In the movie Field of Dreams, an ethereal voice tells Kevin Costner that if he builds a baseball field, people will come to it. Unfortunately, the same is not true of your website. Just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come. Having a website doesn’t guarantee that people will visit it.

It’s crucial to create a proven strategy to get more web traffic, with tested methods for generating a steady stream of website visitors. You need tactics and hacks for getting people to visit your site and engage with your content.

The more people come to your site, the more people become aware of the great content you create. The more people become aware of your great content, the more you become known as an industry expert and thought leader. And the more you’re known as an industry expert, the more people will come to you for help.

Of course, all this raises the question: how do you get more website traffic? Luckily, here you’ll discover 10 proven strategies for getting hundreds, if not thousands, of website visitors.

It’s important to avoid jumping from strategy to strategy without giving much time to each one. Each of these strategies requires significant time and effort to execute properly. Work is required if you want to see results.

Have a long-haul mentality when thinking about getting traffic to your website. As you stack one strategy on top of another, you’ll begin to see compounding results.

Traffic Strategy #1: Create Amazing, Share-Worthy Content

• If you want people to come to your website, you need to give them a reason to come. You need to create awesome content that attracts people and that they feel compelled to share with others. If you simply post short, uninspired articles, you’re not giving people much reason to come to your site or share your content.
• For your best results, consider how you’re going to stand out from the crowd. How can you create content in a way that differentiates you from everyone else?
• The best way to stand out from the crowd is to create highly valuable, in-depth content. Content that answers people’s questions and speaks to their pain points. Content that addresses a subject on a much deeper level than anything else out there.
• When creating content, ask yourself these questions:
  • Would I want to read this content?
  • Does this add value to my readers?
  • Is this share-worthy?
  • Is this different from all the other content that’s being produced?
  • Does this content answer the reader’s questions?
  • Does it speak the reader’s pain points?
• If you create great content, the rest of your promotional tactics become that much easier. Your content will practically promote itself when people see how valuable it is. People want to share content that is valuable and if you create valuable content, others will promote it for you.

Traffic Strategy #2: Create Various Forms of Content

• People learn in a variety of ways. Some people are visual learners and learn best from videos. Others learn best by reading, and still others prefer audio content. If you want to connect with the greatest number of people possible, create content in a variety of formats.
• One of the best ways to create a variety of formats of content is to use the “pillar strategy.” The pillar strategy involves first creating a lengthy, in-depth piece of “pillar” content. This pillar content could be a video, blog post, podcast, or something else.
• Your pillar content will be the longest type of content you create and will talk about a subject from a variety of angles and viewpoints. From there, you take the pillar content and slice it up into smaller pieces of relevant content that all stand on their own.
• For example, let’s say you created a lengthy pillar blog post. You could then:
  • Take one point from that blog post and turn it into a short video
  • Take another point from the blog post and turn it into a short podcast
  • Take a third point from the blog post and turn it into a series of social media posts
• Each piece of content should point back to your website in some way. So, for example, at the end of your video, you could direct people to your website for more valuable content.

Traffic Strategy #3: Share Your Content on Social Media

• Share your content multiple times across all your social media profiles. Why should you share your content multiple times? Because not every one of your followers will see every one of your posts. Sharing multiple times maximizes the chances of your followers seeing your social media posts.
• When you share your content on social media, think about what format works best for each platform. For example, Pinterest is very image heavy. When you share a blog post to Pinterest, consider creating a specific accompanying image that fits the Pinterest platform.
• Also, consider sharing different types of formats on social media. For example, Facebook likes to keep people on their site as long as possible and video content helps them do that (since people will give more of their attention to videos).
  • Facebook tends to push video content higher up in the social media feeds, giving it more exposure. This means you should consider using video to promote the content you create on your website.
• When using social media, don’t be afraid to experiment with different content formats to see what works best on different platforms. Try sharing links, images, videos, polls, and more to see what drives the most people to your website.
• You can breathe new life into old pieces of content by re-sharing them on social media a while after they’re first published. Sharing content more than once will generate more clicks, visits, and shares.
• Don’t underestimate Twitter. Even though the lifespan of a tweet is short (short seems to be the nature of all things Twitter), you can post the same tweet multiple times, especially if you change it up every time.

