“How do I get more traffic to my website?”
Unfortunately there are a number of myth's floating around about making money online and internet marketing.
From purposeful mis-information and mis-direction to wanna-be experts passing along things they 'read in a forum' that are simply not true... It can be difficult to know what is real and what is fake.
These myths are like shadows that blanket my industry and although I've fallen for a few myths in the past and learned hard lessons, I now understand that trusting a few key advisers and mentors as well as the data I get from my own efforts is the ONLY option for me.
The biggest of these myths that we will debunk here today is that more traffic is what makes the difference between a successful and unsuccessful website.
Although there may be a thread of truth in this, the majority of this statement is false and designed to get you to purchase traffic courses, traffic systems, high paid SEO campaigns or other paid 'shortcuts' that will simply make the merchants more money and leave you right where you started.
Will more traffic to your site generate more leads and more revenue for you?
The best answer I can give you to that question is a solid 'Maybe' and the truthful answer is 'Probably not'.
Sorry... I wish that traffic was the answer, but it is not. So if web traffic isn't the answer to more leads, and revenue... What is the answer?
Increasing Conversions
Converting traffic into leads and converting leads into sales is ultimately what generates more leads and increased revenue for you and your business.
Once you have an offer that converts, THEN and ONLY THEN does it make logical sense to focus in on driving traffic.
Now at this point, we have reached a bit of a paradox that I'd like to clarify, because you will need some traffic for testing purposes in order to improve your conversion rates. This is the thread of truth part I mentioned at the beginning.
So how do you go about this?
It all depends on your current situation, products, lead generation system, etc.
Now, you may already have a website site that gets some traffic, an email list or a Facebook fan page that is connecting you with your target audience. If so, great... Start with the audience you already have!
If this is you, all you need is to add on the lead gen system and start running A/B split tests on your lead capture pages and your sales pages to identify what works better and keep adding on things that work and removing things that don't work until you are converting 50% or more of traffic into leads and 10%+ of leads into customers.
If you are wondering 'What is an A/B split test?' Don't worry, its simple.
Essentially, your lead gen system will show every other visitor a slightly different version of the same page... You change 1 thing (starting with the headline) and then you see which headline converts more traffic into leads or more leads into sales.
You want to run 500 to 1000 visitors to each split test before declaring a winner... And the lead gen system tracks all of this once setup correctly. Take a look at this image below that shows how I've tested 3 possible lead capture pages against each-other and found one combination of headline/imagery/layout that is converting WAY more cold Facebook traffic into leads.
So if you have a brand new product, or service and you have no website and no audience yet, you will want to increase targeted website traffic but you don't create website traffic.
The free organic traffic is already there, and all you have to do is to drive traffic and direct them over to your website.
Now, how the heck can you do this?
Your Website is An Island and It Needs Bridges!
Think about your website as an island. Floating around in cyberspace with web traffic on all the other islands separated by seas of water with no connections.
Your customers right now are on other people's websites, social media platforms, forums, entertainment platforms, they're on a bunch of other islands!
The goal for you is to get the traffic on the other islands and move them over to your website island.
You have to create bridges to connect a piece of content with those people out there and funnel them to your website.
This can be done many many ways but the priorities of these connections are different for every business in every niche!
I'm going to show you the 6 big places online where these connections to your future customers need to be established, and then I'm going to show you how to connect with real people on those platforms to get your website tons and tons of connections, AKA Bridges to the island of your website.
Where Can You Get Free Traffic to Your Website?
Your website is either a funnel or, needs to have a funnel component, giving your audience an opportunity to get into your monetization ecosystem.
It has a wide opening on top, all of these connections to the other islands and the job of these connections is to catch all of the potential website traffic and bring them onto your website, into your funnel.
This same website / funnel is what generates leads and sales for you. It does what it’s supposed to when it’s optimized.
[Updated, People were confused about this funnel, website, and blog conversation so I made this video to clarify]
How can you direct this free traffic that’s just wafting around the cyberspace?
You tap into the traffic that is widely available on various websites, platforms, and apps on the world wide web.
In both my wife’s and my main business, we get crazy traffic from tons of places and I will show you how to tap into all of those at the end.
Before that, let's see some of these big islands where we need to begin building bridges to bring new people onto your website.
