Top Five Tactics To Drive Website Traffic With SEO

It's no surprise that driving traffic to your blog is the key to higher conversions and increased income. Nevertheless, if people are not visiting your business online, they surely won't be completing ecommerce purchases.

However, it seems as though every business in 2018 has gone all-in on search engine optimization (SEO) to boost traffic to blogs.

Now, SEO is a useful digital growth strategy. Google alone drove 72 percent of all global desktop search traffic to blogs in the past year, according to Net Marketshare. However, as the internet grows and more companies continue fighting to rank No. 1 for the same keywords, the odds of ranking and driving enough traffic decrease. Therefore, it's in brands' best interest to discover other ways of growing site traffic.

Before marketers apply a new site traffic campaign, they should first take stock of their current traffic and analytics. Use tools such as Google Analytics and SEMRush to determine where your traffic is coming from, how long users are exploring your site, the web pages and content they enjoy the most, and when during their user journey they normally leave your site. Access to this information will allow you to create a improved, stronger strategy on the channels we'll be exploring and improve your potential click-through rates.

Then, you can increase blog traffic with these five strategies:

1. Start guest blogging.

Guest blogging on other blogs achieves several goals. Firstly, it adds a boost up of PR and improves your reliability as a professional in your business and the public space. It increases brand awareness and exposes your company to new potential customers. And, as a little bonus, it also increases SEO rankings through its links back to your site (although it still isn't the point of this article ...).

To guest blog successfully, find businesses and blogs to partner with that share a target audience and /or industry and receive enough traffic themselves to make it. If your business has a blog, you can also interview other relevant industry experts and encourage the interviewees and their companies to share the interviews on social media and their press pages.

Ask them their monthly metrics, what calls to action pointing to your blog you'll be allotted and if they will post your article on their social media channels. And speaking of social media...

2. Devote in social media.

Social media is an ever-growing market for online businesses. After all, according to Sprout Social, social media directly influences 74 percent of consumers' buying decisions. Various social media platforms can serve as both a brand builder, which will control long-term brand loyalty and traffic, as well as immediate click-throughs and traffic.

Make sure you're posting on the social networks your demographic is active on -- some quick market research will make this crystal clear. In addition, don't rely on organic postings. Unfortunately, many social media algorithms drive business posts to the bottom of newsfeeds and require companies to pay to promote. However, paid social media such as Facebook Ads are one of the cheapest forms of online advertising and can provide a strong return on investment if executed well, the key is finding a great social media marketing company to create an effective strategy.

3. Make use of email marketing.

Although there's some discrepancy as to the actual return on investment email marketing provides, sources all agree that it's one of the most useful marketing tools and provides a high return on investment. Brands can promote products, services or even content marketing initiatives with a simple email blast or newsletter.

To exploit email marketing benefits, try A/B testing segmenting and personalization. These tactics will promote a more personal relationship between you and your customers, help you decide the content and subject lines they desire, and send your emails when your subscribers are most likely to both open them and engage with them.

4. Combine video content.

Video is an very valuable yet underused form of content marketing. Although many businesses center on blogs and Integram followers, for example, video initiatives receive high numbers of shares and views. According to HubSpot's State of Video Marketing report, 76 percent of marketers say that video content has increased traffic to their blog.

Shaving startup Harry's has a great example of engaging video marketing. This short video introduces consumers to the brand, sets a cheerful and playful tone, and informs potential customers about the company's origins in an engaging snapshot. The company smartly inserted it directly on its blog as well as shared it on social media.

There are plenty of videos you can incorporate in this strategy, including brand videos, short social media clips, advertisements, informational, about and demonstrations. What's more, if it fits your brand, go a step further and offer webinars. This will digitally engage customers, provide high value to consumers and even give you the chance to collect emails, which can help you with step three above.

5. Advertise online.

While organic, non-paid tactics that drive traffic are every brand's dream, sometimes, you just can't beat advertising. Luckily, we've moved past the days of billboards and Mad Men campaigns. Instead, look to unique advertising tactics such as retargeting and remarketing.

According to ReTargeter, only 2 percent of blogs convert on the first visit. Both retargeting and remarketing rely on cookies, which are dropped on browsers, to follow users around the web. Retargeting then serves consumers ads for your blog, encouraging them to revisit the destination. Meanwhile, remarketing sends users a curated email based on their activity on your blog.

Although search engine optimization is effective and all businesses with an online presence should invest in it, SEO isn't the end-all, be-all when it comes to driving traffic to a professional blog. By investing in social media, guest blog posts, regular email marketing, video content and digital advertising, you'll be sure to increase site traffic without the outright competition that comes with SEO keywords.

Gabriel Shaoolian

Guest Writer

Founder and Executive Director at DesignRush