In order to increase online traffic, it is important to understand how people search for information online. People arrive at a website either through search engines, a referral from another website, or a social media app before finally directly typing the URL in the bar.
Search engine traffic accounts for about 85% of most websites’ traffic, and therefore it is the primary way in which people get introduced to a new site. When people come from search engines, they are also “looking” for something, clearly they entered something in the search box. In other words, they are actively seeking information, products, or services. They have a defined outcome in mind.
On the other hand, when people arrive at a website by means of a social media post, a website referral, online advertising, and/or other methods, they do so without necessarily having a predefined outcome. They may “feel” attracted to a particular message and would like to prove if they are also interested in that content.
Understanding this difference is important because of what you expect to gain out of the interaction and most importantly, how to approach the interaction in order to move prospects deeper into a business funnel. People are often on a scale from actively seeking a solution to a problem to completely unaware and uninterested in a topic. And you have tons of gradients in between.
Also, consider the urgency for a solution. Sometimes people start with slight wants, which evolve over time into needs. For example, a person may have a slight discomfort in their knee that they would prefer to have checked by a doctor. But over time, as they procrastinate, eventually the knee wakes up with massive pain. In that moment, the doctor has a high level of need.
Another example is a person who wants to take care of their sink in their kitchen, but they really can’t find time to give it proper maintenance. One day, the sink finally breaks, and now there is a high level need to get it fixed.
Knowing this, you can more easily define how to attract more traffic. If you need to sell things that people don’t have an urgency for, you may need to execute a full AIDA model: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action, to attract them to your message. On the other hand, if people have urgency, you may bypass the attraction, interest, and desire phases; basically, you need to be there and available.
If people are actively searching (through search engines), you want to immediately provide the shortest possible channel to getting the solution. On the other hand, if people were introduced to your message via social media or an ad, you may want to start by providing plenty of information, educating your prospects on the benefits of choosing you.
Specific Tactics
- SEO tactics to improve visibility. Make sure to increase the content on your site. And most importantly, take care of the internal SEO factors that are completely under your control. Research keywords, then optimize your content for those keywords, and make sure that your content is written for users. Make sure that your site is solid, that URLs are unique, and that Google has a good crawl and index of your site.
- Social media. Create social profiles for your brand. And post constantly about your brand from the perspective of someone who wants to provide valuable information. Give instead of getting. For example, instead of posting: Visit my website (get it) and you could post: “Here are the two latest ways to save 50% on your Amazon Prime subscription” (give it).
- Increase your site’s presence on the web. Either through paid ads or other means such as guest posting or writing answers in forums, just make your brand where your target audience hangs out.
- Use video. Video can be used on websites and social media to attract attention and drive people back to your website. Video is much more engaging and also easier to understand for your audience. So whenever possible, use video. If possible, add quality to the video production by using various camera angles, great audio, and if possible, color correction. In essence, make your videos stand out from the crowd, and your audience will reward you.