How to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Website

Table Of Contents

• Understanding the Basics of Website Traffic
• Online Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
• Turn Social Media Visits to Website Traffic
• Build an Email List to Encourage Website Visits
• Engaging in Online Communities
• Offline Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website
• Your Journey to Enhanced Website Traffic

Creating a website for your small business is just the beginning. The challenge—and opportunity—lies in attracting visitors to your website. Driving traffic to your website involves a mix of strategies that boost your site’s visibility and engage users through website content to ultimately turn visitors into customers.

Understanding the Basics of Website Traffic

What is Website Traffic?

Think of your website as a retail store in a busy city center. Traffic to your website is like the flow of people walking past and entering your store. The more foot traffic your store gets, the more opportunities you have to engage with customers, showcase your products, and make sales.

Just as a store in a hidden alley might struggle to attract customers, no matter how great your products are, a website without enough visitor traffic may struggle to thrive.

Website traffic refers to the visitors who arrive at your site through various channels. These channels can be online, through search engines, social media, or email links, or offline, such as personal referrals or printed materials and merchandise with your web address printed on it.

Why is Traffic Important for Your Business?

The more visitors to your website, the more opportunities you have to introduce your products or services. This can help you grow your customer base, which is especially beneficial if you're looking to expand beyond local customers to a national or even international audience.

Whether through content, interactive features, or direct communication, each interaction is a chance to make an impression, build relationships, and turn a casual visitor into a loyal customer.

The main goal of getting more people to your website is to convert them into customers. With more visitors, you're more likely to see increased sales or sign-ups.

In other words, more traffic means more potential sales.

Online Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Creating Blogs That People Search For

Writing regular blogs is an excellent way to attract visitors to your website. Blogs are a helpful way to share information about your business and industry while building trust with online users.

So, how do you create a blog that drives traffic to your website? We have a few tips:

Tip #1: Get to Know Your Audience

Before you start writing a blog for your website, it's crucial to understand who your readers are. Who are the people who can benefit the most from your services or products? These individuals are your target audience, and understanding them is key to your success.

Your target audience isn't 'everyone' — it's the specific group of people who need what you offer and will resonate with your message. By honing in on this group, you can create content that answers their questions and deeply connects with their needs and preferences, giving you a sense of control and empowerment over your marketing strategy.

Here’s how to fine-tune your understanding of your audience:

1. Start with the basics, who are they?: Who are your potential customers in terms of age, gender, occupation, and education level? These details can shape the tone and style of your content.

2. What are their interests and hobbies?: What do they do in their spare time? Knowing their hobbies can help you tailor your content and make it more engaging.

3. What are their challenges?: Pinpoint the specific problems they face that your business can solve. Addressing these pain points can make your content incredibly relevant and valuable.

4. What are their desired improvements?: What do they wish was better about the current solutions they use? Insights into their desires can guide you in enhancing your product or service.

Remember, the more you know about your audience, the better you can write blogs and other content that they will find irresistible, ultimately keeping them coming back to your website.

For example, Penny, owner of Green Thumb Oasis, a local garden center, knows that her target audience primarily consists of home gardeners and landscaping enthusiasts within her community. Here's how she tailors her content to her audience:

1. Start with the basics, who are they?: Many of her customers are between 30 and 65 years old, from various professions, and enjoy gardening.

2. What are their interests and hobbies?: Penny knows many of her customers enjoy outdoor activities.

3. What are their challenges?: Her customers often struggle with eco-friendly pest control and choosing plants native to their area.

4. What are their desired improvements? Her customers want a low-maintenance, organic garden they can enjoy all year round.

Tip #2: Answer Common Questions

Start by collecting the most common questions your customers and potential clients ask.

You might find these questions during your daily interactions with customers or by looking up frequently searched queries on Google related to your business.

Tools like Answer the Public and Google's "People also ask" feature are great for discovering what topics your audience is interested in.

For example, Penny pays attention to the questions her customers ask most often, such as "What are the best plants for sunny areas?" She also uses online tools to find trending gardening questions that her customers may also have.

She creates a list of these questions so that she can refer back to them when she begins coming up with blog ideas to make sure that her customers will be reading valuable information that is relevant to their needs and helpful.

Tip #3: Provide a Ton of Value

Once you have a list of questions, it's time to write detailed answers in your blog posts. To make your blog shine, try to provide more thorough and easy-to-understand answers than those already available online. Not only will this make your blog content more valuable to readers, but it will also improve your chances of achieving a higher ranking in search engine results, which leads to more people discovering your website. This comprehensive approach will instill confidence in your ability to attract and retain customers.

