How to increase web traffic and generate more leads: 10 actionable steps

Your website has huge potential for organic lead generation. You just need to get it purring…

To see quick impactful results in digital marketing, there are certain steps you can follow to get your website and social channels looking, feeling and working great, bringing in a ton of organic traffic, generating new leads and accelerating growth.

To help you get started right away, we’ve broken our proven process down into 10 actionable steps that you can follow to get your website working for you 24 hours a day. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Research audience, competitors & keywords
  2. Optimise your website
  3. Establish your digital strategy
  4. Optimise your content
  5. Create strong content
  6. Develop a backlink strategy
  7. Guest blog
  8. Get active on social media
  9. Connect with influencers
  10. Nurture existing contacts

Below you’ll find each stage of our process broken down into detailed chunks that will help you make the necessary changes, all geared towards optimising your digital performance to drive growth and increase revenue.

If you have any questions at all regarding our process, please get in touch, and one of our lovely experts will be happy to talk you through it.

Step 1: Research

Research is fundamental when working out how to get more direct traffic to your website. Too often, businesses throw themselves gung-ho into a certain marketing approach without understanding the reasons and data behind it, and without knowledge of its specific application to their industry and their audience.

Researching key areas before you dive in will save you a lot of time, effort and money as you progress. Know what’s out there. Know your goals and targets. Then you can outline how you’re going to make them happen.

a) Research your audience

This is the single most important ingredient in any successful marketing strategy, and so is vital when it comes to increasing web traffic.

With a well-researched understanding of a key audience personas, you’ll be able to consistently connect with the right people in the right places at the right times, delivering content that is fine-tuned to their needs, challenges, and habits, which will increase direct traffic to your website.

The most effective way to gain a true understanding of your audience is to pursue just one buyer persona at a time, making sure to fully delve into who they are. 

What interests them? What challenges do they face? What keeps them up at night? These are the sort of questions you need to ask and answer to gain a full understanding of the type of person you are trying to reach through your website, your content, your social media strategy, etc.

Download our buyer persona template.

Do this early, and do this well, and everything you do next will have far more impact on your audience. This is how to get web traffic to your site, and how you build the right type of audience (full of qualified leads) for your business.

b) Research your competitors

Using sites like Buzzsumo, you can easily research the types of content your competitors are creating to reach this audience. You can see the types of content that are effective, which headlines are working, what’s getting shares, what’s receiving backlinks, etc.

Beyond this, you can start to understand where the traffic is coming from and where it is distributed, allowing you to make more acute decisions in the later steps as you look to tap into and connect with these audiences.

c) Research your keywords

SEO is key if you’re serious about increasing your website traffic. You need to research and then select the list of keywords that you will target. If this is something you haven’t done already, there a few important things you should do to get started:

Download our 2018 keyword planner. 

  • Use Google Search Console to check which keywords you’re already ranking for between position 1 – 100. This will suggest areas of focus. It’s much easier to start ranking on the first page for keyword terms that are already almost there.
  • Next, check which keywords your competitors are ranking for.
  • From this, you should build a large list of possible target keywords. This should include long tail keywords and query searches.
  • Then, select the keywords that have the best balance between search volume and competitiveness.
  • We suggest focusing on a small number of keywords, to begin with, this will offer the greatest effect in the shortest period of time.
  • Once you’ve laid the groundwork, you can gradually expand.

Step 2: Optimise your website

Your website needs to be fast and responsive, otherwise, visitors won’t hang around for long. You don’t want to expend a lot of resources to boost your website traffic only for visitors to leave straight away because the website isn’t up to scratch. You need to keep them on your website and make them want to come back for more!

a) Know your current website traffic statistics

If you don’t already measure website traffic, you need to get Google Analytics (or equivalent) set up and ready to go. Being able to measure and track your success is pivotal to the entire process.

