Here’s a fact that might surprise many businesses: generating online traffic to your website doesn’t actually depend on ranking #1 on a Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). In fact, there are numerous alternative strategies a company can employ to achieve the traffic and conversion rates needed to maintain a competitive edge. While ranking highly on Google can certainly be advantageous to a company, it’s no longer the ultimate or exclusive solution required for maintaining a successful online presence. So what does the number 2 or 3 or 4 SERP-ranking website do to attract equal amounts of traffic?

Social Media Marketing and Advertising 

Social media marketing is an increasingly lucrative way to attract more viewers to a company’s website. By establishing a variety of social media accounts on popular platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn that post relevant, engaging content with links back to a main product or service page, companies are able to expand their viewership and sustain a loyal following of customers. Given that internet users spend more time on social media than any other major internet activity, and that nearly 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies managed social media accounts last year, it’s no surprise that social media marketing has become the standard for increasing a company’s site traffic.

Social media platforms also present companies with the opportunity to expand their advertising efforts. Major social media platforms like Facebook allow users to easily create ads that will appear on users’ social media home screens. These ads can be customized to fit whatever content, criteria or marketing time frame a business aims for. For example, a company can target a specific social media audience based on information like location, gender, workplace, education, or likes and interests. Most social media ads can be created in the form of a Page Post ad (which allows a viewer to “like” or follow a brand), a Local Stores ad, or a mobile ad.

Blog Development and Sponsorship

Businesses that maintain a frequently-updated blog that’s rich with relevant content will also be able to better attract and sustain an online audience. An effective blog will pose a company as a knowledgeable voice or “expert” in the industry, yet focus on topics that are presented in an interesting, accessible manner. Readers should feel as though they’ve not only learned something from a company’s blog, but enjoyed what they read. Great blog articles often include both internal links to a company web page and external links to relevant sources, and can incorporate additional elements like images, charts, infographics or even videos.

Seeking out sponsorship for a company blog is an effective way of supplementing the organic traffic your quality content will generate, as blog sponsorship affords companies an even larger platform for exposure. A sponsored blog may be featured on external sites such as that of a popular news media website, and  in turn will be more likely to attract the attention of a viewer that otherwise may never have found their way to a company’s individual blog site.

 Pay Per Click Advertising and Remarketing

Another great way to generate traffic is through a pay per click advertising campaign, often conducted through services like Google AdWords. The advantage of the PPC approach to advertising is that it ensures that companies only pay for an ad when a viewer actually clicks on an ad link. PPC ads can be customized to appear on the top and side bars of a Google search engine results page when users search for specific keywords or phrases relevant to a business.  

To further capture an audience through advertising, companies can engage in what’s known as remarketing. Remarketing is a highly effective method of “following up” with a user that either visited your company’s website or clicked on your advertisement, but didn’t actually purchase a product or service. A remarketed ad uses tracking technology to follow a user as they navigate the web over a set period of time, and will display an advertisement for your company on the various web pages a user visits. Research has proven that on average, a company that uses remarketing tactics achieves an astounding 98 percent of their total conversions through these remarketed ads.

Online Public Relations

Managing an online public relations strategy is an easy way to generate buzz about your company and drive traffic to your website. Businesses typically conduct online public relations through press releases that announce a new product, service or other company news, or through media pitches that pose a company leader as an industry expert on a developing topic to attract interest from various media sources. Both of these avenues are best pursued with the help of a professional marketing agency (like WebiMax) that has built strong relationships with media outlets over the years. Press releases and media pitches should include embedded links back to a company’s website to encourage additional traffic, and be archived on a “Media” or “In the News” web page of a company website.

Email Marketing

Connecting with an audience via email marketing is an often overlooked, yet highly viable option for creating leads and increasing sales. In fact, according to a recent Forbes article, email marketing exists as the most effective digital marketing tactic in practice today. An effective email marketing campaign will focus on growing a company’s email list, distributing professionally-designed emails, including promotional copy with a call to action, and implementing a system by which to track and monitor the number of distributed emails that are not only read, but acted upon.

Diversify Your Lead Generation Strategy

Generating leads to your company’s website is another key element of increasing overall site traffic; however, lead generation is most effective when it’s diverse. A company simply can’t expect to invest their efforts into a single lead generating strategy if they hope to stay competitive in the field. What does a diversified lead generation strategy look like? Consider our  10 best ways to generate leads:

• Natural searches
• Referrals
• Third-party reference sites
• Custom analytical platforms
• Paid search
• White papers/content distribution
• Social media
• Third-party lead generation sites
• Feeder sites
• Email marketing

Companies that make concerted efforts to address each of these strategies for building a successful online presence will find that they’ll attain the traffic and conversion rates they’ve hoped for, regardless of whether or not they snag the top spot on a Google results page.

Interested in learning more about how your company can increase traffic to its website? WebiMax offers professional digital marketing services to help companies thrive online. Visit our website or call 1-855-661-2200 today!