Ask a marketer or business owner what they’d like most in the world, and they’ll probably tell you “more customers.” What often comes after customers on a business’ wish list? More traffic to their site. There are many ways you can increase traffic on your website, and in today’s post, we’re going to look at 25 of them, including several ways to boost site traffic for FREE.
This one is so obvious, we’re going to look at it first. Paid search, social media advertising and display advertising (try our Smart Ads Creator!) are all excellent ways of attracting visitors, building your brand and getting your site in front of people. Adjust your paid strategies to suit your goals – do you just want more traffic, or are you looking to increase conversions, too? Each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think carefully about your objectives before you reach for your credit card.
If you’re hoping that more traffic to your site will also result in more sales, you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your paid search strategies. Yes, competition for these search terms can be fierce (and expensive), but the payoffs can be worth it.
It’s not enough to produce great content and hope that people find it – you have to be proactive. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to use social media channels to promote your content. Twitter is ideal for short, snappy (and tempting) links, whereas Google+ promotion can help your site show up in personalized search results and seems especially effective in B2B niches. If you’re a B2C product company, you might find great traction with image-heavy social sites like Pinterest and Instagram. Here's more advice on making the most of social media marketing.
Image via Pascale Communications
There is no magic formula for content marketing success, despite what some would have you believe. For this reason, vary the length and format of your content to make it as appealing as possible to different kinds of readers. Intersperse shorter, news-based blog posts with long-form content as well as video, infographics and data-driven pieces for maximum impact.
Headlines are one of the most important parts of your content. Without a compelling headline, even the most comprehensive blog post will go unread. Master the art of headline writing. For example, the writers at BuzzFeed and Upworthy often write upward of twenty different headlines before finally settling on the one that will drive the most traffic, so think carefully about your headline before you hit “publish.”
Think SEO is dead? Think again. Optimizing your content for search engines is still a valuable and worthwhile practice. Are you making the most of image alt text? Are you creating internal links to new content? What about meta descriptions? Optimizing for on-page SEO doesn’t have to take ages, and it could help boost your organic traffic.
Got your high-intent keyword and popular keyword bases covered? Then it’s time to target long-tail keywords, too. Long-tail keywords account for a majority of web searches, meaning that if you’re not targeting them as part of your paid search or SEO efforts, you’re missing out.
Image via thegardensofeden.org
Before you say it – no, true guest blogging isn’t dead, despite what you may have heard. Securing a guest post on a reputable site can increase blog traffic to your website and help build your brand into the bargain. Be warned, though – standards for guest blogging have changed radically during the past eighteen months, and spammy tactics could result in stiff penalties. Proceed with caution.
Guest blogging is a two-way street. In addition to posting content to other blogs, invite people in your niche to blog on your own site. They’re likely to share and link to their guest article, which could bring new readers to your site. Just be sure that you only post high-quality, original content without spammy links, because Google is cracking way down on low-quality guest blogging.
Rather than trying to persuade other sites to link back to you (a tedious and time-intensive process), create content that just begs to be linked to.
When Larry wrote about the kick in the proverbial teeth that eBay took from Google’s Panda update, we managed to secure a link from Ars Technica in the Editor’s Pick section alongside links to The New York Times and National Geographic. Not too shabby – and neither was the resulting spike in referral traffic. Learn what types of links send lots of referral traffic, and how to get them, in this post.
LinkedIn has become much more than a means of finding another job. The world’s largest professional social network is now a valuable publishing platform in its own right, which means you should be posting content to LinkedIn on a regular basis. Doing so can boost traffic to your site, as well as increase your profile within your industry – especially if you have a moderate to large following.
Implementing schema (or another microdata format) won’t necessarily increase traffic to your website on its own, but it will make it easier for search engine bots to find and index your pages. Another benefit of using schema for SEO is that it can result in better rich site snippets, which can improve click-through rates.