Take note of where you are currently. Levels of direct traffic, bounce rate, etc. and decide on some (maybe 10) key metrics to track, such as:

  • Unique visitors
  • Page views
  • Average time spent on site
  • Bounce rate

Each strategy you put in place can be measured. If it’s working you can stick with it, if it isn’t you can change it up. This is a malleable and reactive process. And that’s why it’s so effective.

b) Create an easy to navigate user experience

Visitors need to have a path laid out for them. Guiding them from content piece to content piece (via internal links), or from service to service. Everything should be super clear and super easy to navigate.

c) Have engaging and clear copy throughout

Amazing copy makes this process far easier. Visitors should be informed, engaged and entertained in all the right places. Offering just the right amount of information to guide their journey through your website and your sales funnel.

d) Utilise on-page optimisation

Each page of your website should target a unique keyword and have a unique description. This will enhance its visibility in search engines and get website traffic relating to the specific service or purpose of that page.

e) Use internal links

Just the right amount of internal linking will allow people to move around and through your site in a way that allows them to get the most value in accordance with their specific needs.

When doing so, it’s important to use the right naturalistic anchor text, making sure to link to relevant content. Never include internal links for the sake of it, and don’t overdo it (5-10 per article is the golden zone).

f) Be mobile friendly!

In 2018, way over half of time-spent online is on mobile devices, already at 61% in the UK and 71% in the US in 2017. Because of this, your website must look good and work well on mobile. If not, many new visitors will immediately turn away from your brand.

Once your website is looking, feeling & working great across desktop and mobile, it’s time to start outreach to bring maximum visitors to your website.

Step 3: Establish a digital marketing strategy

The digital landscape is constantly changing and throwing up new and exciting opportunities for B2B businesses, which means you need to understand how to develop a digital marketing strategy fit for 2018.

Your strategy should include/focus on:

  • The primary goal of your content (I.e. Increase website traffic)
  • Your defined buyer persona(s)
  • What added value you are offering
  • A content calendar
  • How you will maximise the effect of your content with that audience (advertise, PPC, SEO, etc.)

To do this effectively, you should work across various types of content formats (Blogs, eBooks, videos, podcasts, infographics) depending on what your research tells you about which type of content effectively engages across your industry and audience for that topic.

Step 4: Optimise your content

Before ideation and content development, you need to learn how to make strong optimised content. Content that will work for you!

Most importantly, you should learn how to…

a) Write mouth-watering headlines

Without a compelling and engaging title, even the very best content can go unseen and unshared. This is key to getting your content out there.

You should optimise your titles for social traffic and search traffic, and learn how to write catchy headlines for your content, taking time to look up which headlines have been successful for similar content and what types of headline perform well on the social channels you are targeting.

b) Target long-tail keywords

On top of your high commercial intent keywords, you need to know how and when to target long tail keywords, which make up most of the searches online.

Using Google’s Keyword Planner, you can begin with a relevant seed keyword, let’s say ‘marketing’. Then by clicking ‘Get Ideas’ and going to the ‘Keyword Ideas’ tab, you can see which keyword variations are in demand. From here you can select long-tail keywords (4+ words) which will tap into specific searches and be far easier to rank for.

Whether it’s via SEO or PPC, consistently targeting long-tail keywords can be a highly effective way to increase the quantity and quality of site traffic coming your way.

For more info on how to get started with long-tail keywords, this is a great place to begin.

Step 5: Create strong content

There are many great ways to generate leads for your business, but strong content is by far the most effective.

Based on your audience research, and optimised for maximum effect, your content needs to answer questions, offer solutions, and add value to your niche! Get the balance right, and market it correctly, and you could see a tidal wave of new visitors coming your way.

Your B2B content needs to…

  • Hook people in
  • Be attuned to your buyer persona
  • Be digestible
  • Be skim-able
  • Tell a story
  • Incorporate visuals
  • Keep people engaged throughout

To maximise the effect of your content offering as a whole, you can also…

a) Conduct a content audit

A content audit means simply getting rid of existing content that has grown irrelevant or off-brand, or alternatively, adding to or improving content that may simply need sprucing up or consolidating.

You should check for and update…

  • Formatting
  • Image quality
  • Writing quality
  • Is the gist clear?
  • Titles & meta descriptions
  • Are there enough (internal & external) links?
  • Could it be repurposed / built on / used as a guest blog?

This process can make your online presence more streamlined and can improve your SEO ranking.