A couple of examples of valuable blog posts are:

Comprehensive Guides and How-To Articles

These types of content serve as go-to resources for specific topics within your industry. For example, if you own a local garden center, you might create a comprehensive guide on "The Ultimate Spring Gardening Checklist" or detailed how-to blogs like "How to Build a Raised Vegetable Garden Bed."

Practical Tutorials and Step-by-Step Processes

Tutorials and step-by-step guides are incredibly valuable to readers because they offer actionable advice and clear instructions. Including screenshots, videos, and diagrams can make complex information easier to understand and engaging. For instance, a bakery might offer a step-by-step tutorial on decorating a wedding cake with video demonstrations.

The more valuable your blog content is, the more likely it will be shared and linked to!

For example, Penny uses the common questions she gathers to create in-depth blog posts. She starts by writing a detailed guide on how to get started on organic gardening, including easy-to-follow steps and video tutorials. These posts offer more detailed and practical advice than typical online articles, helping her blog stand out. This strategy not only improves her website's search engine rankings but also establishes Green Thumb Oasis as a go-to resource for trusted gardening advice, encouraging people to revisit and engage with her content.

Optimize for SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, makes your website more attractive to search engines like Google.

The goal is for your site to appear higher in the search results when people look up keywords related to your business. This involves optimizing your website's content and structure so it's easy for search engines to understand and recommend your site to users.

Use the Right Keywords

Just as a librarian sorts books by topics, authors, or new releases, SEO uses specific keywords that your potential customers type into search engines. When your pages are neatly organized and easy to find, search engines are more likely to pull your website from the shelf and show it to those searching for your kind of information, products, or services.

As mentioned above, knowing your customers' popular questions can help you find the right keywords to use in your blog, website content, and social media posts. Once you see what keywords your audience is searching for, you can incorporate them into your writing content.

You can use websites like Answer the Public or Google Keyword Planner to easily find keywords that your customers are searching for.

Update and Refresh Old Content

Keeping your content up-to-date is crucial for maintaining good SEO and showing online visitors they can trust your content. Make sure you periodically check your older blog posts to update statistics or any other new information. You can also go back and make older content more engaging by adding new images and videos.

This keeps your website content fresh and signals to search engines that your site is up-to-date, which can boost your rankings.

Backlinks

Backlinks are like recommendations from one website to another. When a website links to your page, it gives you a thumbs up, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy.

Think of it as if a popular food blogger mentions and links a local coffee shop. This boosts the shop's visibility and reputation online, making it more likely to appear in search results when people look for great coffee spots in the area.

Turn Social Media Visits to Website Traffic

Link Your Website in Your Bios

A simple way to drive traffic from your social media to your website is to include your website link in your profile bios. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all allow you to add this vital link. Placing your website just a click away makes it easy for followers to learn more about your business directly from your social profiles. However, most social media platforms only allow you to insert one link in your bio, so to make the most of this feature, many people use a tool called a link tree.

Sound familiar? A link tree is a single link that redirects to a customizable landing page. There are many businesses out there, including the well-known “Linktr.ee” that you have heard other businesses and social media influencers talk about. However, there are many alternatives out there, including LOGO.com’s One Page Site.

The One Page Site is quick to create, easy to maintain, and is a convenient way to give your site visitors all the important details about your business on a scrolling page. Any LOGO.com user can edit and publish a free One Page Site using a free hi.link domain name (business name.hi.link).

When you subscribe to LOGO Pro, it functions like a normal website. You can include images, connect to a custom domain, set up contact forms, optimize for SEO, and more!

Once it’s set up, you’ll have a custom link to share in your social media bio, making it easy for your audience to find and visit your website. A few links that you can include on your One Page Site are:

• The homepage of your website
• Links to your other social media profiles
• Offerings, like an online course or downloadable checklist
• Sign up form for your email list
• A “book now” or “schedule now” form

Best Practices For Link in Bio Tools:

• Place the link so it’s easily noticeable.
• Use a call to action with your link, encouraging visitors to click for special offers or more information.

Include Your Website Link in Social Media Posts

Make it a habit to include your website link in social media formats that allow adding links. Whether you’re sharing a new blog article, a product update, or news about your business, each post is an opportunity to drive traffic to your website.

Utilize Social Features:

• Instagram Stories and Links: Use the link option within stories to add direct links to your website. This is perfect for promoting specific products or content.

• Call-to-Action Button: You can customize the CTA button on your social media profiles to direct people to your site. Choose from options like ‘Shop Now’, ‘Learn More,’ or ‘Sign Up’ based on what best suits your business.

• Pinned Posts: Use the option to pin a post with a website link to the top of your social media profile. This ensures it's the first thing people see when they visit your profile and can increase the case that they visit your site.