The strength of your link profile isn’t solely determined by how many sites link back to you – it can also be affected by your internal linking structure. When creating and publishing content, be sure to keep an eye out for opportunities for internal links. This not only helps with SEO, but also results in a better, more useful experience for the user – the cornerstone of increasing traffic to your website.
Think interviews are only for the big leaguers? You’d be amazed how many people will be willing to talk to you if you just ask them. Send out emails requesting an interview to thought leaders in your industry, and publish the interviews on your blog. Not only will the name recognition boost your credibility and increase traffic to your website, the interviewee will probably share the content too, further expanding its reach.
Image via business2community.com
So many businesses are focused on attracting new customers through content marketing that they forget about more traditional methods. Email marketing can be a powerful tool, and even a moderately successful email blast can result in a significant uptick in traffic. Just be careful not to bombard people with relentless emails about every single update in your business. Also, don’t overlook the power of word-of-mouth marketing, especially from people who are already enjoying your products or services. A friendly email reminder about a new service or product can help you boost your traffic, too.
The days when internet browsing was done exclusively on desktop PCs are long gone. Today, more people than ever before are using mobile devices to access the web, and if you force your visitors to pinch and scroll their way around your site, you’re basically telling them to go elsewhere. Ensure that your website is accessible and comfortably viewable across a range of devices, including smaller smartphones.
Ever found yourself waiting thirty seconds for a webpage to load? Me neither. If your site takes forever to load, your bounce rate will be sky high. Make sure that your pages are as technically optimized as possible, including image file sizes, page structure and the functionality of third-party plugins. The faster your site loads, the better.
People want to speak their minds and weigh in on subjects they feel passionately about, so building a community into your site is a great way to start a conversation and increase traffic to your website. Implement a robust commenting system through third-party solutions such as Facebook comments or Disqus, or create a dedicated forum where visitors can ask questions. Don’t forget to manage your communityto ensure that minimum standards of decorum are met, however.
You probably visit at least a few sites that are relevant to your business on a regular basis, so why not join the conversation? Commenting doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate boost to referral traffic right away, but making a name for yourself by providing insightful, thought-provoking comments on industry blogs and sites is a great way to get your name out there – which can subsequently result in driving more traffic to your own site. Just remember that, as with guest posting, quality and relevance are key – you should be engaging with other people in your niche, not dropping spam links on unrelated websites.
Image via organictalks.com
Google Analytics is an invaluable source of data on just about every conceivable aspect of your site, from your most popular pages to visitor demographics. Keep a close eye on your Analytics data, and use this information to inform your promotional and content strategies. Pay attention to what posts and pages are proving the most popular. Inspect visitor data to see how, where and when your site traffic is coming from.
It’s not enough to just share content through social channels – you need to actively participate in the community, too. Got a Twitter account? Then join in group discussions with relevant hashtags. Is your audience leaving comments on your Facebook posts? Answer questions and engage with your readers. Nothing turns people off quicker than using social media as a broadcast channel – use social media as it was intended and actually interact with your fans.
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Firstly, a disclaimer – don’t spam Reddit and other similar sites hoping to “hit the jackpot” of referral traffic, because it’s not going to happen. Members of communities like Reddit are extraordinarily savvy to spam disguised as legitimate links, but every now and again, it doesn’t hurt to submit links that these audiences will find genuinely useful. Choose a relevant subreddit, submit your content, then watch the traffic pour in.
Text-based content is all well and good, but video can be a valuable asset in both attracting new visitors and making your site more engaging. Data shows that information retention is significantly higher for visual materialthan it is for text, meaning that video marketing is an excellent way to grab – and hold – your audience’s attention, and boost traffic to your website at the same time.
If you haven’t used software like BuzzSumo to check out what your competitors are up to, you’re at a huge disadvantage. These services aggregate the social performance of specific sites and content to provide you with an at-a-glance view of what topics are resonating with readers and, most importantly, making the rounds on social media. Find out what people are reading (and talking about), and emulate that kind of content to bring traffic to your website.
