The four smartest ways to increase your website traffic
People are paying pretty significant dollars for website traffic these days. Pay-per-click charges of $1-15 are not uncommon. Multiply that by the 300 unique visitors per day my log furniture website gets, and you're talking at least $300 per day or $9,000 per month, depending on how many days you have in the month.
"There must be an easier way"
While pay per click can be a good business model for your website, there's nothing like free traffic to set the stage. My log furniture site used to get 100 unique visitors a day before I started getting 200, and now 300 on average. The personal goal here is 1,000 unique daily visitors, but 10,000 would be welcome too!
The following are some of the best ways we have found to increase website traffic:
#1: Website Optimization
A local business magazine recently ran an article calling SEO (search engine optimization) the equivalent of "hocus-pocus." The author of the article, who apparently worked for an SEO company, described optimization as a somewhat "shady" activity that is impossible to control. I say "Nonsense!"
SEO is not pseudoscience. It is a very tangible and real way to increase website traffic. If you haven't dealt with the basics, e.g. By making sure your website has a relevant title, focuses on the right keywords, avoids practices scorned by search engines, etc., you can be sure that once found, your website won't rank as high ( nor will you get as much traffic as you would otherwise. Start your traffic-gaining efforts by making sure your website is up to date.
#2: Post useful and relevant content
Posting helpful articles online with a link to my wood furniture website seems to generate traffic spikes almost every time. Notice that the emphasis is on "useful" items. There's a lot of useless bullshit out there by people getting paid $5 to write an article. Not to insult anyone, but I spend anywhere from 2-8 hours on the articles I write, depending on how much research is required and how technical the article is, and that costs upwards of $5.
It doesn't seem to matter what you write about. So far, my topics have included SEO, the simplicity of Amish life, improving your results, and understanding Google operators. The key is to make them relevant, short and useful.
#3: Add More Products to Your Website
Our experience has been that adding more products to the website helps us appear in search engines more frequently. A person finding a rustic nightstand on our site might notice that we have wooden bunk beds. Someone shopping for an unfinished pine chest of drawers might not be thinking of rustic furniture at all, stumble upon one of our products, like the entire site, and end up furnishing their cabin. Each product is like a fishing line thrown into the sea. The more well-described bait you have, the more "fish" will bite.
#4: Improve Your Website's Conversion Rate
Five years ago, we used to get one order for wood furniture for every 100 website visitors. Now it seems to be closer to one order per 300 unique visitors. We think part of the reason for this is that the web has become more competitive.
We are in the process of making a change right now that could really help. Someone pointed out that when you click on an item to purchase within the standard Miva Merchant interface, there is no confirmation that the item has been added to your shopping cart. This could cause some customers to believe that the website is not working properly. They may not be smart enough to check the shopping cart. They might even leave the site without ordering (kill the idea!)
These "glitches" can really hurt website sales. We went to the Miva Merchant site for third-party modules and found a script that displays the shopping cart after adding each item. We purchased the script and installed it and are looking at how it affects website sales and conversion rate. Our guess is that this will have a positive impact on sales.
Conclusion
Obviously, there are many other ways to increase website traffic. The four listed above are a great place to start. If you don't like SEO, find someone who does. If you're paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for pay-per-click traffic, it may be wise to divert enough