13 Effective Traffic Sources for Your Website
Are you struggling to get the right targeted traffic for your website?
Many understand that website traffic is the live blood of their business (In case of you want to know why, click here to read it).
In this post, we are going to share 13 traffic sources that you can use to generate traffic to your website.
2 Type of Online Traffics
Before we dive in, it is important to understand that there are 2 types of traffic in your marketing campaign. There are either traffic you OWN or the traffic that is NOT OWNED by you.
Traffic Own By You
Traffic that you own simply refers to your mailing list.
This is when someone visits your site and subscribe to your mailing list. This is the best traffic source since these are highly targeted and free for you to use.
Whenever you have new products to launch or sell, you can just send an email to this group of people.
If you build your branding right and have a good relationship with your subscribers, the sales conversion from this traffic source alone can go up to 30-40%. Plus, you have full control over this traffic source.
Traffic Not Owned By You
On the other hand, traffic that is not owned by you refers to the visitor driven from a paid advertisement, search engine optimization, or any social media platform.
You do not have full control over this traffic.
For example, your Facebook account suddenly got banned before a new product launching or Google changes algorithm and impacts your page ranking in search engine results. All these traffic are owned by Facebook and Google, but not you.
Aside from that, you also need to pay to drive this traffic every time you need them.
Now, let dive in the 13 effective traffic sources for your website.
#1 – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are 3.5 billion searches triggered in Google search engine every day. It provides one of the biggest targeted traffic to your business.
For example, there are 8000 visitors search for “kitchen cabinet” in Malaysia. If your website can rank in top 10, you may get at least a few hundred visitors to your site from that search keyword.
SEO is a process to optimize your website and put your website into page 1 of the search result.
Why is it necessary to be in the first page results?
This is because more than 85% of the users never see page 2 results. Here is a popular cartoon about google search result.
In short, only page 1 results are able to bring high target traffic to your website.
And to be specific, there are 2 types of search results, Organic listing and Local Snack Pack listing as shown below.
- Organic listing is the top 10 search result based on the input keyword.
- Local Snack Pack listing is the map listing result based on Google Business Page.
Organic listing often requires professional SEO services to rank in the top 10. But if you wish to target your business into the broader audience and more keywords, it is still worth to implement SEO as it often gives you higher ROI compare to paid ads.
#2 – Google Ads
Google Ads (AdWords) is basically the pay per click (PPC) advertising services from Google.
It doesn’t only limit the Google search engine but also other media such as YouTube, blogs that run Google AdSense, and mobile ads under Google Play. You can choose the advertising media base on your preference.
However, most advertiser still prefers to focus on Search Engine.
Here is how it works:
- The visitor uses keywords to look for specific services or products in Search Engine
- If the keywords chosen by you match the search terms, your paid ads will display above, next to the organic listing result as below:
- You will be charged per clicks when a visitor clicks on your ad. Then, it will redirect visitors to your website.
It is one of the most effective online advertising channels, but also the most complicated compared to other PPC platform.
The advertising cost is also slightly higher compared to other PPC such as Facebook Ads. For very competitive search terms, it may cost up to more than $100 per click.
You can also make the most out of Google Remarketing Ads which is an ideal tool to do follow-up marketing.
#3 – Facebook Ads
I am sure everyone is familiar with Facebook Ads as it is extremely easy to use and setup.
There are 1.55 billion monthly active Facebook users, 968 million people log onto Facebook daily, and the average time spent by a user is 20 minutes.
This is definitely one of the biggest traffic sources to market your business.
Over the years, Facebook ads have improved a lot, with new innovative features aimed to deliver better results for business owners.
Facebook allows you to create a custom audience to track who visited your website. It can be used to do remarketing just like Google remarketing but at a much lower cost. This is one of my favourite tools in the follow-up process.
It is important to understand the audience within Facebook is different compared to Google Adwords.
Most audiences within Google AdWords are warm or hot leads where they are actively searching for a product, services or a solution.
Whereas Facebook is a social media where the user logs in to see the updates from friends or engage with business owners that are already known.
For example, I believe most people will search for a dental clinic in Search Engine but not within Facebook.
If you are already a Facebook ads user, you may often have difficulties to generate the actual sales. You may see more likes on your Facebook page or clicks to your website but did not really receive any calls or enquiries from potential customers.
Selling something to Facebook users is getting harder nowadays. You usually need to build your branding, provide value, and engage with your audience, before you can sell them something.
#4 – Mobile Ads
There are close to 2000 million mobile users in 2015.
A recent study reveals that mobile advertising experienced the highest growth rate among all the available digital advertising or marketing platforms in the US.
This is primarily driven by the fact that more than 51% of US users consume media information through their mobile phones, while 42% use desktop.
Unfortunately, large mobile media consumption is not entirely justified by the mobile ad spending of companies. Several mobile ads are prevented from flourishing as they should due to certain limitations from click-through-rates (CTR).
Nevertheless, it is still one of the big opportunities for business owners, especially for e-commerce stores. It is also very popular and effective to use for promoting mobile apps.