People love to learn, and webinars are an excellent way to impart your wisdom to your eagerly waiting audience. Combined with an effective social promotion campaign, webinars are a great way to increase traffic to your website. Send out an email a week or so ahead of time, as well as a “last chance to register” reminder the day before the webinar. Make sure to archive the presentation for later viewing, and promote your webinars widely through social media. If you're wondering how to do a webinar, click the link for some tips.
Whatever industry you’re in, chances are there are at least one or two major conventions and conferences that are relevant to your business. Attending these events is a good idea – speaking at them is even better. Even a halfway decent speaking engagement is an excellent way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and gain significant exposure for your site.
Well, that just about does it for today’s post. If you’ve got your own tips for increasing traffic to your website, I’d love to hear them.
News aggregator website helps you find all popular news sites articles in one place. Content Aggregators sites or mobile apps are really useful for users to gather only their favorite subjects related content.
The news aggregator is the perfect tool for catching up on the latest trending stories about international and domestic politics, economics, business, science, technology, public relations, sports, culture, etc.
Bloggers use content aggregators sites not only for getting traffic for websites but also it is a great place to get content ideas sources to increase high PR backlinks for blogs.
The content aggregator is a website or program tool that collects related items of content and displays them or links to the main source websites or blogs who write articles.
There are a lot of news aggregators and feed aggregator tools that gather Web content updates from different online sources such as social media, social networking, bookmarking sites, blogs and also micro-blogging sites.
Any news aggregators fundamentally follow data gathering from news websites using RSS feeds or crawl whole HTML pages as news aggregation workflow. However, some news aggregators work based users or publishers stories like Reddit, Hacker News, and Fark.
Here is a list of best news aggregators websites that provides the latest news updates for users and generate traffic for publishers and bloggers. These content aggregators link to original articles. Take a look at the top news aggregator sites list below.
Feedly is another RSS feed aggregator tool that collects related items of content for your interest topics. You can use Feedly news aggregator application on web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android, also is available as a cloud-based service.
News360 is the best news aggregator site and app for iPhone, Android smartphones, tablets and the web. This personalized content aggregation tools provide topic-based content what you prefer to read.
News360 gathers digital content not only from popular news sites but also it collects useful content oriented post from microsites. The article aggregator site covers all popular categories like financial, insurance, health, art, technology, architecture, photography, gaming, web design, graphic design, and lot more topics.
Another best thing about News360 is available on iOS, Android apps and also whenever you in computer browsers, then you can read form News360’s website aggregation.
Flipboard is a personal magazine and news aggregator that pulls in the content from websites on a variety of topics using RSS aggregator tool. It has mobile apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad so you are able to read your interest stories on any devices.
NewsNow is a news aggregator service which collect breaking news headlines. You can see thousands of publications including top news providers latest stories links.
Panda helps you personalise contents and easy way to keep up with industry news and information from a variety of sources in one interface. You can quickly find the best content.
AllTop is the most popular content aggregation site that gathers top headlines from popular topics around the web. It covers the latest trending story from mainstream news sites and also tech, sports, entertainment, health, lifestyle, business, autos, science, and religion.
Popurls is one of the best content aggregators that pulls in latest posts from a different kind of websites such as social networks, blogs, and news publications.
Google News is a free best news aggregator which shares selecting news from thousands of news websites.
With Google news aggregator, you can easily get latest updates for world news, U.S. News, business, technology, entertainment, sports, science, health and more. In addition, you can easily organize headlines sections for your local city or town news stories and also based on your interests.
Google news is really easy to handle the topics used for showing your personal interest stories. You can add topics or names of news sources you want to see news on and change existing preferences for topics.
Digg is one of the oldest news aggregators that features the best articles, videos, and link to the original content site. This aggregator collects contents from categories such as technology, news, entertainment, sports or science.
If you are a tech enthusiast, Techmeme is the best technology news aggregator platform to find all latest technology related articles in one place.
Designer News is a content aggregator for designers. This is the perfect place for people who are working or interested in design and technology.