You don’t create website traffic, you instead funnel the existing traffic from places like these.
Just about everyone on the planet has a Facebook account. In fact, even kids have Facebook accounts for various reasons whether it’s for gaming, social networking, etc.
At present, Facebook has about 2 billion active users monthly.
Can you imagine what that means if you are able to funnel even just .005% of those users and turn them into your website traffic?
When you really think about that number, it’s clear how ridiculously crazy the potential of traffic you could be bringing to your website!
Twitter and Quora
Got a question in mind? Quora’s got answers for ya, based on users’ responses. It’s kinda like a Q and A platform where you can post questions on any topic under the sun, and users who know a thing or two about it will send in their response.
As of the end of the third quarter of 2018, Quora has reported having hit about 300 million active users. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it keeps growing in the years to come.
As for Twitter, I bet you’ve heard about this, right? So it’s a platform for posting “tweets” or any thoughts you want to share with the world. You can talk about your latest video, blog, share a cool quote that struck you today, whatever.
No, it’s not just a collage only platform.
There’s way more potential here than just pictures of nice hairstyles, fashionable outfits and it’s growing every day!
It has everything from DIY, to recipes, to off grid living, to nutrition and wellness, to cars and reviews on hotels.
Anything you can think of is on this platform and their website actually has about 150 million, maybe even 200 million active users.
It’s a great place to post your infographics, memes, and image-based content, which if they’re awesome enough, will definitely be re-pinned and shared by fellow Pinterest users.
YouTube
Back in the day, the TV was the coolest thing ever created on the planet.
“Now, it’s like, the TV?... I want YouTube!!!”
A bunch of people do, check these stats out!
No wonder YouTube users all around the world are currently at 1.3 billion, and the number keeps on rising as more and more people are getting hooked on this massive search engine.
In fact, nearly 5 billion videos on YouTube are watched day after day, and there are over 300 hours of videos uploaded to this platform every single minute.
There’s an endless supply of videos to watch created by YouTubers whether they are personal videos, business-related videos, travel and leisure, etc.
Everybody knows Google. It’s the biggest search engine in the world, with 3 billion plus unique searches per day.
You’re stuck on something and want to get answers, you go straight to Google to unstick yourself and gain new knowledge.
It’s pretty much the modern encyclopedia, with libraries of books and information!
With over 3 billion searches each day, and more than 3 billion unique search engine result pages displaying 10 websites each, Google is a goldmine of traffic for ya!
There’s Traffic Everywhere!
Aside from these big sources of website traffic, there are a ton others too, of course. There’s Snapchat, Tumbler, and a bunch of niche forums where folks exchange and absorb information.
So how can you say you have to create traffic?
It’s absolutely everywhere on the internet!
And so the goal now is for you to get your island of a website out there after building it. Connect your website, use conversion mechanisms with those platforms I just mentioned that already have millions and even billions of users.
Your quest now is to build “bridges” and funnel users from those platforms and apps and onto your website. And this is what we’re going to talk about next so hang tight!
7 Ways to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Website for Free
“I don’t have a huge budget. Can I still capture tons of traffic to my website?”
Heck, yeah!
In this video I show you the web of connections you can connect to so you can bridge the millions of people in the world to your website.
If you’ve got more time than money, you can totally drive traffic to your website organically or even with a limited budget.
How???
Here are 7 ways that you can absolutely funnel organic traffic to your website and here they are:
Increase Website Traffic from Social Media
I’ve mentioned the major website traffic sources on the internet and as I said, there’s dozens more.
And the best way to tap into these platforms and drive traffic to your website is by making sure you’ve got kickass content that people want to read, watch, or listen to.
You want your website to have bridges that will connect it to dozens of other sources of website traffic on the internet.
And this is why you need to keep linking your content to these platforms each time you connect with your audience.
Instagram is one of the most simple platforms to get organic traffic from but you could also pin your killer infographics or graphic art you have made on Pinterest and add a link to your blog or channel that they can explore further for more relevant content.
Here’s how my wife and I get over 50,000 visits a month from Pinterest.
If these are good enough, inspiring, and something they think can help others, they won’t hesitate to share your content with their friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Once you link these posts and people find them really helpful, your readership and engagement increases.
