Ten ways to get more traffic to your website @HelenLindop

Ten ways to get more traffic to your website @HelenLindop

1. Start a blog – give prospective clients a reason to go to your website by providing fresh content at least once a week. (This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and schedule them.) Make the articles useful and engaging rather than sales pitches.

2. Guest blogging – Create content not only for your blog but also for other people’s. This brings new visitors to your website, helps you build your reputation as an expert and also helps you rise in the search engine rankings.

3. Social Media – Join a few sites such a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube and make connections. Pick the sites where your prospective clients will be or network with people who have similar clients to you so you can build relationships and eventually refer clients to each other.

4. Offline methods – Look for ways to promote your website offline – talk to friends, family and even strangers. Public speaking, networking and writing articles for trade publications are low cost (or free) and can all bring visitors to your website. Make sure you include the link in any promotional literature you hand out.

5. Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted on your blog.

6. Get a mailing list – you can tell mailing list members when new blog posts are published as well as about special offers and promotions. Including links to blog articles you’ve written makes the mailing more of a ‘soft sell’ (good for building relationships) as well as encouraging them to click through to your website.

7. Join Forums – Become a member of business forums to meet new people and share ideas. Add a link to your website in the signature line (check the forum rules to make sure you’re allowed to do this, though).

8. Visit other people’s blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs.

9. Use keywords for search engine optimisation – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Work out what your keywords are and then use a couple in the headlines of your webpages and blog posts. Then try to use them a couple more times early on in the main body text. Don’t be tempted to stuff the text with keywords, though. Just make sure the text sounds natural and then squeeze in a few keywords so that search engines can work out what the page/post is about.

10. Social Bookmarking – submitting blog posts to social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog. Even better, submit other people’s posts, too. That way they will want to return the favour and submit yours.

Helen Lindop is the owner of BusinessPlusBaby.com, a blog dedicated to helping parents grow businesses around their young families.