10 ways to drive traffic to your website

Filmmakers create movies in hopes people will see them. Just like you spent time building a beautiful and informative website to showcase your products and services to customers. You don’t want that website to languish in obscurity like a film that goes straight to DVD.

Draw traffic to your site with these 10 pro tips:

1. Create compelling content

Make sure the content on your website is well-crafted, informative and reflects your and your business’s personality. Whether it’s an original e-commerce infographic, an entertaining how-to video, or your critique of the newest soy latte on the block, share content that people can’t find anywhere else on the whole wide Web — information they’ll want to link to on their own websites and social media profiles.

2. Optimise the content with search-worthy keywords

Once you have some amazing content up there, be sure that it’s all optimized to get found by search engines. Do a little research into the keywords people enter into search engines such as Google®, Bing® and Yahoo!® to figure out what words are popular. Google AdWords™ Keyword Planner is an awesome tool to use. Without going overboard — or “stuffing” — your content with keywords, incorporate them into your content in a manner that reads naturally. According to GoDaddy’s head of Global SEO, Jim Christian:

“Generally speaking, a page should target five to 10 keywords; the rule of thumb is one keyword per 100 words of content.”

3. Start a blog

Where should you put all the great, new content that doesn’t quite fit on your website’s core pages? A blog! Blogs exert a powerful reach to both existing customers and potential new ones. They enable you to showcase your personality, give insights into your products and services, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Not to mention that all this fresh content appeals to search engines.

4. Build links

Nothing says, “This site has something to offer,” like a link from another trusted website. Encourage partners in your space to share links. Offer up guest blog posts, videos or other unique content to encourage sharing and linking back.

5. Get listed with search engines

If your website is brand new, search engines might not have found it yet. (They can’t be everywhere, right?) You can take the time to list your business info on search engines one at a time, or use a handy tool like Get Found to manage your business info Web-wide from a singular dashboard.

6. Connect on social media

If you’re not active on social media sites like Twitter®, Facebook® and Pinterest® (just to to name a few), you might be missing out on some serious opportunities. SearchMetrics recently came out with a list of the top search engine ranking factors for 2014—and seven of the top 10 ranking factors now involve social media! Before you jump right in, though, create a social media plan and research what’s worked (and what hasn’t) for others.

7. Join related communities

No matter what your website is about, chances are there is a large community of people on the Internet who are talking about that topic right now. Participate in forums, blogs and chats related to your market. Comment often with meaningful statements, and include links back to relevant related content on your website.

8. Use email marketing

Some customers won’t return to your site unless you go directly to them – to their email boxes, that is. Keep customers coming back by maintaining regular contact with them through email campaigns and newsletters. Check out a few best practices for email distro lists.

9. Get offline and local

In today’s digital world, we often forget about traditional marketing tools. Joining a local business organization, distributing print materials and advertisements, and participating in networking groups can lead to increased online activity.

10. Track and analyze your traffic

You don’t know where to go if you don’t know where you’ve been. Set up analytics on your website to find out where your viewers are coming from, what pages they leave your site from, and where they linger. This will give you clues about what content attracts your audience and where to continue to find them.

The article was originally published on The GoDaddy Garage - the educational initiative from GoDaddy to help small businesses and Web Professionals succeed. For more information on the company, visit in.GoDaddy.com.