5 Ways to Improve Your Website Traffic with Content Marketing

When it comes to marketing your products or services online, you need to be bringing a consistent stream of visitors back to your website. Whether you're attracting them through social media, forums or paid advertisements, your website is where all the magic happens.

Bringing a new visitor to your website means they can find more information about your company, what you offer, and how you can help -- all important steps in convincing them to ultimately make a purchase. If they're pushed to your page, however, they're only being given fragments of information that can make it difficult for them to make a purchasing a decision.

Increasing your website traffic isn't always easy. With the number of competing websites out there, you need to make yourself stand out. The best way to differentiate yourself and attract new audience members is to create a strong content marketing strategy.

How Content Marketing Contributes to Website Traffic

Your content is at the foundation of everything you do. If you don't have great content, it won't matter how much you're promoting on social media, how much you're spending on paid advertisements, or how great your products and services are. If you're unable to create content that is informative, entertaining, and persuasive, you're not going to see any new sales.

Your content marketing strategy can contribute to more website traffic because it gives your target audience more to see, read, and engage with. When you create long-form blog posts or do proper keyword research, you're providing your target audience with the information they're looking for, not what you think a search engine wants. Potential customers will latch on to this helpful information and head to your page for more.

But how, exactly, should you use your content marketing strategy to improve your website traffic?

1. Do Proper Keyword Research

If you're guessing the keywords you should be using, you're not going to see many results. While you may luck out and have one or two keywords you rank highly for, this kind of luck isn't enough to really boost your website or your exposure to target audience members.

To see real results from your content marketing strategy, you need to do proper research to determine the right keywords for you. This means looking to see what people are actually searching for, how well they relate to your business and whether the keyword is already heavily targeted.

You want to find keywords that members of your target audience are actually typing into the search bar. If you're targeting keywords that no one is using, it doesn't matter how highly you rank; no one will be able to find you. You also want to find keywords that aren't heavily saturated. The more competitive the keyword is, the harder it will be for you to rank at the top.

2. Create Content that is New, Exciting, and Different

Simply copying content that is already available isn't going to get you many new website visitors. If similar content is already out there, your target audience has probably already read it, meaning they won't be interested in your version of it. That is unless you're able to give it a fresh perspective.

Anytime you create a new piece of content, you need to consider what is already out there on the same topic. If there are dozens of blog posts about a specific topic already online, consider dropping that specific post out of your content plan or look for a new way to address the topic. See if you're able to give different tips or bits of advice.

Get creative with the content you create and react quickly when certain news comes out or things change. If you can draft a piece of content before your competitors, you can usually attract more website traffic.

3. View Content as More Than Just Blog Posts

When many companies think of their content strategy, they typically think of their blogging strategy. While blogging can be a major part of a content marketing strategy, there are actually many different pieces and components that need to work together if you want to bring high amounts of traffic to your site.

Content marketing should include blog posts on your own website, guest blog posts featured on other pages, videos, social media, infographics, and more. Every piece of marketing you create will involve content, so it's important to consider how that marketing piece will push visitors back to your page. Whether it's a print ad in a magazine or an email blast sent to your subscribers, content is in everything you do.

Look at each topic you'd like to cover and consider which content forms may make sense. While a blog post is a great place to start, think about whether or not a video or infographic may get the point across better. You can also supplement different kinds of content with other forms of content, such as a video within a blog post. Get creative with your content strategy and be sure you're not leaning too heavily on one content form.

4. Listen to Your Target Audience

Your customers and clients turn to the internet to have their questions answered. While their first stop is typically a Google or other search engine search, they will usually jump to different platforms if they can't find the answer they're looking for. This includes social media, forums, question sites, and more. Knowing what information they're looking for can help you create better content and bring more visitors to your site.

Quora, Twitter, and Reddit are all great places to start researching your target audience. Each of these websites allow for users to quickly post questions and get responses from the community. However, you can use these questions, responses, and conversations to create content you know is needed within your target audience.

Searching for content ideas this way also tells you what gaps your competitors are leaving open. If they were unable to find the right answer from a traditional search engine search, it usually means your competitors aren't talking about this topic either. Jumping ahead of them and creating appropriate content can help you attract a forgotten-about audience.

5. Promote, Promote, Promote

Simply creating great content for your website isn't enough to bring audience members to it. With the amount of content that is constantly created, it is nearly impossible for members of your target audience to keep up. Unless you run an extremely high-level blog or news website, you probably won't have many customers and clients checking your page for a new blog post, video, or infographic.

You need to create a strong promotion strategy if you want to see your website traffic rise. This includes blasting your new content on social media, using paid promotion strategies, and even connecting with influencers, partners or fans to help share your content with their own network.

The more you promote your content, the more visitors you can bring to your site. However, you want to be wary about over-promoting yourself. If you only get on social media to send out links to your latest blog posts, you probably won't see very high results. Instead, you want to promote your content in a way that shows benefit to those who will come across it.

Many companies struggle to bring new traffic to their website. Unfortunately, when your website is your main promotion tool, not having a lot of traffic typically means you're not getting a lot of business. If you want to improve your sales numbers, you need to improve your web traffic, which means you need to create a better content marketing strategy.

Next time you create or edit your content marketing strategy, consider these five tips. With the right keywords, topics, and promotional pathways, you should have no problem creating a content plan that attracts new visitors to your site.