Search Engine Marketing
Previously, I mentioned the big platforms on the internet where traffic is just ridiculously abundant, ranging from millions to billions of users.
If you can dominate these platforms through an effective search engine marketing strategy, you can increase traffic to your website that, of course, is linked to your revenue.
With the optimized content you create you are boosting the likelihood to be found on the platforms and the search engine.
But you not only want to be a part of the ecosystem by contributing good quality content to the ecosystem, but you should also actively participate!
In the comments, in the forums, that’s how you stand out! That’s how you funnel people to where you want them to go.
Make yourself known and provide helpful solutions to places where people are searching.
Expanding your reach, increasing your audience and increasing your revenue!
Drive Traffic from YouTube
I tried to blog for a years because blogging is the main lead generation system for my first online business.
My wife is a writer and rocks it out, so I thought I could do the blogging thing too.
Wrong!
I took on a challenge that I was afraid of at the end of 2016. It was to create and publish 90 videos in 90 days, this Official 90 Day Content Marketing Challenge.
It was the switch I needed to shift into becoming a content creator instead of a content consumer.
My traffic is not all from YouTube though. I have been working with a team to turn my YouTube content into these blog posts, as well as a podcast.
Without YouTube, for me none of the traffic shown in this video would have been possible.
If you thrive in front of a camera or from a stage, create videos and post them on YouTube.
It might be the missing link in your website traffic problem too!
Make your videos something that will help your audience and deliver value to their day.
This is why you should choose a niche that you specialize in. Something you have the heart and mind of a teacher and problem solver who wants to solve people’s problem.
Then, mention and add to your description what your website is. Throw in some soft calls to action to let them know that they should click on the link to learn more about your website content or great optin..
Drive Traffic From a Podcast
When you're either a guest on a podcast or you're running a podcast yourself, a podcast is a really powerful way to get people back to your website.
You can have show notes that list all of the resources that you talked about in your podcast, you can mention your opt-in pages, the courses that you sell, reference a blog post that you wrote…
There are tons and tons of ways in a podcast to get traffic back to your website.
Increase Traffic with SEO
When you search for something on Google, do you visit the other pages of the search engine results page (SERP), or you stop at page one?
I bet you usually just stick to page one and then check out the top 5 results, right?
Can you imagine if your website doesn’t even show up in the top 5 or top 10 of the first page??!!!
How in the world can people even find your content or learn about your business if you don’t show up in the top 5, or worse, the first page of the SERPs?
Web pages in the number one spot get over 30 percent of web traffic from that search phrase.
So if you create more blog posts and learn how to do SEO, you can get traffic that is currently on going to other websites to come to yours.
And you can also apply SEO to your YouTube videos. Use your keywords in the title, description, and say it a few times throughout your content. That will boost your chances of appearing in the SERPs for the keyword you’re using.
Google only shows 3 videos in the results page, so if your audience would rather watch a video on the search phrase they were looking for, and you show up in the results…. Boom!
Traffic to your funnel increases.
Increase Web Traffic From Quora and Forums
Say you found a question posted on Quora that you specialize in or you know a lot about.
Then that’s your chance to chime in and answer a question to help that person who’s looking for a solution to their problems.
But it doesn’t end there….
You can also include a link to your website or YouTube channel if you think the person can get an extensive level of clarity from your answer.
You can answer the question first, then you can add in, “It’s lengthy for me to answer the whole question on this topic here you can read my blog post or check out my video on it here (insert link here)...”
Impress them with your well-written content, and they’ll be so happy you’ve helped them get the information they need, they’ll be inclined to check out more of your content and even share your content with people who can benefit from it, too.
Create Your Web of Connections and Funnel That Web Traffic
You can’t create traffic because traffic is already there.
All you need to do is to go out there and participate in those major platforms, apps, and websites by becoming a content partner.
Have your well-timed and well-located calls to action to get more content, which could be your optin, your sales page, your landing page, etc.
Make sure you’ve got ammunition to build bridges to and from your website by pounding it out and creating content daily.
Engage with your audience, keep helping them solve their problems with the content you provide. Ultimately, this is how you drive traffic to your website, to your funnel, and you eventually grow your list and your business online!
Let me know if you need help or if you want to share your insights on this post. I look forward to your comments, until the next one!