If you’ve tried to boost traffic to your site but aren’t seeing any results, it’s time to implement some new strategies. While there are tried-and-true methods that everyone touts, you may find that not every strategy is going to work for your site/target market.

While your ultimate goal is to get more traffic to your site, it is also important to focus on getting the right traffic. An overall increase in traffic may not always lead to an increase in conversions. In order to get more of the visitors that you want, try the following five tactics and watch both your traffic and your conversions increase.

1. Focus on On-page SEO

The first and most important way to get traffic to your site is by optimizing your pages for the keywords you are trying to rank for. While there are many ways to optimize a page, here are five on-page SEO tactics that you definitely should focus on:

• Start Title Tag with Your Keyword – Using keywords on your page help attract attention from the search engines. If you want the biggest benefit you need to put the keyword towards the beginning of the title tag. This allows search engines to know that the keyword or phrase is an important part of what your page is about.
• Add Your Keyword(s) in First 100 Words – To let search engines know what your page is about, you should include your target keyword within the first 100 words on the page. Don’t go overboard with including your keyword in the copy, though. While optimizing the page is your goal, it’s still important to keep user experience in mind.
• Ensure Design is Responsive – It has been over two years since Google began punishing sites that were not responsive, so responsive design is more important than ever – especially since majority of users are using mobile devices to access the internet. Make sure that you’re viewing your site on all device sizes to ensure your design is appearing how you want on every screen.
• Include Outbound Links – When you link your page to other sites that have a similar topic you are helping Google understand what your page is about. However, you need to remember that the quality of the site that you link to is important as well.
• Include Internal Links – On every page/post on your site you should have 2-5 links that go to other pages or posts on your site. This helps keep readers on your site longer which improves SEO, as well as showcasing the expertise of your business.

Let’s take a look at a comparison of two sites competing for the same keyword and see how their on-page SEO affects their traffic. SmartMove and LeaseRunner are both ranking for the keyword “tenant screening”. SmartMove’s homepage title tag starts with this keyword, while LeaseRunner begins their title tag with their brand name. They still include the keyword later in the title tag but not at the beginning, so let’s take a look at traffic and see if that makes a difference or not.

We certainly can’t attribute this difference in traffic solely to placement of keyword in the title tag (obviously), but it would be in LeaseRunner’s best interest to test different on-page optimizations to determine what is most effective in closing that traffic gap.

2. Do Guest Blogging the Right Way

While guest blogging is not a new concept, you need to do it the right way in order to actually increase traffic to your site. When writing guest posts, make sure to follow these steps:

• Determine Who Your Customers Are – Guest blogging is not going to help if you are writing to the wrong audience. Before you start investing time into this strategy you need to determine who your ideal customer is. Think through things like their age, gender, occupation, location, and any other details that help pinpoint who they are.
• Determine Where Your Customers Are – Guest blogging is effective if you are in front of your audience. Once you know who your target market is, your next step is to find out where they spend time online. Several ways that you can accomplish this include surveying your existing customers, seeing who they follow on social media, and seeing what other companies are being returned in the search engines for the keywords that you want to rank for.
• Only Guest Post on Sites that Link – One of the main purposes of guest posting is getting your name and content in front of potential customers. The other main purpose is to build backlinks to your site. If a site does not link to your website within your author bio (or somewhere else on the page), it probably isn’t worth it to reach out to that site – let alone take the time to write an article. By keeping your guest blogging prospects limited to those that backlink, you are building links to your site which will increase the likelihood that users will find your site.

So if you’re only looking to guest post on sites that link, what about big name sites like Entrepreneur that no-follow their links? Part of guest posting is getting backlinks to your site. However, in the case of Entrepreneur and similar high profile sites, the no-follow link (if you include it within the body of the post) may be worth it. Make sure to track your referral metrics to determine if you are actually getting traffic from users clicking on the no-follow link. This will tell you more clearly if this type of guest post is worth it or not.

In this screenshot above, we can see how the guest author included a link to her site within the body of the post, but it was no-followed as all links are on Entrepreneur.

3. Post Content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn may have started as a way to find a job (or an employee), but it has transformed into a social media platform that is full of valuable information. When you share content to social media you are improving your profile on the site and also pointing more people toward your website.

While people love Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, LinkedIn is the place that most people trust for business-related content. You can post content that showcases your business as the industry expert while also building a following.

Posting content on LinkedIn is not the right tactic for every industry, so think critically about if your content would make sense on LinkedIn and if your target market would be looking on LinkedIn for the content you’re writing about.

If you are interested in learning how to effectively use LinkedIn as a platform to publish your content, take a look at this content marketing guide straight from LinkedIn. This guide offers a step-by-step plan on how to best use LinkedIn, which can help you determine if publishing content on LinkedIn is the right approach for you.

4. Don’t Forget About Email Marketing

Email marketing is still a powerful way to drive traffic to your website. Send out important updates, promotions, or news that your subscribers need to know, but be careful not to get spammy. ShareAble for Hires, for example, tells subscribers right off the bat that they will receive a weekly email. That way, subscribers know going into it what to expect instead of being surprised by daily (unwanted) emails.

If you flood your customers’ inboxes with emails, it will not take them long to unsubscribe from receiving further messages from your business. It’s important to find the balance between sending too many messages that they get annoyed and sending too few that they forget about your brand. Think critically about the message you’re about to send, and determine if it is information that your audience is actually interested in.

The other important factor to consider in email marketing is segmenting – send an email to a specific group in your subscriber list based on common factors that pertain to your email topic. There are tons of ways to segment your list (age, gender, purchase history, in store vs. online, etc.), so find what works best for your brand and your target market.

5. Provide Insightful Commentary in Comment Sections

Participating in forums and commenting on other blog posts within your industry can help show your expertise and build awareness of your business. While it doesn’t mean an automatic boost in traffic to your site, as your name becomes bigger more people will be looking for you.

Make sure that your comments are providing value to the conversation and don’t look like desperate attempts to make people check out your site. If you provide value to them first you will build trust as they see your expertise.

Closing Thoughts

In the end, it’s important to remember that the best way to increase traffic to your site is to provide your readers with value. Make sure the content that you are putting out is high-quality. Your marketing plan should always strive for quality over quantity. Stick to that, and implement these 5 strategies, and you will see an increase in your traffic and ultimately your conversions.