Traffic is the currency of our digital world—the more traffic your website gets, the greater chances you have of making money, building brand connections, and persuading past customers to shop again. However, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, driving traffic from just a few sources, any of which could dry up and leave you with nothing.
For example, while organic traffic is critical, relying solely on visitors from search engines like Google is dangerous. “Google is continually updating and refining its search engine algorithms, [so] by investing too heavily in Google, all it takes is one mistake, penalty or algorithm update for your organic traffic to crash,” suggests Brett Bastello, SEO manager of Inseev Interactive, CIO.com.
Like a stock portfolio, you want to diversify your traffic sources so you can drive more traffic, set yourself up for long-term success, and capture as many potential customers and leads as possible. Not everyone is searching online or active on social media—some people may be avid podcast listeners or prefer receiving coupons in the mail. Diversifying allows you to reach all of those potential customers.
Plus, with a steady stream of traffic that you can rely on, you’re able to be innovative and take risks with your marketing, which the modern consumer demands.
Look past social media and Google Ads and consider how the following ideas can help you drive more diverse traffic, improving both your online presence and business as a whole.
Invest in Multimedia
Our digital-focused world continues to lean toward multimedia. In fact, 85 percent of U.S. Internet users watched online video content on various devices in 2018 and those numbers are projected to grow, according to Statista.
Not only do people love consuming video, but multimedia content allows you to reach every corner of your audience. With social media, that audience reaches far and wide and their preferences for connecting with your brand varies, which dictates whether they click through to your website or not.
As you consider investing in multimedia, remember that video is only one of three major elements of multimedia. Create content that reaches everyone within your audience using video, audio, and text:
- Video includes webinars, tutorials, interviews, and live streams. Invest in video and repurpose the content for your landing pages to drive even more traffic. Optimizely reports that that video content can generate 66 percent more qualified leads per year and a 54 percent increase in brand awareness.
- Audio includes podcasts, testimonial clips, and audiobooks. If you’re not sure whether audio is important, consider that 69 million Americans listen to audio content on a weekly basis, which is 60 percent of the U.S. population. You don’t even need to start a podcast to take advantage: consider radio and podcast guest spots.
- Text includes the typical content, like blog posts, white papers, and reports, but also includes surveys, quizzes, infographics, and flowcharts. Blog posts that contain an infographic yield 178 percent more inbound links and 72 percent more views than all other posts, reports Hubspot.
Go Digital with Print
The marketing world has been abuzz with talk of print marketing, both for B2B and B2C, because it still works. Major organizations are creating their own print magazines while small businesses are seeing more and more success with direct mail.
While 68 percent of consumers report tossing mail from a brand or retailer they’ve never heard of, 76 percent of households discuss mail from brands they’ve shopped with before and 66 percent discuss mail from a brand they’ve never heard of if the category is of interest.
The key is optimizing these print materials—whether it’s a B2C magazine or B2B return client mailer—for driving web traffic, which is surprisingly easy to do. If print is new to you, use these three ideas from Jason Frueh, founder of MyCreativeShop:
- Include a shortened URL to a website that uses dynamic elements to personalize the product options based on [customers’] location. Once there, you’re more likely to keep them on the site longer with personalized or interactive content like this.
- Include a QR code that takes [customers] to a unique landing page specific to their location, gender, or other demographic that you’re able to identify and segment. Be sure to tag the landing page so you can track traffic appropriately. If this feels so 2005, consider that nearly 10 million households scanned a QR code in 2018.
- Send birthday mailers with a QR code or link that takes [customers] to your site with an exclusive birthday deal. Just make sure they know there’s a birthday deal on the other side of the click to get entice them to take the action.
Bring Guest Posting into Your Strategy
Guest posting provides a wide range of benefits, including driving brand authority in your niche and industry. Guest posting, when done right, can also drive traffic back to your site, both directly and indirectly. While links to your site are more visible to your audience when placed within guest posts—which can drive traffic—this technique also improves SEO. Boosting your backlink profile, you increase organic traffic, driving traffic over time.
Many notable companies and business leaders have expanded their online presence and traffic metrics from guest posts.
- Danny Iny, owner of Firepole Marketing, built a seven-figure business and a monthly pageview reach of 23,000, “one guest post at a time.” (Smart Business Revolution)
- Leo Widrich, co-founder of the BufferApp, acquired 10,000 new users in just nine months by writing 150 guest posts that were published on major websites in the tech industry space. (Search Engine Watch)
- Entrepreneur Neil Patel, who used guest posts to scale his business QuickSprout, calls this one of his most “treasured” and “successful” inbound marketing tools. (Neil Patel)
If you already create high-quality, keyword-optimized content, you’re ready to get started with guest posting. To get the rest right, check out this guide, How to Boost Your Backlink Strategy With Guest Posting.
Don’t Overlook Email
Email marketing is so much more than sending email blasts whenever you have a new product announcement or seasonal sale. In fact, email marketing can be a valuable source of traffic when done right, which means considering every type of email—from content-based emails to event-triggered emails.
For example, GetResponse found that the average open rate for trigger-based emails is 44 percent versus just 20 percent for newsletters. What’s more, the average click-through rate for triggered emails is 10.39 percent, compared to just 2.84 percent for newsletter emails.
The key element: timing and relevance. You can leverage this insight to drive more traffic with trigger-based emails, while also getting more from content-based or product-based emails. Keeping the content seasonally relevant or segmenting messages based on audience demographics, can help you drive more traffic from those emails, allowing you to create a well-rounded email strategy.
Diversify Your Traffic Sources
Don’t rely solely on Google or social media to drive traffic to your website. Diversify your traffic portfolio to ensure that you enjoy a steady stream of traffic, no matter what happens with one platform or another. Don’t forget that you can repurpose content to stay active within all of these channels—spending less time and money to achieve the same results. In the end, you’ll enjoy greater peace of mind as you test new trends and innovative ideas.