27 Ways to Increase Website Traffic in 2018

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In this post I’m going to show you how to drive more traffic to your website.

You’ll also see how I used these strategies to take my site from zero to 180k+ unique visitors per month.

It gets better:

All of these strategies are working GREAT right now (in 2018).

With that, here are the strategies that you’re going to learn about:

1. The “Upside Down” Guest Post

Here’s the deal:

When most people read your guest post, they completely skip the author bio section.

I can’t blame them…

Most author bio boxes are buried at the bottom of the page, like this:

author bio

This is a huge problem.

If people don’t see your link in your author bio, they’re not gonna visit your site.

Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to this problem: The “Upside Down” Guest Post.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. First, write a guest post just like you normally would.

2. Next, include “helpful resource” sections throughout your guest post.

These sections link to 2-3 helpful resources on the topic you just covered.

Here’s an example:

3. Finally, include YOUR content as one of the “helpful resources”.

For example, here’s a guest post I published a while back:

And I strategically linked to my content as one of the “resources to check out”:

And that link brought in 78% more traffic than my author bio link.

Pretty cool 🙂

Which leads us to strategy #2…

2. Overhaul & Upgrade Old Blog Posts

This simple strategy landed me 50.95% more traffic in 7 days:

Here’s exactly how I did it:

1. First, I found a post on my site that was out of date.

As it turned out, my guide to YouTube SEO was insanely outdated:

2. Next, I updated and improved the post.

Specifically, I added new screenshots:

Sprinkled in new strategies and techniques:

And eliminated old strategies that didn’t work anymore:

3. Finally, I updated the new post to make the changes live.

And just like that, traffic to that page shot up like a rocket ship.

(Because this was an old post, as you can see here in my Google Analytics, most of that traffic increase was organic traffic)

This entire process took about an hour.

And I got WAY more SEO traffic than I would from publishing a new post.

With that, it’s time for our third strategy…

3. Use “Click to Tweet” Links

This is one of the BEST ways to get more shares from your content.

In fact, Click To Tweet Links are one of the main reasons that this post from my blog has over 6k social media shares:

With that, let me show you how Click To Tweet links work:

1. Find something “tweetable” in your content.

This can be a bite-sized tip, strategy, quote or statistic.

For example, my post listed a bunch of list building strategies.

So I considered each strategy on my list “tweetable”.

2. Create a Click To Tweet link.

Head over to ClickToTweet.com and write your tweet:

And the tool will generate a special link for you:

3. Finally, include that link in your content.

Whenever someone clicks on the link…

…they get a pre-written tweet for easy sharing:

It’s that easy.

4. Optimize Your Content With LSI Keywords

It’s no secret that SEO is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website.

That said, most old school SEO strategies simple don’t work anymore.

And that’s largely because Google’s Hummingbird algorithm changed EVERYTHING about SEO:

Instead of ONLY looking at keywords, Google now understands topics.

(How big of a change was this update? Google said that: “Hummingbird affects 90% of all searches…”. Wow).

The question is:

How do you make sure that Google understands your content’s topic?

LSI Keywords.

LSI keywords are words and phrases related to your target keyword.

For example, let’s say you just wrote a post about social media.

LSI keywords would be words and phrases like:

  • Facebook page
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Viral content
  • Pinterest

And when Google sees these LSI keywords in your content, they say: “Great. This content is definitely about social media”.

So: how do you find these LSI keywords?

A great free tool called LSI Graph.

This tool spits out dozens of LSI keywords related to your topic:

Then, just sprinkle these LSI keywords into your post…

…and you’re set.

5. Get More Traffic From Your Blog Posts With “Content Transformation”

Content Transformation is simple:

You simply convert one of your blog posts into another format (like an ebook, video, infographic or podcast).

For example, I published this case study on my blog a while back:

As you can see, this post generated lots of social shares…

…and comments.

But I knew that I could squeeze even more value out of this content.

So I turned that post into a YouTube Video:

That single video has generated over 150k views… and hundreds of website visitors.

(All from a piece of content that I published YEARS ago)

That’s the power of Content Transformation.

6. Go On Podcasts

Podcasts are EXPLODING.

(In fact, one survey found that 24% of Americans regularly listen to podcasts)

Does that mean that you should grab the nearest microphone and start a podcast?

No.

Instead, I recommend going on other people’s podcasts as a guest.

This strategy works so well that I try to go on 2-3 podcasts per month.

In fact, I’ve appeared on over 100 podcast episodes:

And these episodes have brought me tens of thousands of visitors.