Traffic Strategy #4: Advertise

• Advertising on Facebook, Google, or other social media platforms (like LinkedIn) is one of the most effective ways to get traffic directly to your website. Yes, it does cost money (unlike the other strategies listed so far). But if you’re willing to spend the money, you can get an avalanche of traffic to your site.
• Facebook and Google are huge. Billions of people use both websites each month. It’s an enormous audience, and if you’re willing to put some money into advertising, Google and Facebook will share their audience with you.
• There is one distinct advantage to paid advertising above other forms of promotion: paid advertising allows you to put your content in front of a very specific audience.
  • For example, let’s say that you’ve created a guide to preparing for retirement. The ideal audience for this guide is people over the age of 45 who make more than $70,000 per year and who are married. With Facebook, you can target this precise audience.
• Instead of sharing your content across your social media feeds and hoping that the right people see it, you can ENSURE that the right audience views your content. You can get your content in front of the people most likely to be interested in it and your business.

Traffic Strategy #5: Build Your Email List

• Having an email list is like having your own traffic source. Each time you publish something new on your website, send a link out to your email list and watch the visitors come flooding in.
• Probably the most effective way to build your email list is by giving away something in exchange for people’s email address. The giveaway, called a “lead magnet,” is a piece of valuable content that readers can download once they hand over their email address.
• For example, you may give away:
  • Whitepapers
  • Ebooks
  • Case studies
  • Videos
  • Free email courses
  • Templates
  • Webinars
  • Premium content
• Another effective way to build your email list is by implementing opt-in forms in various places across your website. For example, whenever someone first visits your site, you could have a box pop up inviting them to sign up for your email list.
• When inviting people to sign up for your email list, give them a compelling reason to sign up. In other words, don’t simply say, “Sign up for my list!” Instead, tell people what they’ll get in exchange for signing up for your list.

Traffic Strategy #6: Collaborate With Other Content Creators

• Always be on the lookout for ways to collaborate with other website owners and content creators. By collaborating, you get to benefit from their audience, and you can share your audience with them.
• A simple example of collaborating with another website is to do a guest post swap. You post on their website and they post on yours. But it doesn’t have to stop there. You could appear on someone else’s podcast and then you could promote that podcast on your website.
• The key to collaboration is being able to bring value to the other person. If you can bring value, even if that’s just sharing your audience with them, there’s a much greater chance that they’ll want to collaborate with you.
  • When you reach out to someone regarding a collaboration, make it crystal clear how you will add value to them.

Traffic Strategy #7: Guest Posting

• If you’re like most people, you probably won’t have much of an audience when you first get started creating content on your website. That’s okay and should be expected! After all, it takes time to build an audience.
• Guest posting on someone else’s website allows you to tap into another person’s audience. Guest posting allows you to get your outstanding work in front of an audience that’s much larger than your own, which increases your exposure and allows you to drive traffic back to your own website.
• The most common way to secure guest posting gigs is to research blogs that are in your niche and then contact them, asking them if they accept guest posts. One thing to keep in mind when reaching out to these blogs is that they probably get these kinds of requests quite regularly.
• If you want to stand out and have the opportunity to post on someone else’s blog, you’ll need to be unique in your pitch. In other words, you’ll need to be able to offer unique value to the other person’s audience.
• So, what can you uniquely offer in your pitch that will set you apart?
  • Years of expertise?
  • A different/fresh perspective?
  • Research on a particular subject?
  • An insider’s opinion?
• In your pitch to the blog, talk about what you have to offer and even suggest a few topics that you might be able to write about. Ensure that you focus on how you’ll benefit their audience.
• If a post is published, link to it across your various social media networks. That way you benefit the owner of the website on which the guest post appears as well as yourself.

