How to Increase Website Traffic by 500% in 5 Steps

Though a large group of small business owners, bloggers and enterprise companies are seeking a shortcut to more organic traffic right this very moment, the harsh truth is there is no shortcut to organic traffic that will work long-term.

Organic traffic is not easily attained in the large sphere of the world-wide-web, but the payoff for earning that type of traffic can pay you back for weeks, months or even years to come if you earn it the right way. So if you’ve been asking yourself how to increase website traffic for the past while, what is the next step?

How to Increase Website Traffic

Instead of forking out dollars on popular paid advertising platforms like pay-per-click and affiliate programs, many smart marketers choose to put their dollars and time to good use by developing an seo-friendly content marketing strategy. Though organic traffic is rarely earned overnight, if earned the right way it can be much more profitable than paid traffic.
If you scour the internet for long enough you’ll undoubtedly find info that details how to increase website traffic, but the post you’re reading right now is written from experience. The following tips we’ve jotted down illustrate exactly how our marketing firm increased our organic traffic by more than 500% in less than six months. If you follow these steps closely you can do the same.

Step #1: Research Popular Content in Your Niche

If you ask any content marketing expert what the first step is to create great content, 90% of them will tell you to find a unique way to restate what’s already achieved popularity online. So if that’s the case, how do you find what’s most popular?

The best way to find popular content on the web is to use content analysis tools. Our personal favorite tool here at Local 360 Media is Buzz Sumo.

With Buzz Sumo, you can type a specific niche, industry or keyword into the search bar and the site will generate a list of the most popular blog posts or articles created around that topic. You’ll be able to view how many times each piece of content has been shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google +, and the specific influencers who shared the content. You can also see who linked to the content.

There is also another bonus feature: you can see which influencers are most likely to share content on any topic by clicking on the “influencers” tab. The site makes it extremely convenient to sort those influencers by # of Twitter followers, the likelihood an influencer will reply to your comments and the likelihood they will retweet or share your content. Researching influencers ahead of time will make the outreach process much easier once your content is published.

Step #2: Create a Succinct and Catchy Headline

When you’re researching great content online make sure to analyze the headlines and try to understand what makes them so appealing. If none of your potential readers are enticed by the headline of your content, there is no way they’ll ever click on it. If they never click on it, then what did you create the content for in the first place? Just because you think a piece of content is useful, helpful and shareable, doesn’t mean your audience does. If you follow step one the correct way you’ll have created a list of the most popular content for whatever topic you’re writing on. Look closely at each headline. More likely than not, the best content will feature a headline of six words or less, an odd number, and trigger words like “easy”, “free” and “essential”. Make sure to mimick those details in the headlines you create. If you need help creating headlines this is a great resource.

Step #3: Create Content That Solves a Problem

Publishing content just for the sake of publishing it won’t ever yield great results for your business. Instead you need to tap into the problems, questions and concerns your customers have and address those topics in your content.

Just think for a minute about the blogs you follow faithfully. What keeps you coming back? Does the site teach you something new each time you visit? Does it make you laugh or cry? All great content is able to forge a connection with a reader in some way.

If you want to improve your organic website traffic by 500% or more you need to create content that people are looking for and will connect with. Don’t settle for a topic that you think your audience might find amusing. Do the research and find out. What is your audience talking about on social media, in forums and via email? What type of search volume is there for the key phrases your post will focus on? Those are the topics that will attract real visitors.

Step #4: Focus on Long-Tail Keywords

Everyone, and we mean everyone, is tempted to go after high volume keyword search terms at one time or another. When doing your keyword research, it’s ok to make a note of the high volume keywords, but just know you’re more likely to see a benefit from the long-tail keywords—the terms that get half as much search volume, but when added together, can boost your organic traffic by hundreds and even thousands of visits per month. If you only focus on high volume keywords, you may be disappointed when, after six months of toiling and sweating, you’re still not anywhere near the first page for those terms. Instead of wasting all that time and energy, you can put your effort into multiple long-term keywords and actually earn quality traffic that will convert.

Step #5: No Matter What Google Says, do Guest Blogging

About a year ago the head of Google’s Web Spam Team, Matt Cutts, stated publicly that guest blogging was dead and not effective for seo anymore. While anyone immersed in the world of seo can understand why Google might crack down on spammy link building in the form of guest blogging, the practice itself can still open the floodgates of organic traffic if done the correct way.

If you’re able to focus on blogs in your industry with high domain authority and credibility, a guest blog post is a sure-fire way to increase your organic traffic in a short period of time. Be forewarned that you should not overdo the practice, but publishing a post every few weeks or months will significantly improve your brand visibility and expose you to a whole new audience. So what’s the best way to go about guest blogging?

The first step to a successful guest blogging campaign is to identify the best sites to publish on. Before you formulate a pitch to the webmaster, analyze a few of the blog’s backlinks, check how many comments are on each post, and paste a few url’s into the Buzz Sumo tool to analyze social shares.

Once you’ve found a few exceptional blogs, create a short pitch letter that details what type of post you’d like to publish, how many words it will be and how it will benefit the blog’s audience. It also helps if you can make a positive comment about the blogger’s recent work in the pitch intro. Bloggers, like everyone involved in business, love to be flattered.

If you choose to engage in guest blogging, never do it to earn links. Google has been very clear about their view on spammy guest blogs, so you’d be wise to avoid publishing guest posts on any site that will you to. However, if you can get posts published on sites with consistent traffic and passionate audiences, you’ll see your traffic go up as a result.

Conclusion

Knowing how to increase website traffic begins with thoughtful research, catchy headlines, content that solves problems and answers questions, a focus on long-tail keywords, and guest posting on credible blogs. If you make these five steps a part of your content marketing strategy, it’s possible you can see your organic traffic increase by over 500% like we did.

What other tactics have you used to increase your organic traffic? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.