For example, I once got 984 visitors in 60 days from a single podcast episode:

As a bonus, you usually get at least one backlink in the show notes, which can help your search engine rankings:

And now it’s time for…

7. Promote Your Site With Blogger Outreach

So you just published an awesome piece of content.

Now what?

It’s time to promote it with blogger outreach.

In fact, one of my latest blog post got a nice spike in traffic largely due to a single tweet from an influential blogger:

The question is…

How?

All you need to do is find bloggers that share content on your topic…

…and send them a non-pushy email.

Here’s a real life example of this process in action:

First, I sent a personalized email to a blogger that’s already shared content on my topic:

(That way, I knew she’d actually want to read my post… before I hit “send”)

When she got back to me, I sent her a link:

(Pro Tip: Don’t ask the person to share or link to your content. If they think your content is good, they’ll share it)

Because I wasn’t a pushy jerkface, this blogger was happy to spread the word:

That’s all there is to it.

8. The Content Relaunch Strategy

This is similar to technique #2 from this guide…

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…with an important twist.

Instead of just improving your content, you completely relaunch it.

In other words:

Treat your improved content like a brand new post.

For example:

I recently revamped and relaunched this list of SEO copywriting tactics:

So I shared the post on social media:

And sent out an announcement to my email subscribers:

Which led to a significant boost in traffic (including almost 5k visitors in one day):

9. Create Content That Appeals to Influencers

Here’s the truth:

If you want influential people to share your content, you need to write stuff that appeals directly to that group.

Example:

A few years ago I created an infographic for a client in the investing niche.

Even though that niche is far from “interesting”, our infographic went viral. We’re talking thousands of targeted visits in the first two days.

Here’s the infographic:

Now there are dozens of reasons this infographic did so well… from the design to the content promotion campaign.

But a good chunk of its success was due to one simple thing:

It appealed to the influencers in the personal finance space.

I’ll explain.

I noticed that, at the time, a lot of high-powered financial bloggers were up in arms about inflation:

So I decided to create an infographic that highlighted the problem they cared so much about.

And this led to shares and mentions on several authority sites…

…and a boatload of traffic.

10. Share Videos On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is growing FAST.

In fact, a recent study found that the number of people sharing stuff on LinkedIn has increased significantly in 2018:

That’s great and all. But HOW do you use LinkedIn to increase traffic to your website?

Post video content.

For example, here’s a video I recently posted on LinkedIn:

2 weeks later, my video has:

  • 634 likes
  • 106 comments
  • 31 THOUSAND views

Try getting that kind of engagement on Facebook 🙂

And now it’s time for me to show you another cool way to get people to visit your site…

11. Host a Giveaway Contest

People love free stuff.

(No surprise there)

But what might surprise you is: you can use free stuff to get more traffic.

How?

Host a giveaway contest.

Here’s an example of a contest my friend Noah Kagan recently put together:

See how that works?

To enter the contest, people need to give you their email address (you then add them to your email list).

It gets better:

You can incentivize people to share your contest with their friends:

(And those shares will drive more traffic to your website and grow your email list)

Now:

This contest was done with KingSumo. But if you have the technical know-how, you can set this up yourself.

12. Add “Share Triggers” To Your Content

In my experience, content largely succeeds or fails based on one factor:

Whether or not the content has Share Triggers.

What are Share Triggers?

They’re things you include in your content that push people to share it.

A lot of these principles were first discovered by behavioral scientists like Dr. Jonah Berger, Dr. Katherine Milkman and Jure Leskovec.

And they’ve proven in the lab what I discovered through trial-and-error:

When you include Share Triggers in your content, people are significantly more likely share and link to it.

For example:

One of the most powerful Share Triggers is Social Currency.

Social Currency is the idea that we share things that make us look good. And this Share Trigger is a large part of the reason that The Shrinking Dollar infographic I mentioned earlier did so well.

Specifically, this infographic confirmed what influencers were already saying: inflation is a big problem.

And my content backed up their rants with meaty data:

Every time an influencer shared my infographic with their audience, it boosted their Social Currency.

So they shared it… again and again.

It even got included in Google News thanks to a feature in The Christian Post.

All because I strategically added the “Social Currency” Share Trigger into my content.

Very cool.

13. Retarget Visitors With Facebook Ads

Let’s face it:

Facebook ads are getting EXPENSIVE.

Fortunately, I found a little “loophole” that’s helped me get laser-targeted visitors for pennies:

Retargeting.

Here’s how it works:

First, create a Facebook ad that sends people to a blog post.

Here’s a real-life example:

Next, target people that have visited your site in the last month or two:

Finally, run the ad.

And you’ll probably find that your CPC is dirt cheap vs. most other types of advertising (like Google Adwords).

Nice.

