Website traffic is absolutely key when it comes to business and building your brand. However, it’s no good attracting any old lead. To see tangible results you have to drive quality traffic from visitors that are likely to convert. Therefore, it is important that users land on your website because they have a genuine interest in the product or service you offer.

There are plenty of strategies you can use to acquire more traffic, however, not all will pay off. Ensuring you drive more quality traffic, is all about offering value. To help, here’s 5 tips on how to offer value to your target market and drive more traffic.

Use your social media presence

Social media is a tried and tested way to increase website traffic - put simply, it works. Now, this isn’t a case of posting any old thing and waiting for the click thoughts. No, you need a well thought out strategy that is going to appeal to your audience. If it’s not relevant, people simply don’t care. You have a very small window of opportunity to grab a user’s attention on social media so don’t waste it.

Here’s a few tips for creating content that will drive traffic to your site:

• Ask questions and engage with your audience
• Share useful content that will help your followers
• Associate with influencers
• Use brand recognition to give people reason to shop with you
• Establish credibility and build trust
• Show brand personality (behind the scenes pictures etc.)

Once you start creating and sharing content that really speaks to your audience you’ll not only build brand loyalty but also see a clear increase in quality traffic.

Use Answer The Public to create content

This nifty little tool is ideal for understanding what your audience are asking. It will help you to understand their pain points and the things they really want to know about your industry. For example, if you own a dance shop, you could type in:

“Ballet”

You’ll then be presented with a (very well displayed) breakdown of questions that people in your target market are actively asking. For example:

“Will ballet make me flexible?”

“How do ballet dancers stretch?”

“What do ballet dancers wear?”

Using these questions, you can then create and share relevant blogs that you know your target audience will be interested in. Once they have read a useful article that has helped their specific problem or query, they will be far more likely to return to your site. Furthermore, when they do return, you’ll know that the traffic is high quality and likely to convert.

This is an underutilised part of search engine optimisation that can drive some great leads for your business.

Create clickbait

If you’re an active social media user, chances are you come across clickbait on a daily basis. “How to quit the 9 to 5 and travel”, “Save 75%, one hour remaining”, “Retire on £150 per month.” When you see a headline that really speaks to you, it’s hard not to click. Hence the term - clickbait.

This technique has suffered a bad rap over recent years thanks to its association with fake news which Google and Facebook openly hate.

However, if used responsibly, clickbait can really pay off and seriously increase your traffic. If you offer something of value, your audience will come flocking. So, when they click through and land on some really useful information or a genuine free giveaway, they will see value in your brand.

Here’s a useful article on getting clickbait right.

Guest post

If you want to set your brand apart as a thought leader in your niche, then guest posting is ideal. Spend some time researching authoritative blogs in your industry. You can use the Moz open site explorer to check that the websites you’re looking at have a good level of trust and authority. This will help avoid establishing links with spammy or toxic sites.

Once you have a selection of sites, approach them by sending a personal email. Remember that websites that allow guest posts will receive a high volume of emails so you have to make yours stand out. Be sure to explain why you would like to write for their blog specifically and include some initial ideas on the type of posts you’d like to submit.

Once you have secured a guest blog gig, be sure to create an article that really speaks to your audience. You’ll want it to be shareable and evergreen so it stays relevant for future readers. Including a link back to your website will not only provide a click through for readers but also help your overall SERP ranking.

Find influencers in your specific niche and use share triggers

In this day and age, it’s all about influencers on social media. People like people that they can relate to - that share their interests and pain points. Something that can really drive your brand visibility is having influencers interact with your content.

Brands are increasingly shifting their budgets to this type of marketing because it has proven results.

Start by hand picking a selection of influencers in your niche and working out what interests them. Have a scan through their previous posts and see if they have any pain points that your product or service can solve. You want to get their attention with your posts so it has to be relevant to them.

Rather than reaching straight out to them and asking for an endorsement, try and attract their attention in other ways. Post content that you know will interest them and then use share triggers.

Discovered by behavioural scientists including Jonah Berger and Dr. Katherine Milkman, share triggers are crucial. They are the actions on posts that we can’t help but do and act as a form of ‘social currency’ which compels people to share. This is usually for three reasons:

1. People like to look good
2. They like to share causes they care about
3. They want to stay connected

Can you remember a time when you shared a post that really struck a chord with you? Maybe for a charity that is close to your heart or an appeal for a great cause. By sharing these posts you have acted on a share trigger. They are powerful and cause content to go viral, we all remember the Ice Bucket Challenge, right?

So, when sharing something that your audience will really connect with, make sure you have a clear CTA. Whether that’s share, comment, like or visit - it has to be clear. This will hopefully lead to more shares, increased brand visibility and more traffic.

To sum up

Stripped right back to basics, the main way to increase quality traffic to your website is by providing value. This helps to build a strong connection with your target market, as , let’s face it - people don’t click on rubbish.

You need to show how your product or service will help your audience without the hard sell. Stick to the 80:20 rule when sharing content so 80% helpful, valuable content and 20% promotions and sales. This will not only help boost your overall website traffic, it will also help that visitors are genuinely interested in your products or services.

Many of the above tactics are used heavily within SEO. If you are looking to outsource your SEO to a well-established, credible company, get in touch with the team today. We cover Nottingham, Derby and the surrounding areas.