Building website traffic can sometimes feel like standing at the start of a maze. How to increase website traffic? Where do you turn first? And where do you go after that?

Learning how to increase web traffic can give you a huge edge over the competition, though. And that’s what I’m going to teach you today.

It’s easier than you think. As long as you have a solid strategy in place, you can’t go wrong.

Website Traffic Statistics and Curious Facts

There are a few things you need to know about website traffic before we get into the meat of this guide:

• As of 2018, mobile gets more than half the Internet traffic (as opposed to desktop).
• More than 2 billion blog posts gets published daily.
• More than 4 billion people use the Internet worldwide.

Those are some pretty big numbers. However, many websites only get a few visits every day despite the billions of people they could attract.

How Can I Make My Website More Popular?

This is the question marketers hear most often. How can a new website or business become more popular?

There isn’t a single definitive answer. You can use strategies like content promotion, lead magnets, and lead-generation hacks to boost your website’s popularity. However, they won’t work if you don’t execute them correctly.

Website popularity most often starts with the search engines. If people can find your content when they search for specific keywords, you’ll get more traffic.

You can capitalize on that growth with lead generation, social media, and other tactics. The goal is to keep your website visitors focused on the content you produce, whether it’s on your website, social, or elsewhere.

How Do I Make My Website Visible in Google Search?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the first things you need to learn if you want to know how to increase website traffic and get more leads. SEO is the process of making your website’s pages attractive to search engines.

Many marketers think SEO boils down to keywords and backlinks. Both are extremely important, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Anything from social shares to internal linking to content length can impact SEO.

So can user behavior. If people stay on your website for longer periods of time, Google will assume the content is valuable.

19 Proven Methods on How to Increase Website Traffic

If SEO is the key to increasing website traffic, how do you put in place a smart strategy? That’s the question many marketers and business owners struggle to answer.

Believe it or not, many entrepreneurs don’t have an SEO strategy. They create websites, write content, and hope for the best.

Sometimes they succeed. You never know, right? But I’d rather come up with a winning strategy so I position my business to succeed every time.

How that we know how important SEO is in increasing traffic, let’s look at 19 proven methods to boost your own traffic without wasting your valuable time.

1. Upgrade and improve old blog posts to get free traffic

If you’ve written lots of blog posts without using SEO best practices, don’t just tear them down and start from scratch. Instead, go back and improve them.

Update old statistics, change outdated references, add more meaty content, and incorporate a compelling CTA. You can add images and video, too, to keep readers engaged.

Make sure the title and subheadings in each piece of content are optimized for SEO. If your content is upgraded, Google will consider it more valuable.

2. Promote your content through social media and your email list marketing

Social media and email marketing are two of the best ways to get free traffic. Link to your comment in a tweet, an email, a Facebook post, or your Instagram profile.

When people subscribe to your email list, for instance, they’re interested in content. They know you have information they want.

Link to your best-performing blog posts in your emails. Choose just one or two per email and include the featured image, a short excerpt or description, and a call to action to read on.

The same goes for social media. Make your content more clickable by incorporating images and CTAs.

3. Post on social media at strategic times to get instant website traffic

Your social media posting times can also influence web traffic. However, there’s no “right” time to post.

It all depends on your audience. Your target customers might use Facebook most often in the evenings before bed. Another marketer’s audience might check Facebook during lunchtime or upon waking in the morning.

Try posting at different times. Measure engagement on each post to figure out when your audience is active.

4. Use the Hello Bar social share feature to increase website traffic

If you have an active Facebook account, use your existing web traffic to get more Facebook followers and to cross-promote your social profile with your website.

Sign up for Hello Bar, then create a new bar. Use the “Get Facebook Likes” goal.

Create your Hello Bar using whatever CTA you prefer. Consider turning on the feature that allows the visitor to like the specific URL on which the bar appears.

Your Hello Bar might look like this:

Using this strategy, you can get your visitors to share your content on Facebook. Their audiences will see the content — and might even click through to read it, thus increasing your website traffic.

5. Increase website traffic fast with content transformation

Did you know that one piece of content can perform double duty? It’s easy with content transformation.

My business partner and Hello Bar cofounder Neil Patel does it all the time. For instance, he’ll turn his most popular blog posts into short, actionable videos.

You can use content transformation in numerous ways:

• Blog post >< Podcast
• Video >< Blog post
• Blog post >< SlideShare
• Video >< Infographic
• Podcast >< Checklist
• Blog post >< Webinar

You get the idea. When it comes to content transformation, try to choose the best-performing pieces of content.

6. Create an active YouTube channel to get free website traffic

Speaking of video, YouTube has become one of the most popular marketing channels. People visit it millions of times each day.