Metacritic is another good website to read reviews for films, TV shows, music albums, video games, books, and more.
esciencenews.com aggregates latest and breaking science news articles from all major science news sources around the web.15. The Morning News
Bing News is another news aggregator place to find news for almost every topics. Again, Bing News similar to Google News.
SmartNews is a mobile news application for iPhone and Android. It shares the top trending news stories influencing the world right now. You can also browse headlines quickly and customize your channels and read the news offline. You can download this free news alternative app for iOS and Android devices.
SmartNews delivers news headlines and breaking news from top news publishers like NBC News, USA Today, TIME, Reuters, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, Bleacher Report, Quartz, The Verge, VICE, VOX, AP, Fast Company and more.
FleetUnderground aggregates news stories mainly from UK based news portal sites like The Telegraph, Mirror, Guardian, and Independent, among others.
Nuzzel is a free iOS and Android app that provides industry news and media intelligence to professionals. You will get daily top news in business, finance, technology, and media, from the world’s top publishers. Download iPhone and iPad app | Android App
WP News Desk is a content aggregator that collects posts all about WordPress. So that is allowing bloggers and WordPress developers submit their own WordPress blog to the news desk.
The News Republic is another mainstream publisher based news aggregator tool collects latest updates. You can use it whether you read on phone or computer because of News Republic’s app makes it.
Fark shares stories like sports, business, geek, entertainment, and politics from mainstream news portals.
Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Users submit posts from various content sources. It works as the best content aggregator that provides useful articles for the wide variety of topics.
You can find many articles on any subjects from foods recipes to movies celebrity gossip. Furthermore, using subreddits you can add your link reaching the circle of people interested in the subject.
The popular discovery engine StumbleUpon is moved to Mix.com. Mix.com is another popular content aggregator that lets you curate and discover the best of the web. It corresponds to your interest category whether you like Gadgets, interior design, photography, geeks, art, photoshop, design or any other subject matters, then just click the pages adds those topics in your lists.
Hacker News is a user submitted links content aggregator of computer science, web design, web technology and web development news.
The Web List online aggregator works similarly to Popurls and it posts popular web portal articles side-by-side on the homepage.
Voat.co is similar to how Reddit works through community platform where content is submitted by users and also organized based on topics.
Travel Blogger Community is mainly focused and collected travel adventure post from travel blogs.
MetaFilter another community weblog featuring links to content that users have discovered on the web.
Webdesigner News is the best place to share and read about Web, Ux / Usability, Infographics, Typography, resources and mobile Apps.
Seldon News is a news aggregator website that is available on English and Russian language. It delivers the most up-to-date content to a wide range of users worldwide.
Apple News was a pre installed news app on iPhone and iPad. It provides the best coverage of current events, curated by editors and personalised for you.
Pocket allows users to save articles for offline reading so you can use it for aggregating your favourite and informative web content. Even if it’s not suitable for your news reading, I would recommend it for your own personal content curation.
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According to a study published by eMarketer in 2016, the ecommerce sector will experience double-digit growth until 2020, when sales are expected to exceed $4 trillion.
Few industries can boast such a bright future, which makes looking forward to what’s next in the world of ecommerce all the more exciting. Today, we’ll be taking a look at seven of the most significant and potentially disruptive ecommerce trends that marketers and consumers alike can expect in 2018.
We’ll be examining the current state of each of these areas, as well as taking a speculative look forward for the rest of the year to see what opportunities – and challenges – ecommerce retailers are likely to encounter in 2018.
Looking beyond the idiosyncrasies of specific ecommerce platforms, one of the very few remaining genuine differentiators in the ecommerce sector is that of shipping times and delivery logistics.
Amazon is the indisputable king of ecommerce delivery, and seems poised to remain on its throne for the foreseeable future. Amazon is notoriously secretive when it comes to specific figures, but an infographic recently published by the ecommerce giant states that Amazon shipped more than 5 BILLION items worldwide via Amazon Prime’s free one- or two-day shipping in 2017. Even more interesting is the data on Amazon’s fastest deliveries – just eight minutes for a forehead thermometer, and just nine minutes for five pints of ice cream.
