If content is king, web traffic is queen. In addition to optimizing SEM to increase organic engagement on a website, brands need to have a strategy for bringing their products and services to niche audiences. Here are 4 hacks for driving targeted traffic to your site.
4 Hacks For Driving Targeted Traffic To Your Site
1. Target Specific Audiences with Google Adwords
Google Adwords is a PPC-based advertising platform that drives targeted traffic to your website by showcasing ads on the pages of relevant Google searches. For many brands, it is an affordable solution to get their products and services in front of consumers.
How it works:
Users create ads based on keywords related to their brand.
For example, in the search result above, “proofreader” was used as a target search word. Whenever a user searches for this term on Google, Grammarly, Proofreading Pal or another proofreading service that has bid on this word will appear on the page (of course, the higher the bid, the more the brand is given priority in search results).
Optimizing your campaign beyond your desired keywords and phrases ensures that you show up in relevant Google searches.
Set Negative Keywords
Adwords is a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) platform. This means that you are agreeing to pay for any and all clicks that direct to your site.
For example, if you have a company that offers press release distribution yet still have “press and release” as a targeted phrase in your campaign, you will be charged every time a user searching for that term links to your site.
You can list “press and release” as a negative search term so you are not penalized/charged when users Google that phrase.
So make sure you optimize your campaign with keywords that will help you reach your intended audience.
Add Additional Sitelinks
You can also optimize your campaign by adding on more sitelinks to your advertisement.
In this example, “Electric Guitars”, “Acoustic Guitars”, “Acoustic-Electric” and “Left-Handed Guitars” are the sitelinks. Sitelinks are essentially links to specific pages on your website (other than the landing page).
You can tailor these hypertext links to certain products, promotions (“10% off), or even to create a sense of urgency about limited offers (“Today Only”).
SEE ALSO: How To Measure Social Media ROI In Google Analytics
2. Share Eye Catching Content on Instagram
There are quite a few visual content-based social media platforms. But when it comes to engagement, Instagram takes the cake.
What makes it difficult to build an audience and increase engagement on platforms like Twitter is the sea of noise. In minutes, a new post becomes an old one. This is why brands have to retweet content more than once in order be seen by those who might have missed their content earlier in the day.
On the other hand, Instagram is scannable and scrollable. Users can navigate to posts from weeks or months ago in seconds.
On average, brands report higher engagement on Instagram than Twitter; with virtually the same marketing efforts.
Focus on delivering visually appealing content (including the underutilized short video) with plain text that is straight and to the point for more engagement. If your post is unsponsored be sure to include a call to action in the description that encourages viewers to visit your desired link.
3. Include Pinterest in your Cross-Promotion Strategy
Pinterest can also be used to promote content and drive targeted traffic to your site.
The key to successful engagement on Pinterest is cross-promotion.
- Pin other users’ relevant content to your boards
- Share your own content across your social networks (Pinterest embeds into most social networks)
- Choose the Save From A Website tool rather than uploading an image from your computer (Thus linking users back to your site)
Your content marketing efforts shouldn’t live in a vacuum. So share them across your social networks.
4. Gain Backlinks
Backlinks are links to your website from other sites. When you find a link on a tech blog to a site where you can purchase the latest gadgets, that’s a backlink.
One of the most overlooked ways to increase backlinks is to connect with relevant influencers in your field.
Someone in real estate might connect with real estate blogs or websites for opportunities to promote their services. Connect with people who have the power to give your brand credibility.
SEE ALSO: 5 Ways To Gain-Quality Backlinks Through Content Marketing
Another way you can increase backlinks is creating content as a guest blogger.Perhaps you have unique insight into the latest growth or decline in property value in your city or state. Generating backlinks as a guest blogger not only gives your brand more credibility, it can also increase Google ratings.
In Conclusion:
Brands should have several marketing strategies to find and be found by their niche audiences. Increase traffic to your site by promoting content across your social networks (in ways unique to each social network) and optimizing your PPC campaigns.
Is your digital strategy optimized to drive targeted traffic from external websites? What other strategies do you recommend?