Traffic Strategy #8: Reference Others

• If you can get an influencer in your industry — someone with a large audience — to share your content with their audience, it can be a huge boost for your website. But this is easier said than done, right? After all, how do you convince someone else that your content is worth sharing?
• One of the most effective strategies for getting others to share your content is to quote or reference them.
  • For example, let’s say you’re writing a lengthy guide to email marketing. You could email a number of email marketing specialists and ask them for a quote for the piece.
  • Once you’ve written the guide, tell all the people you’ve quoted in the article. There’s a good chance that they’ll share your piece with their audience.
• A simpler way to get quotes from influencers is to take something they’ve already written and quote them. Then, you can reach out to them via email or social media and let them know that you’ve quoted them. Again, there’s a decent chance they’ll share it with their audience.
• A secondary benefit of quoting influencers and authority figures in your pieces is that it adds expertise to your content. Rather than just being your own opinion, your content also includes the thoughts and insights of industry experts, thus giving more weight to your content.

Traffic Strategy #9: Participate in Online Forums

• Online forums like Quora and Reddit, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn groups, can be great sources of traffic for your website. There are forums and groups out there for almost every subject imaginable, and you can be sure that people are looking for the kind of information that you can provide.
• Forums and social media groups tend to be different than standard social media sites. You can’t simply share links to them and expect people to go to your website. In fact, if all you do is share links in online forums and social media groups, there’s a good chance that you’ll get the boot.
• First and foremost, members of these sites want you to add value directly to the group, not just through your website. In other words, they want you to participate in the conversation that is happening in the group itself, not simply spam the group with links.
• So, answer people’s questions, contribute your own thoughts, and ask questions in these groups. Before you share any links to your own site, participate in numerous conversations.

Traffic Strategy #10: Comment on Blogs

• In addition to your own website, there are thousands of other industry-related sites out there that are publishing great content on a regular basis. Choose a number of these blogs to regularly comment on.
• By commenting on these blogs consistently, you’ll begin to establish yourself as a presence in your industry.
• When commenting on blogs, have the same mindset as when you comment in online forums. Your goal is not simply to share a link back to your website, but to participate in their conversations. With each comment, you’ll want to add value to the conversation.
• It’s important to note that the blogs you comment on should all be related in some way to your industry. A comment on a New York Times story may get a lot of eyeballs, but most of the people who see it won’t be interested in what you have to offer on your website.
• It’s true that this strategy builds traction slowly. But the more you comment on other blogs, the more people will begin to recognize your name. And if you’re adding large amounts of value to the conversation, more and more people will begin to respect you as an expert in your industry.

1. Get that email address.

Without the visitors’ email address, you essentially have no way of initiating further contact. Do whatever it takes to get each and every visitor to provide their e-mail.

Try: Freebies. Free is an awesome incentive. Try providing a free book, subscription, or mini-product. You are much more likely to get contact information from your visitors if they feel like they are getting something in exchange right away.

2. Optimize usability.

The more convenient it is for your clients to sign up for your product, the more likely they are to actually hire you.

Try: Calendar inputs. If you let your potential clients have a sense of control over when they can receive your product, they are more likely to use your services. By letting your visitors book themselves in your calendar, you have eliminated unnecessary back and forth communication and given your visitors more control over their experience.

3. Show your skills.

The goal is to demonstrate that you have what your visitors want. Illustrate to them that you have both the expertise and the knowledge to help them.

Try: E-books or Top 10 lists. You want to grab your visitors’ attention in a way that proves to them you are a fantastic resource. You can do this by giving them a glimpse of how much you have to offer. WPA, for example, has a Portfolio section where the visitors can see the websites we created for our clients.

4. Convenience of Product.

The more accessible your product is, the more likely your visitors are to buy.

Try: Shopping cart for your service. Even if your product is not tangible (for example, coaching sessions), having a “shopping cart” where visitors can hire you on the spot can make the whole experience more pleasant and profitable.

5. FAQs.

Everyone has questions. Take advantage of your control over the site by answering some of the most popular questions that might arise from your potential clients.

Try: FAQ page or Q&A section on your home page. Again, you want to demonstrate your competence and your attentiveness to the client. By creating a basic FAQ page, you illustrate that you have the ability to empathize with your visitors, those people who need your service.