In 2018, we can expect Amazon and other ecommerce retailers step up their logistics game.
With more than 8,000 Amazon Prime members currently living in areas offering Amazon Now’s one-hour(!) delivery service – and Amazon’s plans to expand the service even further this year – reducing the time between click and delivery is likely to become one of the bloodiest fights on the ecommerce battlefield this year. Combined with other emerging technologies such as driverless freight envisioned by automotive companies such as Mercedes-Benz, logistical improvements will drive (get it?) the ecommerce sector forward this year.
Given the appetite for machine learning technologies in Silicon Valley and beyond, it’s inevitable that the ecommerce sector will continue to be disrupted by greater integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology in 2018.
Machine learning has already been integrated into many ecommerce systems, from product recommendation engines to improved search functionality. However, 2018 will see a dramatic increase in the applications of these technologies, allowing ecommerce retailers to offer customers exactly what they want in less time with less effort.
One technological area of ecommerce that has already seen remarkable advances in both sophistication and adoption has been the rise of the customer service chatbot, and we’ll likely see continued development of these “conversational agents” in 2018.
These applications will become increasingly helpful and will be able to handle a more complex range of tasks, from problem resolution to assisted transactional functionality. Facebook has already offered some retailers access to new chatbot tools that allow conversational agents within Facebook Messenger to handle payments directly within the app, without forcing users to process their transaction on another site.
Product recommendations are also poised to become even more accurate and helpful thanks to machine learning technologies. We’ll see a move away from keyword-based recommendations to systems that factor in a wider range of signals, from product purchase histories to thematically and semantically related products and greater personalization of results based on consumers’ shopping preferences.
Image via Vibetrace
Advertisers can also expect to see greater adoption of machine learning within Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) and other online advertising platforms. Systems such as Smart Goals and Smart Bidding will become, well, smarter and more accurate, and it’s likely that more advertisers will turn to these tools as a way to maximize the impact of their campaigns – albeit in an opaque way.
Until very recently, nascent augmented reality technologies have been largely novelties – think Snapchat filters rather than the glittering future once promised by Google Glass and the like. However, this year will see AR tech take a giant stride forward toward true mainstream adoption, with ecommerce businesses leading the way.
Many leading retailers have been refining their AR offerings for some time, and the results have been striking. Everybody’s favorite Swedish furniture retailer IKEA debuted its Place app late last year, which allows you to see how various IKEA products would look in your home. Although early versions of the app were a little buggy (particularly in smaller dwellings with limited floor space), newer iterations are reportedly much more stable and intuitive.
Of course, IKEA isn’t the only player in the ecommerce space vying for a slice of the augmented reality pie. Amazon’s AR View app offers similar functionality, allowing shoppers to see how thousands of products would look in their home without committing to a purchase.
Expect to see competition in the ecommerce AR space to intensify throughout 2018.
No list of anticipated ecommerce trends would be complete without the almost-obligatory mention of the continued meteoric rise of mobile – specifically, mobile checkout and payment systems, and the continued rise of internet-connected devices.
Mobile payment has been one of the most dramatic changes to the way people shop since the advent of ecommerce itself. Growth of the mobile payment market has increased steadily year-on-year since 2015, and there are at least 10 different mobile payment platforms available today, including mainstays like Apple Pay and Google Pay (the recently announced merger of Google Wallet and Android Pay), as well as proprietary offerings from banks including Chase and Softbank. (Oh, and don’t forget everyone’s favorite cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.) As we move farther away from cash, it seems inevitable that we’ll see continued adoption and development of mobile payment systems throughout the year and beyond.
Image/data via Statista
However, that’s not to say there aren’t significant challenges to be overcome in the mobile payments space. According to a recent studypublished by researchers at the University of East Anglia in England, although mobile accounted for 46% of all ecommerce transactions in Q2 2016, mobile conversion rates lag behind desktop conversion rates significantly due to consumer trepidation about mobile shopping, revealing that retailers still have much to do to sway the hearts and minds of their prospects.
