A lot of companies, small businesses and individuals do a great job of establishing their site, putting up some content and relishing that first taste of success. Unfortunately, it often stops there. Traffic plateaus and the initial excitement of new traffic quickly turns to worry about why traffic is no longer increasing.
These companies, small businesses and individuals will continue to plug away, thinking MORE CONTENT will lead to MORE TRAFFIC. Yet it doesn’t. It remains flat. Google indexes more pages, but traffic increases are marginal at best.
The problem isn’t always that your content is bad (though let’s face it: sometimes it is), but that your website as a whole could likely benefit from several improvements.
Here are 7 potential “problems” and how you can fix them:
You’re Not Taking Advantage of Social Media
At least, not really.
Simply setting up social media profiles, posting automatic updates via something like twitterfeed and calling it a day just doesn’t cut it. It does a decent job, but it often results in these traffic plateaus that we’re working so hard to avoid.
Instead, engage your followers/fans and really push your content.
- Are you sharing your content on relevant LinkedIn Groups?
- Are you taking advantage of Google+ Communities?
- Do you post pictures with your Tweets?
- Do you highlight updates on Facebook?
- Do you reply to people who engage with you on these sites?
Note that “push your content” doesn’t mean “overly promote your products.”
You’re Not Paying to Promote Content
This isn’t always necessary, but spending a bit of money to give your content that extra push can do wonders!
Even something as small as $5.00 to promote each (or some) of your Facebook posts can dramatically increase both engagement and clicks to your content.
Other popular paid platforms include StumbleUpon Paid Discovery, Outbrain, VIRURL and Twitter Ads, among others.
You’re Not Making Content Easily Shareable
Are you using ShareThis or AddThis?
Yes? Fair enough. But are you using them effectively? Do you have them both above and below each article? Have you changed the default buttons into something no longer easily recognizable? Have you added st_via=’yourtwitterhandle’ to the code of ShareThis’ Twitter buttons?
I highly recommend sticking with the default buttons for each of these platforms, as they are easily identifiable by visitors.
You’re Not Analyzing Past Content
Instead of writing whatever floats your boat each time you sit down to compose an article, are you taking the time to analyze which of your previous articles have led to traffic, shares, sales and/or leads for your business?
By quickly poking around Analytics, you should see a trend of what content is and isn’t producing.
You’re Not Taking Chances
Playing it safe doesn’t usually lead to the kind of success you’re likely looking to achieve.
Be unique. Be edgy. Be controversial. Be creative.
Related: Why Being Different Is More Important than Being Better
You’re Not Reaching Full Audience Potential
If your product is boring to all but a small handful of individuals, you have two choices: be happy with that small (but extremely targeted) audience or work to produce content with broader appeal.
It’s great to specialize, but you can specialize while still appealing to a wide audience. If not, you’re simply not being creative enough.
You’re Not Stalking Your Visitors
Yes, it’s creepy, but creepy is effective.
If you’ve been to our site before, you’ve likely seen our ads follow you around as you browse other websites who have opted into the Google Display Network. We do this through “Remarketing” in Google AdWords.
Remarketing is an extremely cost-effective way to increase brand exposure and bring people back to your site who have not yet converted. You could, for example, show a special set of ads to users who have put items in their shopping cart but not yet completed their purchase. On these ads, you might offer a special promotional code for a 5-15% discount to bring them back.
You can do the same type of thing on Facebook.
Take a look at Adroll for additional retargeting options.
Conclusion
Though these 7 things are only scratching the surface, they should be more than enough to overcome your current traffic plateau. Give them a try and let me know how they work for you.
(You’ll also want to make sure that your SEO is 100% dialed in.)
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