It’s not all funny cat videos, either. Explainer videos, animated videos, screencasts, and instructional videos can all work just as well.

Direct viewers back to your website using end screens and video descriptions. Make your videos more discoverable by tagging them, using SEO-optimized headlines, and including a transcript.

7. Create content that appeals to influencers and get free website traffic

Influencers are people who have built large followings on blogs or social media. They’re called influencers because they have tremendous influence over the followers’ shopping habits.

You often have to pay an influencer to promote your product. However, if an influencer finds you, he or she might recommend your business for free.

Create great content, then email influencers who might enjoy it. You could use a template like this:

Obviously, you’ll adjust the wording to fit the influencer and your own content.

8. Relaunch outdated content from your blog to increase traffic

Content relaunches can massively influence traffic. Instead of just updating your older content to better suit search engines, you relaunch it as new content.

In WordPress, just change the publication date to the present. Promote it widely, from email to social media, and make sure the relaunch includes tons of fresh, intriguing content.

9. Post video content and share it on LinkedIn and Facebook

Video doesn’t just belong on YouTube. In fact, it shouldn’t stay there.

If you click on the “Share” button on a YouTube video, you can click on the “Embed” tab, then use the code to post the video on LinkedIn and Facebook. More people will see your video that way.

Just don’t forget to include a link back to your website.

Embedding a video in a blog post is another great idea. You can see that I embedded one of Neil’s videos above. More importantly, I made sure to embed a video that’s relevant to this article.

10. Republish older articles as LinkedIn articles to increase your audience

Content syndication is a great way to drive website traffic. Consider posting one of your older articles on LinkedIn with a link back to your homepage or the original.

Just don’t forget to update the older article. If it contains old statistics or references, freshen it up so you don’t lose credibility with your LinkedIn followers.

11. Host giveaway events to get more traffic to your website

Everyone loves free stuff, right? Why not use that to your advantage?

Give away a bundle of your products, one month of free access to your membership site, or a free trial of your service. Giveaways are great because participants don’t have to do anything special to win.

Promote your giveaway far and wide. You can even offer additional entries to people who promote it for you on their blogs and social profiles.

12. Use “share triggers” in your content to get more website traffic

Sometimes, learning how to increase website traffic involves simple human psychology. If you understand how the human brain works, you can convince people to visit your website.

Share triggers are elements of copy that encourage people to share your content.

A common share trigger is emotion. If your content evokes feelings — anger, sadness, jealousy, excitement, etc. — people will be more likely to share it.

Positive, upbeat, and motivational content is also more likely to be shared.

You can also incorporate more obvious share triggers. Click-to-Tweet buttons are particularly useful because they make tweeting a key sentence or phrase much easier.

13. Optimize your website for smartphones to get more visitors into your website

We already know that lots of people use their mobile devices to access websites. Consequently, you have to optimize your website for smartphones.

Many WordPress Themes, such as those from Elegant Themes and StudioPress, allow you to adjust specific elements — like images and text — for specific devices. You can make an element look the way you want on desktop, tablets, and smartphones.

I encourage you to use these features so your content always looks its best. Additionally, you can create Hello Bars specifically for mobile devices.

14. Use techniques to reduce your website’s bounce rate

Your bounce rate refers to the percentage of website visitors who land on a page and immediately “bounce” away. In other words, they don’t stay on the page.

Several factors can influence bounce rate:

• Page load times
• Web design
• Copy quality
• Availability or lack of incentive

Some people bounce for other reasons, such as a lack of time.

If you want to bring people back, consider using exit popups. They appear when a user tries to close the browser and offer an extra incentive to stay on the page, such as a coupon code or free download.

15. Choose to publish long-form content to increase shares and website traffic

You might have noticed that we publish only long-form content here at Hello Bar. My articles range from 3,000 to 6,000 words. Neil Patel publishes articles that range from 2,500 to more than 30,000 words on his websites.

Long-form content offers several advantages:

• Search engines view it as more valuable.
• It keeps people on the page for longer periods of time.
• You can include more detailed information.

Instead of popping out 500-word articles every day, publish a 4,000-word article once per week. If you can write more, do so.

16. Host live webinars to get more leads and website traffic

Live webinars are great for interacting with your audience. You can teach them valuable information, allow them to ask questions, and provide them with a coupon code or discount.

They don’t take much time — typically one to two hours — and you can repost them later to drive more traffic.

Consider promoting your webinar at least six weeks before the event. Allow people to sign up on a landing page, then email them several times before the webinar to remind them about it.

17. Find what type of content your audience wants and deliver it to them

Some people like to read long articles. Others prefer to watch videos. Still more enjoy listening to content while on the go.