14. Reduce Your Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate damages your site’s pageviews, conversions… and it can even hurt your SEO.

(In fact, thanks to Google’s RankBrain algorithm, bounce rate is now a super important ranking signal).

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that improving your bounce rate is insanely easy.

I walk you through the entire process in this short video:

 

15. Publish Long-Form Content

A while back BuzzSumo analyzed a million articles.

Why?

They wanted to see which TYPES of content worked best.

And they found that long-form content gets more shares and backlinks than short posts (<1,000 words):

In fact, as you can see in the chart above, long content (>3k words) gets an average of 208% more shares than short articles.

I’ve noticed this myself.

For example, here’s a long-form blog post from my blog (a giant list of SEO techniques):

This guide weighs in at a staggering 6,558 words.

And the simple fact that my post is insanely long is a big reason why it’s been shared 12,909 times:

(And those shares have sent over 50,000 visitors to my website)

16. Optimize for Google’s Mobile-First Index

As you might have heard, Google recently rolled out their “Mobile-First Index”:

This update means that Google now counts the mobile version of your site FIRST.

(It also means that Google largely ignores the desktop version of your site)

So:

How do you know if your site is mobile optimized?

Well, Google created a free tool for doing just that: The Mobile-Friendly Test.

This nifty tool tells you if your site is optimized properly for mobile devices…

… and gives you specific recommendations to make your site better:

I also recommend checking out my guide to mobile optimization.

17. Create an Active YouTube Channel

If you want to drive more traffic to your website, YouTube HAS to be on your radar screen.

Why?

YouTube has now passed Facebook as the 2nd most popular website on the planet (only behind Google):

In fact, YouTube is one of my top 5 traffic sources (along with Google, Facebook and referral traffic from blogs).

That said:

Getting views on your YouTube videos is HARD.

But it doesn’t have to be.

That’s why I’m going to point you to two resources that will help you get more views on your videos.

Resource #1: Video SEO: The Definitive Guide

This guide shows you EVERYTHING you need to know about ranking your videos in YouTube and Google.

It covers keyword research, video tags and more.

Resource #2: YouTube SEO: 9 Actionable Tips for Ranking Videos (2018)

This video will show you 9 tips that helped me rank #1 in YouTube for competitive keywords (like “SEO tutorial”):

18. Publish Viral Content

Is there a formula for creating content that goes viral?

Nope! Or else everyone would do it…

That said, there ARE 3 things you can do to increase the odds that your content spreads like wildfire.

1. First, viral content tends to contain lots of visuals.

This can be a bunch of images. Or an infographic. Or a video.

The type of image doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you actually use images in your content.

Why?

Industry studies show that image-rich content gets 90%+ more social shares vs. content that’s all text:

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2. Second, viral content tends to have a high “Utility”.

This simply means that your content is super useful in some way.

Maybe you show people how to steam broccoli.

Or you teach them to nail their job interview.

Either way, research shows that extremely practical content has a very high chance of going viral.

3. Lastly, viral content needs an initial “push” to get going.

For example, Chris Gimmer got over 17k visitors to his site in one day (thanks to a blog post that went viral):

And it wouldn’t have happened if Chris didn’t promote his content on sites like Reddit… which led to hundreds of visitors within hours.

19. Promote Blog Posts and Videos on Quuu

Quuu is a dead-simple way to get people to promote your content on social media.

All you need to do is submit your best content…

…and they’ll ask influencers to share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.

I recently promoted one of my posts on Quuu. And got a handful of shares from influential people in the digital marketing space:

Not bad.

20. Republish Old Articles on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an awesome place to syndicate your content.

For example, I published this study of YouTube ranking factors on my blog about a year ago:

This post did well. Lots of people read my post and shared it on social media.

But I KNEW that there were thousands of people that could benefit from my content… but hadn’t seen it yet.

So I republished my content as a LinkedIn article:

Which (along with my other LinkedIn posts) led to a decent chunk of targeted traffic:

21. Use a “Question Analyzer” To Create Insanely Useful Content

This strategy is an AWESOME way to make your content better.

(As you know, the better content = more traffic)

All you need to do is find questions that your target audience asks online.

Then, answer those questions in your content.

Here’s how to do it…

First, use a tool like Buzzsumo’s Question Analyzer or Answer the Public to easily find questions that people ask:

Then, either create entire posts to answer these questions…

…or incorporate the answers into your content.

Simple.

22. Add Enticing Content To Social Media Posts

Here’s a mistake a lot of people make:

They share their content on social media… without giving people ANY reason to click.

Here’s an example:

Hey, I’m not judging. I used to do the same thing:

But I recently discovered that something:

Adding content to your posts dramatically increase your CTR.

