Let’s talk about website performance. If you’ve found our resource center, you most likely already have a quality, value-adding website for your brand or service, filled with unique and useful information that is targeted at converting readers into customers. You might have even achieved some measure of popularity and are seeing an increase in traffic. But generating website traffic is only half the battle. If your website drives plenty of traffic but you aren’t finding the audiences you’re trying to target, then what is this traffic good for?
In order to generate traffic that is relevant to your site or business, you need to drive it from relevant sources. This means steering clear of traffic schemes like pop-up advertising or banner ads on irrelevant websites. These sources are increasingly subject to reader distrust and have no ability to target.
So how can you find relevant, interested visitors? We’ve collected some of our favorite targeting methods for generating website traffic below.
- Smart targeting options- If you’re advertising on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, make sure you’re taking advantage of their smart targeting options to drill down to your key audience. You can filter by age, genders, language, even broad or precise interests like country music or cat lovers. Using these filtering options will help your posts find the audiences most likely to respond to your brand.
- Geographic targeting- Use geographic targeting (geotargeting) when you advertise on Google when necessary. Google targets ads to users based on the IP addresses of the user’s computer. This can help you expand the reach of your local efforts and generate website traffic that is more relevant to your market and goals.
- Remarketing- One of the buzziest new marketing techniques, remarketing (or retargeting) tracks customers through cookie placement so you can target specific ads to specific people, based on the pages they have viewed on your website. Since only 2% of traffic converts on a first visit, retargeting is a simple, powerful way to keep your brand and product in the minds of potential customers. Check out these features on Google AdWords and Facebook.
- Behavioral advertising- like Outbrain Amplify – is another way to generate related website traffic. This method distributes your content across sites where your users spend their time and target your efforts to readers who are interested in content related to your brand or service. With Outbrain Amplify, links to your content appear as recommendations on the web’s premium publishers, exposing your website to a massive new audience.
- Forums and communities- Participate in online forums and communities that are related to your niche. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your field and increase your visibility in relevant online destinations will help to lead readers back to your website on the basis of substantiated trust. This can also include guest blogging on related sites, and invite others to guest blog for you. You’ll have access to a whole new pool of connected, engaged followers.
- Optimizing your content for search engines- SEO is a proven way to place your work before a new, relevant audience. Do your research: you want to organically increase your SEO ranking by including relevant keywords that have been shown to driver conversions. By optimizing your content to appear more often in search engine results, you will be increasing both the visibility and trustworthiness of your brand and will generate more relevant website traffic.
These tips might seem overwhelming but remember: relevant traffic means a higher conversion rate, which means a higher return on investment for you.