There is a common, misleading belief that if you build a site, visitors will come… automatically. The reality is that ranking at a high position in Google for certain keywords takes longer than one would imagine. For this reason, it is necessary to look at various ways to generate traffic to a WordPress website rather than relying on a single method.
Here are five simple ways to increase the traffic to your WordPress website:
1. Setup Pinterest Boards
Pinterest is a visual social media site that relies on users uploading interesting images that can be widely shared. Each image may be given a caption with words overlaying the background photograph, a written description, and a link to an external website. Images that are pinned to a user’s virtual pin board can easily be re-pinned to other boards on Pinterest and this is how images go viral. In many cases, a considerable percentage of new traffic can be generated from Pinterest if managed well.
2. Join Related Community Message Boards
Signing up with a related community message board is a good way to learn about the interests of people active in the space. Therefore, to know what services to offer, read through the message threads to see what consumers are interested in, finding challenging, or missing in the market. Identify pain points for existing customers and see how they can be better addressed.
Write posts or articles for your website that address the pain points already identified. Post replies in message threads offering advice and linking to your helpful article on the subject.
3. Use Pay-per-click Advertising to Drive Traffic
Using pay-per-click advertising is a highly effective way to drive traffic to a website. It works extremely well for new websites that aren’t ranking in Google yet, but is also useful for sites simply looking to expand their traffic, email subscribers, and buyers.
Managing a per-per-click ad campaign is difficult to do, requires constant monitoring and frequent adjustment to prices and ad copy to get the most out of the advertising budget. It is a good idea to outsource the work to a specialist rather than try to manage it yourself because the return on investment is likely to be higher.
4. Join Related Facebook Groups
There are many thousands of Facebook groups that are free to join and are an excellent way to access people interested in niche subjects. Whilst it is not usually acceptable to openly promote a website directly, Facebook users are open to receiving helpful advice. With useful posts, interest is piqued with several Facebook posters often asking about the products or services that you can offer them. This opens the door to private messages and discussions about how you can help each person through your business.
5. Guest Post
A guest post – an article published on another site with a link back to your own site – is still a popular way to generate new traffic. The determining factors are the quality and usefulness of the actual article for the readers on the site where it’s posted. If the opinions shared in the article are thought-provoking, then quite often readers will click through to your website to learn more about your business.
Driving new traffic to a WordPress website doesn’t need to be about affording lavish GoDaddy-style TV advertising spots or securing celebrity endorsements. Website traffic is something that can be built up over time through a variety of methods which start as a trickle and later build to a flood of daily traffic to help grow your business.