In late 2018, Google is looking for quality. Trimming the fat off your content offering will leave you in a much better position going forward.

Step 6: Develop a backlink strategy

Acquiring backlinks is a great way to increase the domain authority (DA) of your website, which offers a huge boost to how your website performs in search engines. Your DA is a score from 0-100 which effectively denotes how valued your site is within the greater online network.

If you can acquire backlinks from big sites with high DA, your ranking will soar and you’ll get a ton of new traffic coming to your site. For every 1 point your domain authority goes up, your site becomes 8x more powerful in search engines. That’s a lot more powerful.

Step 7: Guest Blog!

Guest blogging is a great way to expand your network of backlinks. To get your content published or republished on relevant sites with high DA, you need to develop strong, relevant content and approach them in the right way.

You should:

  • Pitch original content first
    • Offering several possible headlines/overviews that are similar to their highest performing content
    • Do everything you can to make it impossible for them to say no!
  • Once they’ve agreed, make sure to match their tone, style & post length
  • Once the relationship is established, you can start to pitch content from your site to be republished

Just remember, it should never seem like spam, it should always add value to their site and their audience. It should be a win win!

Step 8: Be active on social media

Being active on social media means far more than just posting your content. It requires consistent interaction and engagement with your relevant audience on the right channels.

It’s important to optimise content and TOV for each channel you’re active on. Over time, you’ll see what performs well, what doesn’t, and you can make adaptations based on what you see.

To ensure consistency, you can schedule posts to be released at the times where activity is at its highest (something that differs from platform to platform).

Just make sure everything is on brand, looks great and is tapping into your audience insight.

A few extra tips to consider:

a) Share content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has grown into a huge and varied platform for all things professional and should be high on the list of priorities when it comes to audience engagement in B2B.

Sharing content on LinkedIn can keep clients informed and educated and will serve to keep your brand present in mind throughout your following and beyond as content is shared between networks. This will bring more and more qualified leads to – and back to – your website.

b) Tap into Reddit communities

Reddit is an extraordinarily underutilised business tool, which is a shame, as it can be one of the most effective when used in the right way. You need to find out if/where your audience is active on the site, interact with those communities and then offer up great content when the time is right.

Here’s a great actionable article with everything you need to know about getting started with marketing on Reddit.

Step 9: Connect with influencers

As well as reaching out to influential websites to write content for them in exchange for backlinks, you should reach out to industry influencers to blog on your site, or to interview thought leaders on topics relevant to your field.

Make sure to flatter them, and make it easy for them to respond. You’ll be surprised how many busy influential people will actually take the time to respond and collaborate.

In all likeliness, they’ll re-post or share your collaborative content with their following, which can bring a ton of new high-quality visitors to your website.

Step 10: Nurture existing contacts

Existing clients and contacts are a great resource that businesses often forget about. Taking care of and nurturing your existing clients and contacts is a quick and easy way to increase traffic to your website.

Clients are often busy and may need a gentle reminder of your existence from time to time. You should offer educational content, update them with new offers, keep adding value to their lives. They were interested before, so they’re likely to be interested again.

a) Don’t forget about Email!

Email is such a good tool. It can be automated and personalised, meaning once set up you don’t have to do a thing.

Your clients and contacts can each have a personal interaction with your brand, and you can maintain relationships and bring regular traffic to your website with minimal effort required.

b) Webinars

Hosting webinars can be a great opportunity to impart some industry know-how, giving you a chance to show off your might to your contacts, while giving them something extremely valuable in return.

It’s important to market your webinars in the right way. Teasing them in emails and on social media will bring in the biggest possible audience to your website.

For more insight on how to create effective webinars, this is a great article for B2B.

c) Conferences

Attending conferences within your industry (no matter the size) is another great way to get your brand out there, especially if you can speak at them.

This is the path to establishing yourself as a thought leader in your niche, and the face-to-face interaction that comes with these gigs will bring a guaranteed boost to your website traffic.

And there you have it, 10 very actionable steps to level up your website. Stick with it, and do your research, and you’ll see your web traffic and lead gen stats spike sooner than you think. Happy days!

Charlie