will find the content relevant, interesting and helpful. Blogs are perhaps the easiest to create, but it is also highly worth looking into YouTube video marketing as YouTube has enormous reach, and a video is an engaging form of media. Instructional videos are a common form of YouTube marketing, which can generate a huge amount of traffic.
Monthly Newsletter
Following on from this, creating a monthly newsletter and distributing this to those that sign up can also bring in a lot of traffic from existing customers each month. This newsletter should contain links to all of the content that you have created this month, the latest news from your business, promotions and anything related to the industry that the reader will find helpful.
SEO & PPC
One of the most effective ways to direct traffic is to boost your visibility online. SEO will help you to raise the organic listings which will make you not only highly visible but deemed a credible source in your particular industry. PPC, meanwhile, can deliver immediate results by placing you in the sponsored section of the search engine results pages – although not as authoritative as organic listings, this is still a powerful and cost-effective way to boost visibility and generate traffic.
Influencer Marketing
Advertising is a lot more effective when it comes from someone else and especially if this is somebody with influence in your industry. Influencer marketing involves having somebody with a large following online recommended your company and products to their followers, which can increase brand reputation whilst directing an enormous amount of new traffic to your website.
Referral Programs
Customer referral programs involve encouraging existing customers to refer your company to their friends/family/colleagues for some form of reward (such as a discount on their next purchase). This is an excellent way to get more traffic, as it involves the consumer doing the work and you get access to a group that you may have struggled to reach previously.
Join Online Communities
Becoming part of the conversation in your industry will help to raise awareness about your brand and show you as a credible source. This is easier than ever in today’s day and age where there are online communities for everything (such as Reddit) where people come together to discuss relevant topics. Join these communities and be friendly and helpful to bring in more traffic to your company website.
Remarketing
When you first start out, there is nothing more frustrating than having visitors come to your website and show interest, but not making a purchase. Remarketing involves advertising the products that potential customers showed interest in as they continue to use the web – quite often this will bring them back to your website, and the click will be converted into a sale.
Offline
Whilst the majority of efforts should be made online to direct traffic to your company website, you should not forget about offline marketing too. Networking, attending industry events and getting involved with the local community can all be helpful in raising awareness about your brand and getting people to visit the website. Be sure to have business cards and other promotional material which clearly states the website’s address. This is an area that many modern companies forget about in an internet-driven marketplace, but it can have a powerful impact on traffic, but also a brand reputation as people like to put a face to the name.
Track Progress
Use tools like Google Analytics to carefully track your progress as this will allow you to see what is working and what is not. You may find that some of the above works very well and brings in a lot of traffic whilst certain tips do not, and you need to be aware of what works so that you can tailor your approach.
Getting traffic to your company website is a huge challenge and especially when you are a new startup competing against big names. Fortunately, there are many effective ways to direct traffic to your website whilst simultaneously boosting brand reputation and awareness to create lasting results.