1. Consider building a community. Perhaps you’re good at bringing people together. You could create a forum or build your social media presence devoted to the needs of your prospective customers. As this community grows you can then send your audience towards your offers.
2. Use a brandable domain. If you go back a few years, everyone was trying to build their websites on domain names that exactly matched their keywords. This worked for a while, and you could rank these websites near the top of the search engines with very little effort.
   • Nowadays, things have changed and brandable domains are the way to go. When you create a brand, you create a unique presence for your business, essential when attempting to rank locally.
3. Build an intuitive, responsive website. Even with the free web-builder software available today, there are still plenty of local businesses with poor websites. Sometimes it’s best to pay for an expert to create a professional website – especially if you want to outrank these poorer websites.
   • A responsive website is essential to ensure that the website works on all devices. These days, most web traffic comes from mobile devices, so you must make your website mobile-friendly in addition to desktops.
4. Use on-page SEO. To rank highly, it’s important to optimize your website. Ensure that each page on your website is optimized with a title, heading tags, and properly labeled images. Choose keywords that are appropriate for your website.
   • Forget about trying to rank globally, but instead, look at adding local place names. For example, “restaurants in Tulsa” instead of “restaurants.”
5. Speed up your website loading time. Website loading time is a ranking factor that many website owners fail to address. If your website is slow to load, users will click off it quickly. This high bounce rate will have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.
6. Verify your business with Google My Business. If you want your business to appear on Google Maps, you’ll need to verify it with Google My Business. Once you’ve done this, your business will have a greater chance of appearing on the map on the first-page search results.
7. Build local citations. Citations are when your business name, address, and phone number are listed on the web. These citations help to boost your visibility on Google Maps and the local search results. The more of these your website has the better your website should perform.
   • Be consistent with the wording across all your listings. If you are not consistent, it may harm your overall visibility.
8. Earn reviews from customers. Encourage your customers to publish reviews of your products or services. These reviews help to build trust in the search engines, plus you will be building trust in the general public too.

If your aim is to succeed at local SEO, you won’t need to focus too much attention on content marketing.

When you focus on these local SEO techniques, you can beat those competitors who invest heavily in content.

1. Demonstrate how your product is ideal.

The idea is to convince your visitor that they do not need to continue looking at other sites; your site has it all, and your product is exactly what they need.

Remember: The goal is to show your visitors that they need you. Make your visitors feel like you are addressing them and not just bragging about yourself. For example, instead of listing testimonials, try describing various situations and how you helped the client. You want the client to recognize him/herself in the scenarios.

2. Utilize home page sign ups.

The more convenient your contact information, the more likely your visitors are to actually use it. Many people only view a site once, so grab their attention early on and start the relationship right away.

Remember: Many people are wary of new relationships, even if it is a simple web presence. By circulating a weekly or monthly newsletter/ezine, you can maintain contact without seeming overly pushy.

3. Immediate gratification goes a long way.

Give your visitors something they can use immediately. Whether this is a free gift incentive, a fantastic Top 10 List, or downloadable forms, provide every visitor with a takeaway resource.

Remember: Don’t forget to put your name on these documents! Publicizing yourself, your site, and your product is vital. Every pdf or downloadable document your visitors print is one more piece of advertising.

4. Create a sense of personal commitment.

If you portray yourself as invested, your visitors are more likely to think you are invested in them. Be direct. Make it personal. Above all, make it crystal clear that you can help solve their problems.

Remember: Position yourself as an invaluable resource and make your contact information accessible and easy to locate. This brings you one step closer to gaining a new client.

5. Quality is obvious.

When it comes to your actual website, you get what you pay for. While it may seem expensive in the beginning, think about how much money will be generated from a professional website.

Remember: Website maintenance is extremely involved. Not only does the content have to be exact, the design, development and usability must be exceptional. It is usually beneficial to contract with a designer who can transform your product ideas into a credible and professional website.

It would be very surprising if visitors came to your website because they wanted to learn about coaching. They need someone to coach them and turn their current issues into opportunities.

Consider the following suggestion: instead of listing testimonials raving about your practice, describe the situations in which your top clients found themselves and how you helped them. That way, the visitor has perspective and can see a practical application of your skills. You will be seen as a person instead of a website.