To get started, just sign up with the right Mobile Advertising Networks and place your ads. Here are few popular mobile advertising networks: AdMob (Under Google), Millennial Media, Adfonic, Chartboost and Tapjoy.
#5 – YouTube
There are more than 1 billion users who visit YouTube every month, with 4 billion video views per day. The average time spent on YouTube per session is 40 minutes. YouTube is the 3rd most visited website globally, after Google and Facebook.
There are 2 ways you can promote your business to this audience, YouTube Advertising and YouTube Channel Marketing.
YouTube Advertising
It is just like other paid advertisement for conducting campaigns to promote brands, products or services.
Videos are more interesting and unique strategies to engage potential customers. While it has become a common assumption that the best way to get people to watch a video is by infusing humour, not all Youtube Ads have to be such.
There are certain situations when the quality of the information in the video counts more. As long as viewers can get good and unique information from the video, it can also become viral.
YouTube Advertising is extremely cost-effective compare to television advertising although it can reach a significantly large percentage of the audience.
But YouTube Advertising allows you to set deliver your ads to highly target audience using selected keywords and demographic such as location, gender, categories, age and interests for your campaign.
Given these number of targeting tools, it is highly possible for companies, even those with a minimal budget to achiever or even goes beyond their marketing goals.
YouTube Channel Marketing
It is about setting up your own channel, constantly upload your video to build your branding, subscriber, engage and receive feedback from users.
Here are the benefits setting up own channel:
- Get found on Google search engine
YouTube video often shows in Google organic search result if the user enters low competition search terms. This is because the domain authority for the YouTube site is so that it can take small advantages in the organic ranking. Thus, you may often hear a lot of SEO consultant provide SEO on YouTube Video. - Recycle your existing content
You can make use of your existing content and recreate it in different formats such as videos or podcast without need to invest your time to create new content. It is an effective form of content marketing where you can reach an audience that will love that specific type of content. - Expand your Audience Reach Internationally
One of the major leverages of businesses that go on YouTube is the opportunity to reach a wider, global market. YouTube videos can drive viewers that other marketing tools can’t. This is one of the fastest and easiest ways to go worldwide, especially if this is one of your long-term business goals. - You will have an audience who will speak for you
Compelling and quality videos generate high conversion rates. Aside from having people buy your products, the trust and interest that you have built through your videos will also result in them promoting your company or product on your behalf. Videos allow you to relate to your audience on an emotional level, which is a crucial aspect in a marketing strategy. Marketing researches suggest that landing pages with videos of the company representative can significantly increase sales leads of a website.
There are just some of the many ways you can utilize YouTube to grow your business.
As long as you are patient enough to learn the primary features of the website, YouTube can be truly a handy addition to your marketing platforms.
#6 – LinkedIn Ads
Businesses who are more involved in B2B marketing can definitely make the most out of the professional networking from LinkedIn.
It is another form of a social network that focuses on professional profiles of the member, which provides advertisers with new audiences and opportunities. LinkedIn delivers unique results that can directly impact the bottom line of the business.
When it comes to targeting the audience, the professional community was one of the hardest to reach. LinkedIn made it possible for companies and brands to engage the professional network in few clicks.
As a matter of fact, this social network site has allowed several B2B-focused companies to establish their own digital B2B network, something that wasn’t possible prior to LinkedIn.
- Professional Network – Refers to a professional group of people who are more concerned about getting business-related content and information.
- Spot-on Targeting – LinkedIn is so far the best social networking site when it comes to targeting features. It even surpasses Google and Facebook. This is achieved by the kind of profiles that LinkedIn require from its members. This means that the targeting data come from the members themselves. For instance, a banker will have to put it their profession and employer in their profile. This cuts the algorithmic guesswork that is usually being done with the Google and Facebook platforms.
- Native Advertising – LinkedIn is more focused on sponsored updates or posts. This type of ad content is less intrusive than the typical ads banner. LinkedIn also has a feature that allows advertisers to test their posts organically.
If your target audience is all the professionals, LinkedIn will be one of the best-paid advertising platforms.
LinkedIn is no doubt the best platform for businesses that primarily target a professional network.
#7 – Twitter
This is another free social marketing platform that benefits almost all types of companies.
Twitter is one of the most effective tools for building brand image, as it allows the users to have full control of the content.
Apart from connecting with the target audience, Twitter also makes it easier to connect with other companies. Twitter is a convenient way to engage more customers and clients by providing unique company information.
However, when it comes to increasing the number of followers on Twitter, basic tweeting will not do. Twitter Advertising is the marketing platform of Twitter, which is used to increase overall company visibility.
Here are the basic things you can do with Twitter Advertising:
- Promote Twitter Accounts
- Run Tweet promotions in relevant feeds
- Promote the trends that the company started
Since its relatively new, Twitter is not really one of the major traffic sources for small and medium enterprises.
#8 – Solo Ads
You have probably heard of solo ads and the many wonders that it has done for businesses. True enough, Solo Ads has been one of the major keys to the successes of several online businesses.