For example, when I tweet out a new post, I include a bulleted list of features:

As you can see, that extra content leads to a ton of engagement:

(And clicks)

Sweet!

23. Improve Your Organic Click-Though-Rate

I have some good news:

If you want more traffic from Google, you DON’T need higher rankings.

(Seriously)

Instead, you can focus on improving your click-through-rate (CTR).

For example, let’s say you rank #3 for your target keyword. And your CTR is 4%.

And let’s say that you double that CTR to 8%.

Well, you just doubled your organic traffic… without improving your rankings.

But wait, there’s more 🙂

CTR is now an important ranking signal in Google’s algorithm.

So when you get a higher CTR, you’ll ALSO improve your rankings.

That’s great. But HOW do you improve your CTR?

Here are a few tips that work great:

  • Add a number to your title (like “17” or “58%”)
  • Write an intriguing meta description
  • Test different titles and see which one gets the best CTR
  • Use titles that are highly emotional
  • Include your keyword in your URL

Let’s dive right into our next tip…

24. Publish More List Posts

There’s no way around it:

When it comes to driving traffic to your website, list posts work GREAT.

And there’s evidence to back this up.

(Besides the fact that you’re reading a list post right now 😀 )

Like I mentioned way back in strategy #15, BuzzSumo recently analyzed a million articles.

Well, in that same study they found that list posts CRUSHED all other content formats:

As you can see in the chart, list posts got 6x more shares than how-to posts (and 40x more shares than infographics).

And when I look at my own content, I notice the same thing.

For example, this mega list of SEO tools is one of my most shared pieces of content I’ve ever written.

It’s got 18.4k shares and almost 900 comments:

25. Steal Your Competitors’ Traffic Sources

Imagine that you could see the EXACT places that send your competitors traffic.

That would be a goldmine, right?

Well, your competitors aren’t about to send you their Google Analytics password.

Fortunately, you don’t need it.

Why?

You can see all of their top traffic sources for free with SimilarWeb.

SimilarWeb not only shows you a sweet overview of a site’s traffic…

…but exactly where they get that traffic from.

Goldmine.

26. Drive Traffic To Your Website From Forums

Forums are a VERY underrated traffic source.

When you become an active, respected member of a forum, you’ve built a funnel…

…a funnel that brings people back to your site.

Let me walk you through an example:

When I first got started with my blog, I was starting from scratch.

I had ZERO followers, ZERO visitors and ZERO email subscribers.

And I knew that SEO and social media are both great ways to get traffic… but they take time to kick in.

So to give my traffic a head start, I became an active member of a marketing forum.

I answered people’s questions…

…and even posted some original content:

And this led to a sold influx of visitors to my brand new blog.

And now it’s time for our last strategy…

27. Syndicate Your Content on Medium

Medium.com is one of the BEST places to syndicate your best stuff.

In fact, I recently got 310 targeted visitors in a week from ONE Medium post:

310 visitors isn’t going to change my life or anything.

But they’re 310 visitors that took about 3 minutes to get.

All you need to do is repost your content (word-for-word) on Medium.

Here’s an example of one of my Medium reposts:

Then, once your post is live, share it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

(This will give the post some juice)

And when Medium sees that people are engaging with your post, they’ll start to promote it within their platform.

Bonus Strategy #1: Post On Social Media at Strategic Times

So CoSchedule recently analyzed the best times to post on social media networks (including Facebook, Instagram, Goolge+ and more).

Here’s what they found:

As you can see, they discovered that the best times to post on each network are:

Facebook: 7am, 12pm, 5pm

Pinterest: 2pm, 9pm, 2am

Instagram: 9am, 5pm, 2am

Google+: 9am, 11am, 1pm

Bonus Strategy #2: Find More Keywords With “Keywords Everywhere”

Keyword research is THE most important part of SEO.

Question is:

How do you find untapped keywords that everyone and their mom doesn’t already know about?

Keywords Everywhere.

Keywords Everywhere is a free Chrome extension that gives you keyword ideas, well…everywhere.

For example…

The next time you do a Google search, you’ll see search volume and CPC data on that keyword:

Or the next time you’re shopping for a toothbrush on Amazon — BOOM — you see keyword data on the terms that Amazon suggests:

Now It’s Your Turn

I hope this post showed you how to increase website traffic using some cool, untapped strategies.

Now I’d like to hear your take:

Which technique from this post are you ready to try first?

Are you going to start syndicating your content on Medium?

Or

Maybe want to publish an awesome list post.

Either way, let me know in the comments section below.

The post 27 Ways to Increase Website Traffic in 2018 appeared first on Backlinko.





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