How to increase targeted website traffic

One of the greatest challenges we face as business owners is attracting the correct visitors to our website. Many think their goal is simply to increase traffic, believing all traffic is good traffic, regardless of who is visiting. Regrettably this is incorrect.

Whilst larger volumes appeal to our vanity and convince us that our marketing is effective, we really should be more concerned with how many of those visitors have converted into leads and subsequently how many of those leads have become a customer.

So ask yourself.... "Are my marketing efforts producing business growth?"

Let’s take a little look at how we go about attracting more qualified visitors:

Develop Buyer Personas
Keyword Analysis
Blog, Blog and Blog again
Lets Get More Social

Develop Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is an imaginary, general character type that captures the different requirements, goals, and observed behaviours of your existing and potential customers. Every business is different and the number of buyer personas you wish to create is unique to you.

Please don't underestimate this stage. Buyer personas are really the most significant components of your marketing, so that you know who we are targeting.

To develop your buyer persona you need to ask yourself questions such as the following:

Role:

What is their job role/title?
How is their job evaluated?
What does their typical day involve?
Who do they report to? What are their roles?

Goals:

What are they responsible for? What do they have to deliver?
What does success look like in their role?

Challenges:

What are their greatest challenges?
How do they currently tackle these challenges?

Company:

What sector does their company operate in?
What is the size of their company - revenue and employees?

Knowledge Acquisition:

What publications or blogs do they read?
What social networks do they belong to?

Personal Background:

Age
Family (single, married, children)
Education

Shopping Preferences:

How to they prefer to communicate with suppliers (email, phone, in person?)
Do they use the internet to research suppliers or services? What types of websites do they use?

Keyword Analysis

I'm sure we have all read how Google has changed its algorithms, but I can’t emphasise enough, that whether you are concerned about Pandas, Poodles, Penguins or Pythons, a well crafted keyword strategy is still the essential foundation for all your content writing, to attract the right visitors to your website.

During the buyer persona definition process, you will have identified their challenges, concerns, desires and issues. You are therefore in a position to start considering what they are likely to type into their search quires to find a solution to these pain points.

There are many free great tools that help you evaluate the best keywords that are appropriate for you website content and buyer personas, such as Google Adwords Keyword Planner

Long Tail Keywords

The more specific the keyword or phrase, the greater the chance you have of being found in the search results. I would suggest that you focus on long-tail keywords.

These are much longer and more distinct keyword phrases that people are more inclined to search for when they are at the decision stage of the buying cycle.

Here's an example: Let's assume you sell shoes, the probability is that, your website pages are unlikely to rank at the top of search results, with a search for “shoes”, simply because there are far too many competitors. However if you specialise in, sports shoes, then keywords such as “cross country running shoes” or "cushioned neutral trainers and running shoes" are more likely to easily attract those people searching for precisely these products.

As soon as you have compiled your list of relevant keywords, you're able to begin planning your content plan. Allocate certain keywords or long tail keywords/phrases to your blog posts, ebook content offers, social posts and webpages etc.

So now it’s over to you…. Remember the Buyer Persona is the foundation to discovering what solutions you need to provide for your potential customers pain points and the persona focussed keyword research is the tool that enables you to fine tune and target the best visitors.

Next time….

“Blog to increase targeted website traffic - Part 2” will be looking at blogging and social media’s role in this process

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THE BUYERS JOURNEY HERE