Consider polling your audience. Ask them what type(s) of content they prefer so you know how to deliver what they want.

If your audience doesn’t like to spend time reading articles, you’re wasting valuable marketing bandwidth on long-form blog posts. However, if you have an audience of voracious readers, writing 300-word posts or publishing videos will miss the mark.

18. Post more list posts to increase website traffic

People love list posts (kind of like this one!). Lists convey an immediate benefit and scale. They tell the reader exactly what to expect.

You’ll notice that list posts dominate many blogs. You can create a list of tips, strategies, products, mistakes, problems to overcome, or anything else that comes to mind.

Make sure to include the number of list items in the title. That’s the key to getting people to click.

19. Consider guest blogging to get more website visitors

Guest blog posts allow you to tap someone else’s audience. For instance, Neil Patel has written guest posts for major publications like Inc., Entrepreneur, and Forbes.

You’ll notice from Neil’s profile page that he automatically gets links to his Twitter feed, contact information, and blog RSS feed. These are invaluable for driving traffic.

Additionally, he includes links to his own blogs in these guest posts. People who click through might read more than that one article.

They might even become customers.

Conduct a Google search for your industry + guest posts. For instance, your search query might look like this:

The results will include several pages on websites that accept guest posts. From there, submit your pitch and wait for the green light.

Bonus Tips on How to Increase Website Traffic

Now that we’ve covered 19 tips on how to increase website traffic, we have a few bonus tips to share. They’ll help you boost your traffic even further and gain more insight into your visitors.

Use all of these tips or just a select few, but always test your strategies. If one doesn’t work, move on to the next. Keep in mind that every business’s audience is different, so what works for me might not work for you.

• Get paid traffic: Consider running paid ads to get a spike in traffic. You don’t have to run them forever. Once you have a following, you can switch to organic methods.
• Retarget visitors with Facebook Ads: Facebook, in particular, lets you target ads to people who have visited your website before. It’s a great way to bring visitors back into the fold.
• Create lookalike audiences with Facebook Ads: Lookalike audiences are also valuable. They find people who have visited your website, liked your Facebook page, or otherwise interacted with your site, then locate people in similar demographics.
• Tap into influencer ads: If you can’t find an influencer to promote your product for free, consider paying one or more influencers to talk about your product.
• Use Google Ads to promote some of your best content: Google Ads allows you to run search engine ads as well as network ads. A Google Ads freelancer is your best option if you are not confident or skilled enough to run your own ad campaigns.
• Learn SEO strategies to increase website traffic: SEO is essential to well-performing content. Get people to click on your content through paid ads.
• Find great keywords to increase website traffic for free: Consider conducting some keyword research to learn what your target audience is searching for. Start with a simple, free tool like Ubersuggest.
• Target long-tail keywords to rank faster and get more website visitors: Long-tail keywords (keywords with more words) tend to perform best. They have less competition and are more specific to your target audience’s actual searches.
• Optimize your content with LSI keywords: While you should always start out with a primary keyword, consider using LSI (related) keywords, too. For instance, if your primary keyword is “lead generation,” LSI keywords could include “lead gen,” “get more leads,” “lead targeting,” and “generate leads.”
• Improve your click-through rate to rank better on Google: Your click-through rate is the percentage of times when people click on your content. Use compelling images, headlines, and CTAs to boost your click-through rate and make your content more attractive to Google.

Use Hello Bar to Get the Most Out of Your Website Traffic

Attracting more website traffic is great. In fact, it’s one of the first metrics you should focus on when launching a business or website.

However, traffic becomes a vanity metric when it doesn’t produce any results. If your visitors simply consume your content and click away, they don’t hold as much value.

You want them to become leads and, eventually, customers.

Hello Bar can help you convert your website traffic. Your Hello Bar can appear wherever you want on your site and provide your audience with an incentive to take action.

Let’s say that you want more people to join your email list. Use the “Collect Email” goal when creating a new bar.

You can then customize it however you like. Decide what information to collect, how your Hello Bar should look, and even the cookie duration.

There are tons of ways to use Hello Bar to maximize your traffic. Encourage people to view a related article, make a special announcement with a coupon code, or invite people to follow you on social.

Make sure to A/B test your Hello Bars to figure out which work the best. Hello Bar makes A/B testing incredibly easy because you don’t have to wade through lots of data. Instead, the software tells you which version proved most popular.

Conclusion

Learning how to increase website traffic can help you get leads and grow your sales.

The more you understand about SEO and website traffic, the easier it becomes to make your website more popular.

Tools like Hello Bar make it even easier.

Combine the 19 traffic-generation tips above to get more visits to your website and convert them into leads.

What’s your favorite way to increase website traffic?