Why Your Website Traffic Is Important & How To Increase Your Online Visibility

Does it feel like you’re fighting the social media algorithms to get seen online? Yep, you’re not alone. Recent data shows that social media reach is decreasing, especially across platforms like Instagram.

‘Over the course of 2023, the average reach rate for Instagram declined, reaching 7.60% at the start of 2024’ Source 

It’s not news that over the last few years, small businesses and creators have experienced a rollercoaster of emotions regarding social media reach and engagement, but what if there’s a solution to help you stop stressing over the number of views your reel gets? 

Enter, your website. Groundbreaking… I know. But seriously, your website really can help you increase your reach online, build an engaged community, and support your business success, I know that you know it’s a thing, but you’re always left asking HOW? 

How can my website increase my visibility online?

In this blog, we’re going to explore everything you need to know about your website traffic. From why your website traffic is important, to how to actually increase it. Let’s dive in shall we? 

What is Website Traffic & What Are Website Traffic Sources?

Your website traffic is simply the volume of users visiting your website. People will visit your website for several reasons depending on what you offer, and arrive at your website from many different website sources. Here are 6 ways people may find their way to your website:

Organic Search Traffic - This is traffic that comes from search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo when users search for relevant keywords, and your website appears in the search results. Improving your website's search engine optimization (SEO) can increase organic traffic.

Social Media Traffic - Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn can drive significant traffic to your website. By sharing engaging content, interacting with your audience, and leveraging hashtags, you can attract visitors from social media channels.

Referral Traffic - Referral traffic comes from other websites that link to yours. This could include guest blogging, influencer collaborations, partnerships, or mentions on other websites. Building relationships and creating valuable content can help attract referral traffic.

Direct Traffic - Direct traffic occurs when visitors type your website URL directly into their browser or access it from bookmarks. This traffic source often includes repeat visitors who are already familiar with your brand or have been referred by word of mouth.

Paid Traffic - Paid advertising involves paying for traffic through platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or sponsored content. By targeting specific demographics, interests, or keywords, you can reach potential customers and drive them to your website.

Email Marketing - Email marketing campaigns can drive traffic to your website by sending targeted messages to your subscribers. Including compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) and personalized content in your emails can encourage recipients to click through to your website.

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So why increase website traffic?

It might seem obvious… you want to increase your website traffic to increase your leads, right? Well, that’s one benefit, but there are so many more benefits to increasing (or even paying attention to) your website traffic.

1. Increased Visibility & Brand Awareness
2. Lead Generation
3. Improved Search Rankings
4. Increase Conversion Rates & Boost Sales
5. Data Insights
6. Build A Community

Increased Visibility & Brand Awareness

The more traffic your website receives, the more visible it becomes online. Increased visibility means more people are aware of your brand, products, or services, which can lead to higher brand recognition and credibility.

Lead Generation

Of course, increasing the traffic to your website increases the chances of converting visitors into potential leads, and then eventually clients/customers. With more traffic to your site, you expand your reach and bring in more people who may show interest in your services. 

Improved Search Rankings

By increasing your website traffic, your website is more likely to show up in search engines, which can help you gain more visibility and awareness among customer bases that you may not have reached before. This increased visibility can make it easier for potential customers to find you organically and result in better lead generation and conversion rates.

Increase Conversion Rates & Boost Sales

Having a high volume of website traffic can significantly increase your chances of converting visitors into paying customers, which in turn can help boost your sales. With a steady stream of relevant visitors, you have more opportunities to showcase your products or services and convince potential customers to make a purchase. 

Data Insights

Higher website traffic provides more data and insights into your audience's behaviour, preferences, and needs. By analysing this data, you can make informed decisions to improve your website, content, and marketing strategies, leading to further growth and success.

Build A Community

If one of your business goals is to build a community, then getting more eyes on your website will help. By offering resources, education, entertainment and so much more on your website, you’ll increase your chances of having those eyes turn into loyal fans who keep coming back to your website for more. Again, this depends on your goals, but eventually, these eyes may turn into paying clients. 

Key Takeaway

An increased amount of website traffic creates a larger pool of potential customers, which offers a greater chance of generating sales and growing your business.

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Now you know the why…

Here’s How To Increase Website Traffic

It’s all well and good knowing that generating more website traffic will help you increase your chances of generating sales, up your brand awareness, and so much more, but how do you increase your website traffic to achieve these results? 

