Building your website is like starting a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. You begin full of confidence, thinking you’ll have it all laid out in no time. But as you start to fit the pieces together, you realize that some are missing, some don’t fit, and some look like they came from another puzzle box altogether. The process can be so frustrating that some abandon the puzzle altogether.
For those who persevered and pushed through the frustrations, good for you! You now have a website that looks great and functions well. But there’s one problem: you need to get traffic to your site.
If you’re like most website owners, you’re probably wondering how to get more google traffic. What’s the point of having a website showing off your business or services if no one sees it online? The good news is you’re not alone. If you google search “how to get more google traffic,” you get about two billion results! So the big question is, how do you get people to visit your site?
Free Traffic vs. Paid Traffic
There are two ways to get relevant traffic to your website: free traffic and paid traffic. Free traffic (organic traffic) is exactly what it sounds like: people coming to your website without you having to pay for it. Paid traffic is when you use advertising like Google Ads to reach larger audiences and bring people to your site.
The most common form of paid traffic is Google AdWords. With AdWords, you create ads and then bid on keywords that are relevant to your business. When people look up those search terms, your ad will show up in the search results. If someone clicks on the Google Ad, they’ll be taken to your website, and you will be charged a certain amount per click.
There are pros and cons to both free and paid traffic.
Free Traffic Pros
- The most obvious, it’s free!
- Once you have the traffic coming in, it generally keeps coming.
- Free traffic usually converts better than paid traffic. This is because when someone searches for something on Google, they are generally further down the buying cycle than someone who clicks on an ad. This means they are more likely to buy something from you.
Free Traffic Cons
- It takes longer to get results. The results you get from free traffic are going to take time. For some, it can take months to build up the traffic you need to see results from your efforts.
- You need to have a lot of patience and be willing to experiment with different techniques before seeing results.
- Generally, it would be best if you had some idea about SEO (search engine optimization) to make free traffic work for you.
Let’s compare this to paid traffic.
Paid Traffic Pros
- You can get results very quickly – sometimes within hours.
- It’s very targeted. You can target people based on their location, interests, and even what they have previously searched for.
- You can control your budget. You can set a daily budget and only spend that much per day on Google Ads.
Paid Traffic Cons
- It can be expensive. Depending on your industry and the keywords you are bidding on, getting traffic to your site through Google Ads can cost a lot of money.
- The traffic stops when you stop paying. Once you stop paying for Google Ads, the traffic will also stop.
- Paid traffic is not always the best quality. Just because someone clicks on your ad doesn’t mean they’re interested in what you have to say or sell. Plus, some Google Ads don’t always show the best results.
So which road should you go down? A good solution to get more google traffic is to use a combination of both free and paid traffic. You can use paid traffic to get immediate results and free traffic techniques to build your long-term traffic. Using this combination, you can quickly start seeing results from your efforts.
As I mentioned, getting organic traffic involves more work than paying for ads. So what are some free ways to increase traffic to your site?
7 Free Ways To Increase Traffic
1. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines
Search engine optimization is a must if you want people to find you. Using the relevant keywords on your website and content will greatly help this process. To help this process, a great tool you can use to find the right target keywords is WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool. This will help you find the relevant keywords to use on your site to increase search volume. Try using both short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are general keywords that cover a broad topic. Long-tail keywords are more specific and usually have less search volume competition.
2. Page Speed Is Really Important
Did you know that a whopping 1 in 4 visitors will leave a website if it takes more than 4 seconds to load? Google also sees page speed as an important ranking factor. So make sure your site is fast!
3. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
With over 60% of traffic coming from mobile devices, it is more important than ever to have a mobile-friendly site. Mobile-friendly sites need to be responsive and easy to view on smaller screens.
4. Create High-Quality Content
One of the best ways to get people to your site is to create great original content that people want to read. If you can create informative and helpful content, people will be more likely to visit your site and share your content with others. When writing your content, ask yourself four questions, would I have taken the time to read this if I was a potential customer? Is what I have written easy to read? Is what I have written unique? Does my content create a conversation?
5. Use Social Media Posts
Social media is another excellent way to boost referral traffic to your site. If you post links to your content on social media sites, you can get people to your site for free. Make sure you post links to quality content people want to read.
6. Use Forum Marketing
Forum marketing is a great free option to help drive traffic to your site. You can participate in forums related to your industry and include a link to your site in your signature. This will help people find your site.
7. Use Guest Blogging
Guest blogs or guest posts are a great free way to get traffic to your site. You can write articles for other blogs in your industry and include a link to your site. This will help drive organic searches from other blog post readers.
These are just a few of the many ways you can get traffic to your site for free. By combining these methods, you can start getting more traffic to your site and see results from your hard work.
Get Started Now!
Now that you know how to get traffic to your site, it is time to get out there and try it. Use a combination of free and paid methods. Getting more traffic to your site involves a lot of trial and error. There’s no need to be perfect, just get started and see what works for you. Experiment with different methods and find the ones that work best for your business. Don’t be afraid to try new things. The more you experiment, the better your results will be.
This guide has given you some helpful tips on how to get traffic to your site. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at Finesse Content. We understand the challenges of getting traffic to your site and are here to help.