Almost any marketing forums these days will recommend solo ads due to the ease of use and fast returns. Apparently, several people still turn to solo ads for a powerful site traffic solution.
Here is how it works:
- Create your own sales funnel or a landing page on your website with the sole purpose of converting visits to sales.
- Create an email sales copy.
- Look for a vendor who has similar subscribers as your business.
- Create a tracking system
- Book the vendor’s email list
- Process the payment for the ad base on click-through rate (CTR) fees
And here are the benefits of using solo ads
- Simple marketing techniques that can be easily ran
- Instant access to a bulk of subscribers
- There is guaranteed traffic for the campaign
- Pricing flexibility
- More cost-effective than other ads platform
Solo ads are often effective when selling digital products including e-books, training, and software.
#9 – Reddit
Reddit is a bookmarking directory, news portal, powered-up community, and social network all in one site. It allows its users to influence the content of the entire site by allowing them to submit based on a specific area of interest or also referred to as the “subreddit”. Other users can then express their opinion on specific content either by commenting, sharing, or voting.
Currently, Reddit is ranked as one of the top 50 websites with the most traffic, globally. The website gets an average of 150 million views per month.
One not so popular submission in Reddit may result in thousands of visitors landing to your website. But self-promotion is a big No in Reddit community.
Reddit marketing is challenging but worth to dive in due to the tons of free targeted traffics.
Here is a good read about Reddit Marketing: http://www.bloggingspell.com/reddit-traffic-guide/
#10 – Facebook Group or Page
We have just discussed Facebook Ads. How about Facebook Page or Facebook Group?
Having huge followers definitely can drive targeted traffic to your website and make more sales.
Here is how you can market your business with it.
- Create a group or page in your niche. Do not put your company name or brand name.
- Then grow the number of users/followers and keep putting in interesting content or contest to keep the engagement with your member.
- Make use of Facebook Ads to boost your Page likes and grow your members.
- Once you have a certain amount of members, you can start to sell your products and services.
Let me share a real-life example.
This is about a popular close group about breastfeeding in Malaysia. During the first few stages of the group, the administrator consistently provided quality information about breastfeeding, such as the dos and don’ts in breastfeeding, different techniques, among others.
With this, the group easily earned popularity among its members and even got more members coming it.
As the group grew bigger, the administrator started to introduce confinement services, which cost more than RM10K per package. Surprisingly, the members are more than willing to use the services and even informed their friends to avail of the same service. This is mainly due to the trust that has already been built between the owner and the members.
This strategy is also very suitable for local restaurants, cafes, and pastry shops with little tweaks. Build up branding, increase followers, earn good reviews, and boost your positive reviews.
#11 – Blogging
Blogging is one of the earlier marketing tools, yet it still remains very effective until today especially for professional services or selling digital products.
If you haven’t heard about John Chow, he is well-known for taking his blog from zero to over $40,000 income per month within two years.
But we are not talking about how to make money online here. I just wanted to share the power of blogging in the online space.
Indeed, blogging is one of the best tools to share your expertise, build your branding, and engage with visitors.
Your ultimate goal is building a big list of royalty members. Then, you can start selling to them your products and services.
Here is how to get started.
- Set up your own blog using WordPress (Do not use the free website at wordpress.com).
- Start sharing your value via blogging.
- Use Facebook ads to drive more visitors to your site.
- Collect visitor’s email
- Sell their products once you have a good relationship with them.
#12 – Blog Commenting
There are 2 types of blog commenting in the online space.
If you are running a blog, you may often receive a lot of spammy comments such as “Great post!”, “You’re an awesome writer!“ or “Thanks for sharing!” and link to a site with keyword-rich anchor text. These comments usually have one intention, which is to gain backlinks for SEO purpose.
The other type of blog comment is constructive coming from a real person who gives feedback and comment to the post.
It can be a powerful weapon to build your authority, branding, and drive targeted traffic to your site. This allows you to skip the long processes of blog promotion and simply focus on creating a quality comment.
Here is a good read about blog commenting: https://moz.com/blog/recommendations-blog-commenting-marketing-strategy
And make sure you read on and learn how the 130++ comments get approved by the creator.
#13 – Email List
The email list I’m talking about here is not the old-time email marketing where you buy hundred thousand of emails and use some email blasting services to send the spam email to untargeted recipients.
Your email will only either end up in the spam folder or being ignored by everyone. It doesn’t work anymore in today’s business world.
You can also utilize your email list to promote other affiliate products if you have a big and targeted list. Furthermore, this is the free traffic that is owned by you.
The ultimate goal for all the traffic sources you see above should be used to convert to your email list. In short, your email list equals to money.
To build an email list fast, you will need to focus on conversion marketing where you engage with the prospect and convert them into your list.
Now’s Your Turn!
Every online business needs traffic.
Which one have you chosen to get started?
Or are you using other traffic sources to drive traffic to your site?
I’ll be glad to know that.