1. Create High Quality & Relevant Content
2. Implement basic SEO techniques
3. Diversify your marketing approach

Create High Quality & Relevant Content

Long-form, quality content is an incredible way to increase your website traffic. If you can, create a content plan that allows you to maintain consistency, such as one blog post every two weeks. Remember it doesn’t just have to be blog posts, you can use a variety of formats such as videos and podcasts with transcripts, infographics and guides. 

TIP: Focus on solving your audience's problems and addressing their needs. You can make sure you’re doing this by creating content based on keywords or you could use tools such as answerthepublic.com which is a free online tool designed to assist you in generating valuable insights for your content strategies.

Implement Basic SEO Techniques 

Search Engine Optimisation can feel like an intimidating task, but it doesn’t have to be. Of course, there are SEO professionals out there who spend day in and day out on SEO tasks, and there’s so much you can do with it, but to get started, and to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward online, here are some tasks that you can do to improve your SEO. 

• Make sure every article and content page has a dedicated keyword. These keywords should appear in both the title and body of the content. Make sure that you’re not forcing keywords in left right and centre, they should show up naturally in content.
• Make sure your website loads fast! You can check your page speed through Google’s Page Speed Insights Tool. It’ll give you a website performance score and actionable steps on how to improve it.
• One of the reasons websites load slowly is because of the images, so it’s important to compress your website images, ideally < 1 MB per image. If you use Adobe Suite products then you can use Lightroom, or you can use tools such as https://tinypng.com/ or https://imagecompressor.com/ 
• Set up Google My Business and ask your clients to add their reviews, this will help increase your business listing's visibility, which will make it easier for people to find you.
• Set up Google Search Console and Analytics. Google Search Console gets you onto Google's search engine and shows you what people search to find your site, and Google Analytics gives you data on how users interact with your site and through what other traffic sources your site is found.

(If you want to learn more about how to read the Google Analytics data for your website, download my resource on how to do exactly that via the form below)

Download The 'How To Read Google Analytics Data' Resource

Remember that SEO takes time and your website is something that should be evolving regularly with new content. Stay consistent and you’ll see results!

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Diversify your marketing approach

There is so much untapped potential when it comes to website traffic, which is why it’s time to diversify your marketing efforts. Here’s how:

Content Marketing

Just like we said in step one, create content that is valuable, relevant, and informative which will help attract and engage your target audience. There are so many benefits to content marketing such as establishing authority, generating organic traffic through search engines, and providing long-term value as it can stay on your website for years to come. 

‍ACTION STEP: Promote your website content across social media channels and offer direct links to the website content to entice visitors to click through. 

Social Media Engagement

Social media is one of the only places that you can directly connect with your ideal clients. By directly engaging with consumers, you increase your brand visibility whilst building relationships.  When you stay consistent and build a community, you’re able to encourage discussions that can lead to organic growth and referrals.

ACTION STEP: Create a content calendar and batch-produce content to ensure you’re keeping consistent online. My biggest tip is to write a long-form blog to put on your website, and use that piece of content as an anchor, and create multiple pieces of content from that blog. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still an incredible way to nurture leads, build relationships, generate traffic and drive sales. Create targeted emails tailored to your subscribers. You can use segmentation to personalise each email, and make sure to share your latest content, such as blog posts and podcasts, to entice people to click through to your website. 

ACTION STEP: Use your content marketing to inform your email marketing. Let’s say you post one blog post every other week, alongside that content, share an email updating your subscribers on the new content, and any other business updates or promotions.

Collaboration

By collaborating with other industry professionals by contributing content on their websites, you increase your chances of being seen because you’re being introduced to their audience. And it’s mutually beneficial, because not only are you being shown to their audience, but if you share the collaboration on your social media channels, you’ll be able to support them too. You’ll also build backlinks to your website, and possibly even referrals. 

ACTION STEP: Create a list of authoritative professionals and websites in your niche, and reach out to them asking to create a piece of valuable content for their audience, and offer for them to do the same for you. Explain the benefits (access to a new audience, referral traffic & cross-promotion) and see where it takes you!

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Now you know: 

✅What website traffic is

✅6 Different Traffic Sources

✅Why it’s beneficial to increase traffic

✅How to increase your website traffic 

So… whilst your social media marketing is a key part of gaining visibility online, do you think it’s time to stop putting all of your eggs in one basket and increase your online visibility via your website? Because I do 😉