Another closely related ecommerce trend that will (unfortunately) gain even greater traction in 2018 is the Internet of Things, or IoT. Contrary to every natural instinct, many companies seem locked in a frantic battle to see who can claim the title of Most Ridiculous Connected Device. So far, we’ve seen “smart” condoms, toasters, bathroom fixtures, and even luggage, and we haven’t hit bottom yet.
Aside from serving as a reminder that not everything can (or should) be “smart,” this trend should also remind us that everything that can connect to the internet can serve as another point-of-sale system, a fact that will doom us to the kind of dreary dystopian future in which even our toasters and refrigerators mock us with annoying ads and special offers.
These days, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk about mobile without mentioning voice search. In 2018, voice will be one of the leading drivers of innovation in the ecommerce space – and not just on mobile.
Image/data via Adobe Digital Insights
Adoption of smart home appliances such as Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home units has been a major driver of voice search, particularly in the ecommerce space. Data from Walker Sands Digital indicates that almost one-quarter of consumers (24%) own a voice-controlled smart appliancesuch as an Amazon Echo or Google Home, and a further 20% plan to purchase one in the coming year. Use of these devices to complete purchases has also grown, with 19% of consumers having used their smart appliance to make a purchase, and a further 33% of consumers planning to do so in 2018.
Voice search, particularly in the smart speaker market, isn’t just a neat trick or the novelty du jour; it’s the next stage of customer loyalty. According to data from equities securities research firm Consumer Research Intelligence Partners, consumers that use their Echo to make purchases are among Amazon’s most loyal customers, spending an average of $1,600 per year compared to the $1,300 per-year average of Prime customers, a figure 66% higher than the average Amazon customer spends in a year.
Sales completed via Amazon Echo units also provided retailers with numerous upsell opportunities, with upsell rates of more than 60% observed among some product lines.
ROPO – Research Online, Purchase Offline – has been an observable consumer shopping habit for some time, driven largely by thrifty shoppers and eagle-eyed bargain hunters looking for the best possible deal. In 2018, we can expect to see a great deal more ROPO in the ecommerce sector.
Image/data via Bazaarvoice
ROPO isn’t just the natural evolution of thrifty shopping in today’s digital world – it’s the culmination of the last 15 years of online shopping technology. Consumers like to research products online before making offline purchases because it empowers them to find the products they want at the best possible price, but to retailers, ROPO represents offline conversion tracking at its most effective.
According to Montreal-based ecommerce agency Absolunet, 82% of consumers use their mobile devices to research local businesses, and 18% of local searches results in a sale within 24 hours. By leveraging a range of techniques and metrics, such as mobile payment data, CRM and point-of-sale systems, geolocation tracking, consumer shopping history, social integration, and increasingly personalized advertising experiences, retailers can build incredibly detailed profiles of shoppers who conduct online research before making offline purchases throughout every stage of the customer journey.
British clothing retailer Matalan, for example, discovered that every £1 it spent on Google Ads resulted in £46 of sale revenue, £31 of which was in-store.
With so much focus shifting from desktop to mobile, ecommerce shopping will be further transformed this year by storefront apps. Many major retailers have offered apps for several years, and shoppers are already well-accustomed to using dedicated storefront apps to browse and shop from their mobile devices. However, 2018 will see more smaller businesses leverage storefront apps to drive sales and, perhaps even more importantly, customer loyalty.
Image via Cobalt Apps
Data from ecommerce app platform Poq indicates that conversion rates among dedicated storefront apps are approximately 40% higher than those of mobile sites, making the development of such apps a tempting proposition to many retailers. In addition, the average session duration and average order value (AOV) are both significantly higher using storefront apps than mobile sites, which suggests that dedicated apps are likely to become increasingly prevalent throughout the year.
The barriers to entry for app development have never been lower, meaning that even locally focused, family owned businesses can offer customers dedicated apps – and we’re going to see a lot more of this in 2018.
What trends do you think we’ll see in the ecommerce space this year?