Want to know how I got into the digital marketing industry? Here is a little story for you… I started my own blog many moons ago. This blog had nothing to do with making money but purely for me to write my views on books I had read but as a character. I was so proud of my blog but couldn’t understand why it didn’t attract visitors. After spending months googling and researching, I found many different answers and tested each and every one of them. This is how I began to love the digital marketing industry and the start of my journey to help other businesses learn and do more too. 
The point of the story however is that you might have created an ecommerce website or a service website that you are incredibly proud of so can’t understand why it doesn’t attract visitors. This is step one of the inbound marketing funnel which you can read more about in our What is Inbound Marketing blog. There are 3 tools that can help you not only attract visitors but the right type of visitors too.
Attract Visitors by Blogging
I know you may have already read and been told many times that “content is king” and all that jazz. But are you blogging and still can’t attract visitors everyone boasts about? This may be because you are using your blog for the wrong reasons. A great example of this is businesses using their blog for employee updates or for long-form product descriptions. Think about what your audience wants to know and more importantly what they will search for. How many people do you think will search for or want to read “Meet Tim: Our New Personal Injury Solicitor”? In comparison, how many people do you think will want to read and search for “How to Make a Personal Injury Claim”? By all means this does not mean you have to stop writing about employee updates and the latest industry news. You can either set up a blog where you will post topic based on audience search queries whilst also having a “latest news” page with posts about industry news and the company. Or you could keep them all in one place but make categories for readers’ ease of use.
Using Social Media to Attract Visitors
With the amount of social media networking sites out there, I am sure there is one to suit your business needs. According to eBiz|MBA, the top 4 social networking sites are currently Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. To give you an example of just how important it is to be active on social media… Facebook currently has around 900,000,000 monthly UNIQUE visits! #Wowzer The same thing applies to social media as it does to blogging, use it as it is intended rather than forcing it. Another tip I have for you is to use different posts for each for your social media profiles otherwise you are not giving followers a reason to follow each of your networks. What I mean by using social media as it is intended is using it to post fun and interesting things to encourage followers to engage and share your content.
Attract Visitors with SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a powerhouse when it comes to attracting visitors to your website. There is so much to talk about when it comes to SEO so I will do my best to summarise this and will do another blog post in the future purely about SEO. There are different elements to SEO including:
Keyword Research – To research keywords that summarise your services or products. To start with, choose keywords that aren’t too competitive so that you can build your authority and rankings faster.
Meta Tags – Meta tags are found in thesection of the HTML code. The meta title and description or what people will see when searching on search engine sites such as Google. Make sure to use your meta tags to sell what it is you do. The more enticing it is, the more click-troughs you will get.Heading Tags – Once you have chosen which keywords to target based on your keyword research, make sure to include them in your and tags. You should only ever have one tag on each of your web pages but can have numerous tags. This is one of the elements search engine bots will read first to understand the relevancy of your page against the search queries searched for. If you can’t fit in a keyword into a title without ruining the readability, do not force it in.
Image Alt Tags – Each image you add to your website should be attached with an tag. Describe what it is in the image in between the quotation marks of the tag. Again this is another place to add your target keywords but don’t make it so the alt tag is different to what the image actually is.
Keyword Implementation – So many people have different opinions on “keyword density”. My opinion is that if you write a product description, blog post, or service information, your target keywords will naturally find their way in to the content. However saying that, I do always check after I have written content whether the keyword I am aiming for is included in the content. I aim for a 2% density but never ever over 5%. If I am under 2% but know the keyword I am targeting can’t be added anywhere naturally, I will simply leave it the way it is.
Backlinks – This is another topic many have different opinions on. However there is one rule everyone should stick to and that is to never go to a “link building farm” or go to an agency or marketing professional who can offer you “hundreds of links in days”. Your backlinks should happen as naturally as possible, without any payment, and gradually. If you are posting interesting content with information that no one else has, people will naturally share and link back to you. There is no harm in doing a bit of link scouting but make sure that when doing this, you target only those that have a good domain authority and a good trust ratio score.
Attract Visitors to Your Website in 3 Steps
I made it sound a bit too easy with that title when in fact it is going to take you a lot of hard work, research, and most importantly… consistency. By sticking to it, you will get the results you work for. If your blog isn’t generating visitors now, don’t give up, keep blogging based on your target search queries and the visitors will come. What are your main struggles when it comes to attracting visitors to your website? Do you struggle with blog topic ideas? Or do you struggle with ideas for social media posts? Let me know your thoughts and questions by leaving your comments below.
Feedback From the Twitter-Sphere
@samanthalonguk Interesting blog posts, insightful info! Is YOMA new to Twitter then or just this account? #BizHour — High Tech Lighting (@HighTechLight) July 29, 2014
A great blog from @samanthalonguk defo worth reading xx How to Attract Visitors to Your Website
— Mangley Jewellery (@Mangley) July 30, 2014
