Wondering how to get more traffic to your website? Why are your competitors outranking you in search results?
The answer is CONTENT.
Beautiful attractive and useful content!
Whether it is on your website or on your social media, good content will get you more traffic.
Types of Content
Blog Posts
These are the articles on your website that you share, as well as posts that you guest write for other sites like magazines and news syndicates.
Your content can be instructional, testimonial, an update or even something entertaining. The primary goal of this content is to engage with your readers and then offer a call to action.
Here is an example of blog posts: Our Blog
Video and Imagery
A picture speaks a thousand words as they say, and online video speaks even more!
Video giant YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine after its parent company Google. Video results show up in search results on Google search. Videos get shared on social media platforms like Facebook, embedded on websites, and even shared via messages and comment tagging.
Popular video content on YouTube includes vlogs, gaming, comedic, best of, unboxing and educational.
Directories and Map Listings
A lot of search results are directories or listings that collate brand links by industry or category.
Directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages and Localsearch often show up close to the top when searching for local services or locations.
Map listings like Apple and Google Maps work in a similar way to directory listings, although they categorise by location.
Testimonials and Reviews
User generated content like reviews play a big part in search results with search engines like Google showing star ratings for brands in Google My Business (GMB) and map listings.
Review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor also collect brand testimonials and show up well in search results.
Social Media
Exactly as the name suggests, this is content shared to get engagement with others and can consist of text updates, video, photos and links.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have dominated the social media landscape, as well as platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn for business and real-time commentary.
Social media often makes content viral as it gets shared on global platforms, depending on the type of content.
How to get Traffic from Content
When you look at the intent of users on search engines, they are trying to find an answer to a question, whether that is how to spell a word, how to bake a cake or to find the best cat videos.
As a brand, we need to look at who our audience is and what they may be searching for. We can get clues through feedback surveys, comments on social media posts or enquiries submitted via email or web.
When we can determine what questions are being asked by our audience, we can start creating that content.
With the different types of content, we can try multiple options like video, photos and articles. Depending on your target audience’s age, you may look at trending younger age platforms like Tik Tok, or find an older audience on Facebook.
The beauty of digital content is we can analyse engagement with our content. Facebook collects amazing amounts of data, and Google Analytics is a popular web traffic analyst tool.
These tools can break down traffic into demographics like location, the way you connected (type of device), your interests, and even what page you looked at left at.
Knowing what is getting the attention of our audience can then help us analyse what content is working best, and we can create more of that content.
From a traffic point of view, having blog content on your site and guest sites, can benefit your brand considerably.
Whilst Google is getting better at analysing what a video or photograph is about, it is great at text analysis. This highlights the importance of using your keywords and phrases correctly, using ALT tags for images, and making use of H1 and H2 tags in your website page content to help indicate content topic.
A few quick tips
The state of privacy concerns online and more regulation of the space, will affect the way ads are served. At the time of writing this article, the latest Apple iOS update disables cross app sharing of data for privacy reasons. This has already had a dramatic affect on Facebook advertising.
Whilst ads can be a great way to generate instant traffic, they can also be a money pit. With the uncertainty of ads in the future online, we advise focusing on creating evergreen content and better use of SEO techniques. This also means you will have content showing up when ad-blocking applications are being used.
Make use of websites with higher domain authority to get found. If your site is not yet showing on page 1 of Google, or is getting snowed under by the competition, consider getting yourself in content that shows at the top of Google search pages – map listings, directory and Google Business listings, and video guides.
Helpful content you create on your website can be shown in snippets on Google search, as can your helpful videos be shown to help answer a search query.
By creating the content your audience is searching for, there is more chance you will get found on search pages.
The more Google trusts your brand, the better your results in search. Look at getting more sites linking to your website like directories and business pages. Collect reviews on your Google Business page, and make sure you have a Facebook presence with your business name.
Product comparisons and reviews rank well on search, this is why car dealers are often outranked by websites like CarSales and CarAdvice as they are full or reviews and comparisons. Why not mention your competitors product in a comparison with yours?
Search engines like Google also create two indexes for sites, depending on their mobile usability, meaning you could rank amazingly on a desktop search, but not even be found on the same search from a mobile phone.
If your audience is on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and then you give them a call to action to your website that is not mobile friendly, you will most likely lose their attention. These applications are often used on smartphones, so the links they click on will need to open correctly on mobile devices. This refers to layout, font and button sizing, and usability of navigation aids.
Final tip, and it is a marketing guide. Remember when you go to “advertise” your product to your audience, show off the product in use. For example, a lawn mower is better advertised being shown in use, and how easy it is to use. This is advertising the outcome of buying the product, and showing why the customer needs it.
Sell posts on social media can often be a losing battle. Products sell better with a story. Just look at the best ads on TV, the ones that you fall for the story and emotional connection without even realising there is a sell there.
Lifestyle videos can be brand awareness campaigns, and your branding can be subtle. Think about RedBull the energy drink. The company outsources the production of their drinks, and they themselves focus on marketing through lifestyle content such as sponsored athletes and crazy stunts. It is what you think of when you see the RedBull can in the fridge at the servo.
How to Create Content for your Blog
Once you have an idea of what your customer is looking for, creating that content needs to include some key factors.
These factors will help maximise exposure of your content.
Firstly, it needs to be written with correct grammar and spelling. Secondly, it needs to use headings and content key phrases that tell search engines what the article is about.
Next we need to ensure it is at least 600-1200 words long.
We recommend links in your article, with a share of them being to external trusted websites, and more to internal links like other blog posts and pages.
Include feature images and meta titles and descriptions, especially if your content is being shared to social media. You can use a tool like the Facebook Debug tool to see how your article will look if shared to Facebook.
The more content you have on your blog, platform or profile, the more chance you will build traffic. It needs to be useful content, and not copied from anywhere else as duplicate content can hinder your search page results dramatically.
The team at DriveSocial can help create content for your blog with researched written content on a variety of topics. With introductory offers from just 10c a word, the team is here to help you and your brand’s content get found.
Why not book a free strategy session today. In just 30 minutes, we can go over your goals and your competition and come up with a game plan to get you more traffic.