4 Ways to Grow Website Traffic with Content

One of the biggest concerns businesses have about their websites–other than generating leads and making sales–is traffic. The more traffic you get, the more leads and sales you’ll eventually get. So the question is, how do you increase website traffic?

There are a lot of tactics and methods you can explore, but experts like Marketing Sherpa and HubSpot agree that content marketing gives you the most bang for your buck.

So here are 4 ways you can use valuable content to increase your website traffic.

Note about SEO: One of the great things about marketing with content is the inherent SEO value of all that content. While the following content types vary, they can all increase your website’s optimization. Just remember to write naturally and provide lots of value.

Consistent Blogging

Regularly writing genuinely helpful, value-packed original blog posts on your business blog is the foundation of any content marketing strategy. Blogging increases website traffic in a number of ways.

First, it establishes you as a thought leader. Your customers, leads, and target audience learn to trust you and expect the best from you. With great blog content, you’ll get

• direct traffic from people who want to know you what you’re up to
• referral traffic from people who respect you
• organic (search) traffic from all that SEO goodness

On top of that, original and useful blog posts are more likely to be shared socially and they encourage repeat visits, so you get more traffic and start putting prospects through your sales funnel.

Curation and Commentary

Creating the kind of valuable original blog content that increases website traffic takes a lot of time and effort, which you sometimes don’t have. One way to get around that is by curating and commenting on other people’s content on your blog and social media accounts.

You can curate and comment on just about anything in your industry, such as:

• events and conferences
• breaking news
• cutting-edge innovation

Even a simple round-up of great information from the past week in your business counts as curation. Discussing how to use that information or what these resources missed counts as commentary. You need both parts to make it work.

Curation and commentary can increase traffic to your website by reinforcing your position as a thought leader, so everyone comes to you for the latest news. This type of content marketing is also very timely, so you’ll get lots of referral and organic traffic.

For proof this type of content works, check out this case study from Smart Insights.

Multimedia Content

You can do a lot more with your business blog than simply write. Other types of media, including videos, audio recordings, photos, and infographics, can increase website traffic just as much as, or even more than written content.

In fact, most content that goes viral is not written–it’s visual. This infographic from HubSpot illustrates the importance of visual content.

Using a variety of media in your content marketing increases social sharing and is one way to provide value, which search engines love. There’s a reason that sites like YouTube and Pinterest are so popular.

Quality visual content is attractive. Use it to attract more traffic.

Downloadable Resources

Business blogs are excellent at increasing website traffic, but once you have a visitor on your site, you want to give them something to do while maintaining your high reputation as an expert. Enter downloadable resources.

This kind of content takes many forms, but it provides tons of value. Some popular forms of downloadable content include:

• ebooks
• video training
• templates
• audio recordings
• webinars
• workbooks

In addition to positioning you as a thought leader, downloadable content encourages repeat visits from people who want to know what other resources you have. You’re likely to get referral traffic from partners and fans who love the resource you created, and social sharing can be very high for super useful resources.

Plus, if you offer your resource in exchange for email addresses, you can market to leads directly and encourage them to continue visiting your website.

Do you use any of these content marketing tactics to increase website traffic? What types of content have you had the most success with? Please share in the comments!