The euphoria of launching your small business website can soon turn to concern when you realize you’re not getting the traffic you need. It turns out that creating the website is just the beginning; to really succeed as a small business, you need to keep traffic coming to your site so you get leads and sales. This guide shows you 10 fixes you can implement to make your small business website work better for you.
1. Add a blog and create share-worthy content
To get traffic, your small business website has to be useful to your potential customers. One way to signal that is by creating expert content that answers their questions and showcases your expertise. Since your site is built on WordPress, it’s easy to add a blog, and start using the built-in social sharing buttons so visitors can easily share your content.
Ideally, you’ll create several posts (between five and ten) so your blog has plenty to offer when visitors arrive. As you create and publish it, use an SEO plugin like Yoast to make sure your content is optimized to show up on relevant search results pages when people search for information in your niche.
Once you’re comfortable creating excellent content for your own site, consider guest blogging as a strategy to attract more visitors. Find sites in related niches that attract the audience you want to reach, and offer a piece of expert content. You’ll be able to use the author bio to promote your website, products and services.
2. Track site traffic
Before you dive into boosting site traffic, it’s important to set a baseline for where you are now, so you can track improvements easily. There are a few ways to do this. First, connect your site to Google Search Console. This tells you how your site is performing in Google and also warns you if anything isn’t working so you can fix it. Add Google Analytics to your site to learn about site traffic and how your visitors behave.
3. Set up Google My Business
Local search has become more important, especially if your small business website serves a particular community or location. “Near me” searches have increased every year, and according to Google, the pandemic has driven a 20,000% increase in searches for “support local businesses”.
Google My Business lets you capitalize on those trends by creating a Google page for your business. People will look there first to get information on your location, business focus, and opening hours. This can boost your local SEO, bringing website traffic – and even offline traffic – from your own area. Google My Business is also another place to post your content, further improving your online presence and building trust.
Potential customers will also check for ratings, so once your Google My Business page is live, ask existing customers to review your business. The more positive reviews and ratings you have, the more trustworthy your business looks.
4. Announce your launch everywhere
As part of getting your business off the ground, you’ll grab the appropriate social media handles for your brand and set up your profiles. (If you haven’t, do it now, and use Knowem to check that the handle you want is available on all major platforms.)
Social media is a key tool for people to get information and make recommendations, so it’s a great place to announce your website launch. Don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of fans or followers yet; those will come as you start to provide value and interest.
Of course, that’s not the only place people will look for information about you. You can also let people know about your new site via:
- Press releases
- Media appearances, including podcasts and interviews
- Advertising (more on that later)
Many businesses which offer products or apps also use sites like Product Hunt and AppSumo to quickly get the attention of their target market.
5. Share your content on social media
The hard sell doesn’t work any more. Instead, you have to attract people to your site with useful content that’s relevant to them. Social media is a key place to do that. One way to save time is to use content repurposing: sharing the same content in different formats. For example, the content from an excellent long form blog post can help you generate a range of other content including:
- Quote graphics
- Tweetable quotes
- Short videos
- Memes
- Shorter posts
- Presentations
- Infographics
- Quora answers
And you can share all of those on social media to continue to promote your business. To cut down on the time it takes to share, connect your website to key social media platforms so you can share content automatically. You can also create drip sharing campaigns using MissingLettr (or a similar tool) to promote your content at intervals for periods of up to a year.
6. Create an explainer video
Video marketing is now an essential tool for small business website promotion. Videos are popular with consumers, make it easy for them to retain information, and drive traffic, leads and sales.
A good starting point for video marketing is making an explainer video to quickly tell your potential customers what your business is about. If you’re on a budget, use a video app or an animated video tool to create the video yourself. Once you have it, add it to your website, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, and share it widely on social media.
7. Take part in online discussions
Another great option for getting the word out about your website is to take part in online discussions. There are a few ways to do this. Some of the most effective include:
- Joining Facebook or LinkedIn groups where you can share your expertise in a helpful way (again, not a hard sell)
- Join forums related to your business sector. Again, look for opportunities to help forum members and share your expertise.
- Taking part in Twitter chats or, even better, being a guest expert at a Twitter chat. You can share what you know, and you’ll pick up new followers who’ll likely visit your website.
8. Use paid advertising
Lots of businesses start out using social media for free, but with 4.2 billion social media users globally, according to We Are Social, there’s no guarantee that the people you most want to reach will always see what you post. Paid advertising is the way to solve that issue.
It allows you to promote your business to people who match the demographics and interests of your target market. This makes it more likely that they’ll click through to visit your website, and they’re 50% more likely to buy than other visitors. To get started, check out these guides to pay per click (PPC) search engine marketing and paid social media marketing.
9. Start and grow your email list
People in all age groups still check email regularly, which makes it a great way to nurture your customers. If you don’t already have an email list, start one now. You can use the subscription form block in WordPress to easily integrate your signup form into your website’s theme.
If you already have an email list, offer more value by creating a lead magnet to offer your subscribers.
Lead magnets are usually digital products that solve a problem for your target customer, given away free when people sign up for your email list. Once people are on your list, use it to nurture them by regularly sending relevant and helpful (rather than promotional) information.
10. Add your website link to emails
A simple trick that many people forget is to add the link to your website in your email signature. That means every email you send out is working for you. You can easily add this in any email program.
Conclusion
Building a successful small business website isn’t “set it and forget it”. If you take the structured approach we’ve shared above, you’ll soon have a steady stream of traffic to help your business succeed.
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