Provide a Newsletter

For repeat visitors, acquire email addresses in order to market to them later. Since a relationship takes time, a weekly or monthly newsletter allows visitors to warm up to you. They can hear your voice and understand your mission.

Offer Free Resources

These can be Top 10 lists, free ebooks, step-by-step guides, or even checklists. These are all brochures for your business, and they tell the client who you are. Give your clients material to allow you to stand out among the numerous websites being browsed.

Speak Directly to the Visitor

Tell visitors you can help them. Mostly visitors are looking for someone and something to help them achieve a goal. Sometimes this need is subconscious and sometimes it’s an active pursuit. Stand up for your work. Speak up. If you can’t help, you can refer them to someone who can. Give them resources. Perhaps you can even offer a free session with no additional obligation.

Invest Wisely

Nobody takes a self-made website seriously unless you have solid computer science knowledge. Invest in a credible website that looks slick and professional. While a brand-new website can run between $1,000 and $10,000, a client can be worth up to $25,000 in his or her relationship with you. Don’t feel guilty about spending the money to hire a talented designer who understands your work.

Remember: a shoddy website is the same as showing up for a business meeting in jeans and a ripped tee. Put your best foot forward.

The following techniques will focus more on on-page SEO, creating valuable content, and off-page mentions.

So, what are these techniques?

1. Create valuable content. When you answer a search query thoroughly, then you’re giving your readers what they want to know.
   • This will increase user engagement on your website, which will tell the search engines that your content is valuable. Consequently, the search engines will rank your website highly for that search term.
   • For the highest rankings, go more in-depth than your competitors, provide clear answers, and provide graphics or illustrations to help your reader understand the content clearly.
2. Try to rank for longtail keywords. These are keywords that are niche-specific and may have very little search engine traffic. The reason why you will be aiming to rank for these terms is that there is less competition, so they should be easier to rank highly for.
   • Ranking highly for these terms will be easier and maybe quicker to achieve too.
   • Plus, if you rank highly for lots of these terms, your overall traffic will increase. At this point, you may be able to consider ranking for more competitive search terms.
3. Get customer reviews. With local businesses, reviews submitted about your website online can affect your search engine rankings as well.
   • For many reasons, it’s worth your time and effort to ensure that you are providing the best service possible for your customers. This will lead to great reviews and more customers!
4. Copy your competitor’s on-page SEO strategy. Visit your competitor’s website and study their content. You may think that creating longer forms of content is best when it comes to ranking. However, this is not always the case. Check whatever pages are ranking for each particular search term.
5. Build internal links. For each of your longer, authoritative articles, link smaller supporting articles in your website to this main page. This will help your longer page achieve higher rankings.
6. Ensure that your website is easy to navigate. If your website isn’t easy to navigate, your visitors will just click off your website and go somewhere else. This can lower the time spent on your website and increase the bounce rate. These are both negative SEO factors.
7. Have a mobile-friendly website. These days, most internet users will access your website through a mobile device. If your website isn’t rendering properly on mobile, this will have a negative impact on user experience, rankings, and sales. So, be sure to optimize your website for mobile devices as well as desktops.
8. Increase your page speed. Page speed refers to how fast your website page loads, and this affects your rankings.
   • A faster-loading website improves the user experience of your visitors. No one wants to be waiting for a website to load. Chances are if they have to wait more than a few seconds, they will leave the website entirely.
9. Get an SSL certificate for your website. It has been shown that having an SSL certificate on your website increases your website rankings.
   • These days many search engines will warn its users that a website without this certificate is not secure, which will result in a user leaving the website immediately. This harms your rankings and possibly your reputation as well.

If your website is still new and has yet to establish any authority within the niche, or if the competitors in this particular niche have very few backlinks, then it is certainly possible to rank highly for various search terms using these strategies.

As your website becomes more competitive, then building backlinks will certainly help you to continue to rank higher.

But in the meantime, don’t worry about the backlinks. Draw your visitors to your secure, quick-loading website and provide quality content that they’ll want to engage with and share with others.