How to Drive Users to Your Social Media

Knowing how to drive traffic to your website through social media is essential, but you may be wondering how you can get people to your social media profile in the first place. Getting people to visit your social media profile involves a combination of strategy, creativity, and engagement. Here are some effective ways to attract more visitors:

- Create Engaging Content: Use high-quality images, engaging videos, and informative or entertaining captions that resonate with your target audience and encourage interaction. Your content should encourage people to want to check out your social media profile to find more of your content and ultimately lead them to your website to see what else you have to offer.

- Engage with Followers: Respond to comments, messages, and mentions on your profile. You can also engage with people on relevant posts from other users, sharing valuable information that can make them interested in checking out your profile. Engagement encourages more engagement, and interacting with your followers can make your profile more attractive to potential new followers.

Check out our blog, The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Guide for Small Businesses, to learn how to market your business on social media.

Build an Email List to Encourage Website Visits

Building an email list is another effective way to drive visitors to your website consistently. An email list is a collection of email addresses that businesses gather from visitors or customers who want to receive updates, promotions, and other information about the business directly to their email inbox. Like starting any relationship, creating an email list is the first step for customers to learn about what your business offers and the value it can provide them. This helps ensure that your business is the first thing they think of when they need your products or services. Here are some best practices for building your email list to help increase traffic to your website.

1. Offer Something Valuable

Encourage visitors to sign up for your email list by offering them something worthwhile, like a free ebook, a downloadable guide, or access to a video tutorial. Make sure whatever you offer is relevant and valuable to your audience.

For example, Penny owns a local garden center called Green Thumb Oasis. Penny knows her customers often seek advice on seasonal planting and garden maintenance. To encourage visitors to sign up for her email list, she creates a free downloadable guide titled "Year-Round Garden Planner," which offers monthly tips on what to plant, how to care for different plants and seasonal maintenance tasks. This guide is valuable for her customers and perfectly relevant to her business.

2. Design Simple Sign-Up Forms

Place sign-up forms in critical website areas, such as the homepage, at the end of blog posts, in a pop-up after visitors have been on your site for a while, or in your physical store. Keep the forms straightforward—just asking for a name and email address can be enough to grow your

email list.

You can create sign-up forms using LOGO.com’s One Page Site.

Add a form to your website to make it easier for your customers to reach you. This will improve their experience and increase your credibility!

To use, log into your dashboard, go to ‘One Page Site’ > ‘Add Section’ > ‘Form, and customize the contact fields you want to include. When a customer uses this form, you will receive an email with their message.

3. Promote on Social Media

Use your social media channels to promote your newsletter or sign-up incentives with well-designed social media posts. Regular posts or even paid ads can direct followers to your sign-up page, expanding your reach and encouraging visitors to explore other parts of your website in the process.

For example, on "Green Thumb Oasis’s" Facebook and Instagram pages, Penny regularly posts beautiful photos of new arrivals and exclusive in-store events. Alongside these posts, she includes calls to action, encouraging her followers to sign up for her newsletter to receive the free "Year-Round Garden Planner" and updates on upcoming webinars and workshops.

Are you looking for ready-to-post social media posts already branded with your logo and business information? Check out our customizable social media templates that can capture attention and save you time!

4. Host Free Webinars or Events

Free webinars or live events are great for gathering email addresses. Requiring people to register with their email to attend builds your list of engaged participants.

For example, Penny hosts a free webinar every month on topics like "Preparing Your Garden for Spring" or "Sustainable Gardening Practices." She advertises these webinars on her website, through email, and via social media. To register, participants must provide their email addresses, which helps Penny build her list of highly engaged individuals who will likely appreciate her expertise and become repeat customers.

Writing Emails that Bring Attention to Your Website

Once you have a list built up, begin sending regular emails to your subscribers. To ensure the recipients open your emails, create attention-grabbing content that will make an impression. Your email should address your audience's needs with beneficial advice or information, whether it’s valuable tips, the latest updates, or special offers.

Sending regular updates will help you stay in touch with your subscribers, inform them about upcoming events, new blog posts, special offers, or new products/services, and provide them with more value. By consistently providing valuable content, you’ll keep your audience engaged and encourage repeated visits to your site.

Another way to drive traffic to your website through emails is to include a straightforward call to action (CTA). A CTA tells your readers what to do next after reading your email. Whether it’s inviting them to read a blog post, view a product, or register for an event, make sure it’s obvious what you want the reader to do.

Engaging in Online Communities

Engaging in online communities is a great way to drive traffic to your website. When you dedicate regular time each week to engage with the community, you can provide helpful information while promoting your business.

Pro Tip: Consistent participation is key.

Benefits of Online Communities

Have you ever searched for something on Google and found your way to an online community website?

Many people join online communities to ask questions on specific topics to get help from other online users. Joining online forums and communities like Facebook groups, Reddit, or Quora allows you to share your knowledge and establish yourself as an authority in your field. To drive traffic to your small business website, you can occasionally share links to your site when they are relevant.

For example, if someone online asks a question in a gardening forum on how to organically prevent pests from eating their prized heirloom tomatoes, Penny could answer the question and link a recent blog post that goes into further detail.

Collaboration

You’ve probably heard of influencers and how businesses collaborate with them to promote their businesses. But did you know you can partner with other businesses online to direct traffic to your website?

Take a look at three ways you can collaborate with other businesses that can help you expand your reach online:

Cross-Promote with Other Businesses

Find other businesses that complement yours and consider joint promotions or content sharing on each other's websites and social media platforms. This is a great way to reach more people who are interested in what you have to offer. For example, if you sell custom jewelry, you could find a complementary business, such as a clothing boutique, to cross-promote your business online and on social media.

Contribute to Popular Blogs

Guest posting on well-known blogs can introduce your business to a broader audience. You can include a link to your website, helping boost your traffic and improve SEO. To do this, make a list of blog websites that are related to your industry or that your customers are likely to visit. You can reach out to these blogs and see if they would be interested in creating content together. You could provide your one-of-a-kind insights to their readers while finding potential new customers.

Host or Join Webinars

Collaborate on webinars with other experts in your industry. These events can attract large audiences, significantly boosting your visibility and allowing you to share your expertise with a broader audience. As a bonus, you can grow your email list as well!

Offline Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Business Cards

Business cards are a timeless marketing tool. You can hand them out whenever you meet someone new who could benefit from your business or at networking events to build potential partnerships later down the road. Whether at conferences, meetings, or casual encounters, they make it easy to share your contact details in a tangible form that people can refer to later when they need your services or want to recommend you. You’d be surprised sometimes at the referrals you can get by simply handing someone your business card. Unlike digital tools, a business card is a physical object that can stay with a person. This means your business stays in sight, potentially leading to more business.

Make sure your business cards are well-designed and that your website URL is visible. You can even incorporate a QR code so that they can quickly access your website.

Printables

Printables are a form of marketing you can do by physically printing out marketing materials so you can promote your business and website. You can use printed materials to catch the attention of the local community by bringing your offerings directly to potential customers rather than waiting for them to come to you. A few easy printables you can create are:

Direct Mail: Send out attractive postcards or flyers with a special offer or promo code for first-time customers to encourage visits to your site.

Pamphlets and Brochures: Create informative booklets and brochures that detail your business's offerings. Place these in local shops or on community bulletin boards.

Posters: Hang posters in high-traffic areas. Make sure they have a straightforward, eye-catching design with your web address prominently displayed.

Networking or Community Events

Get involved in local events to promote your business to a broader audience. Talk with people about your business at events and hand out items like notebooks, reusable bags, or mugs with your website. This personal touch is a practical gift and encourages people to check out your site long after the event ends.

Here are a few practical tips for you to consider when using materials to promote your website:

1. Choose Practical Items: Pick items that people will use regularly, like pens or tote bags, and make sure they feature your business name, logo, and website URL.

2. Be Strategic with Your Giveaways: Hand out these items at events, workshops, or as part of a purchase.

3. Customize for Your Audience: Tailor your promotional products to suit the interests and needs of your target audience to ensure they are used and seen often.

Encouraging Referrals

Encourage your customers to spread the word about your business website by offering something in return for giving you business or providing you referrals. Sending an appreciation gift keeps your most loyal customers happy and motivated to continue supporting your business. Plus, as others see your business merchandise, they may be curious to check out your website!

A few appreciation gifts could be:

• Mugs
• T-shirts
• Planners
• Pens and pencils
• Tote bags

With a LOGO.com Pro Subscription, you can easily design on-brand merchandise to promote your small business. Simply upload your logo or create your own using our free Logo Generator tool.

Your Journey to Enhanced Website Traffic

Launching your small business website is just the beginning. Think of driving traffic to your site like paving more roads to your shop—the easier it is for people to find you, the more visitors you'll have. From solid SEO foundations to engaging social media strategies, each method you use is like opening a new pathway that leads potential customers right to your doorstep.

Stay dedicated, keep your site relevant, and continually seek ways to improve. Over time, you'll see an increase in traffic, engagement, and sales. For more helpful insights and resources on growing your small business online and offline, check out LOGO.com. We have everything you need to launch your business.

Let's work together to move your business from start to success.