You didn’t start a website to have it sit there without any visitors. If you want people to see your content and make money from your site you need to learn how to build website traffic.

Before diving in, we’re grouping these website traffic methods into these categories:

• Paid advertising
• Social media
• Communities
• Outreach
• Email

Paid advertising is about investing in ads to drive traffic to your website.

Social media is next and it includes using social networking to generate web traffic. Social media is truly powerful and can drive traffic to your site organically without the need to invest in ads.

Community building is something often overlooked. It’s about harnessing the power of community to help create traffic for your website. Through community building, you can brand yourself, create a name for yourself as an expert, reach people, network, plus a host of other benefits.

Outreach is great for traffic generation and includes guest posting, contacting other website owners and other techniques for the purpose of growing your brand.

Email is one of the most powerful forms of marketing and a great way to boost your views and create traffic. When done well, it can be a source of consistent traffic and sales.

How to build website traffic with paid advertising

1. Facebook ads

This is by far the fastest way to grow your website traffic. You pay for ads to be shown to your target audience.

Website visitors land on your site and from there, they can be introduced to your business, turn into a lead, join your mailing list, and buy your products and services.

You’ll like Facebook ads because they can be a cheap yet an effective way to drive traffic to your website.

Setting up a campaign can be done in five minutes and once your ad is approved, you can begin monitoring the results, making edits, as needed, learning from the performance and continuing to improve ads in the future.

Sometimes people shy away from paid advertising but it can really make sense.

Would you pay $20 per day to make $200 per day?

Yes.

Would you spend $1,000 per day to make $15,000 per day?

Yes.

While these are just examples, it illustrates my point. Investing in Facebook ads can be a lucrative way to quickly drive traffic to your website.

For more on Facebook ads, check out the best Facebook ads training of 2020.

2. Taboola

Reach up to 1.4 billion people with Taboola. You can use their platform to create an ad campaign that will entice readers to check out your content.

Taboola is a native ad discovery platform. Native ads blend in with the content on the page. They are ads that feel like they belong there. And if you advertise with Taboola, those ads can be yours, seamlessly matching the content on pages of big publishers. Native ads run across search, social, and open web channels and they work!

This case study shares how this company saw 30% more pages per visit from visitors coming from Taboola.

Taboola can drive clicks, traffic and conversions. Then, review your campaigns, evaluate, make improvements, rinse and repeat.

Outbrain is very similar. Their native advertising platform can help you reach your web traffic goals. You can use both platforms to improve your traffic numbers.

3. Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is where you, the brand, will team up with an influencer who will share your company or product with their audience.

Influencers have incredible reach and it’s not unusual to get an 11X return on your investment by partnering with an influencer.

Start by going to the social platform where most of your audience hangs out.

For example, if that place is Instagram, head to Instagram and find an influencer in your niche that can reach your target audience. Contact them, hash out the details of the influencer campaign including compensation and timeline. Then, kick off the campaign once the run date approaches.

How to build website traffic with social media

4. Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual search engine that users browse to find the answers to their problems, like:

• How to make a vegan cake
• DIY ideas for cleaning
• Spring farmhouse home decor inspiration
• How to save for the down payment on a house
• And, more!

Think Google but, with more pictures.

You can use Pinterest to post images of your content, company, and products. The Pinterest pins you make and post will circulate across the platform, giving you the opportunity to create endless traffic. There are dormant accounts on Pinterest that haven’t posted in over a year, still receiving 20,000 to 30,000 monthly views!

Pinterest has so much traffic potential. Here are  6 ways to monetize your Pinterest account.

5. Instagram

Instagram is a visual social platform where you can connect with other users through posts, stories, longer video clips called IGTV, and reels, which are short, vertical videos similar to Tik Tok.

To connect with your target readers on Instagram, you’ve got to build an audience. Here are some best practices to grow your Instagram presence:

• Post consistently
• Create a mix of content (reels, IGTV, stories, and posts)
• Like, follow, and engage with other IG users
• Respond to comments
• Respond to direct messages

You can try Gary Vaynerchuk’s $1.80 strategy for growth:

First, find the best hashtags (10 of them) to follow relevant to your niche. Then leave a comment (or your $.02) on the top 9 posts for your 10 hashtags.

Leaving your $.02 on the top 9 posts for each of the 10 hashtags totals $1.80.

Rinse and repeat. Doing this will help you build your tribe on your Instagram, grow your following, and reach more target customers.

6. Reddit

Reddit is a great source of traffic, if done right. Redditors are very territorial and they’re quick to call out spammers so you’ve got to do this right.

First, join Reddit. It will take around 3 days for your account to be seasoned so during that time, you won’t be able to make comments or post.

Find subreddits in your niche and identify the top questions or pain points coming up for redditors in that community. Participate in discussion, answer questions, engage with others, without talking about your brand too much or trying to sell.

Then, create a helpful post that provides value to the subreddit, with a soft sell at the end, like an invitation to check out your website, join your mailing list, etc.

Rinse and repeat this process for subreddits in your target market.

7. YouTube

YouTube is an easy platform to get started with. Film videos that will help your audience. These can be tutorials, how-to’s, etc.

To get started, join YouTube for free and start uploading videos. You can link to your website on your About page and in the video description.

Your video description is going to be where people go to learn more about you. Link to your lead magnets, email list, website, other social media accounts, and more. For inspiration, look at your competitors on YouTube to see how they have their video descriptions laid out. Then, adopt some of those practices for yourself.

The key to YouTube is consistency. Keep creating videos, engage with others, comment on other videos in your niche, and respond to comments on your videos.

How to build website traffic with Communities

8. Facebook Groups

It’s all about community building and Facebook groups are the perfect place to find your tribe and grow your website traffic. You can join groups and/or create your own groups. In fact, you should really do both.

Here’s how to get started with groups on Facebook.

First, search for groups in your niche. These are going to be the groups where your target audience hangs out. So, if your audience is yoga class students, find groups around yoga, meditation, and related topics.

Then, take a similar approach as you would on Reddit. Take your time and learn as much about each group as possible. Find out pain points, problems, and struggles your audience is having. Participate in discussion, provide value, give advice, and start discussion threads of your own adding value.

It’s about attraction marketing.

You’ll find that people will start to come to you to ask for help and advice. When this happens, you can begin to funnel people to your own Facebook group, email list, and sales funnels.

At the same time, start your own Facebook group. Recruit members to join, promote your group and use it as a helpful resource people are excited to flock to.

For more on groups, check out our step-by-step guide to growing a Facebook group.

How to build website traffic with outreach

9. Guest posting

Guest posting is when you write a blog post on another website for free, for the purpose of gaining a backlink to your website.

When a website links back to your website, this can help you gain some attention from that site’s visitors.

It’s also really good for your site SEO (search engine optimization). Google likes when you have many backlinks. It increases your authority and it’s actually a pretty effective way to gain website visitors. This case study shows how Buffer went from zero to 100,000 customers with guest posting.

How it works:

Find high authority websites in your niche that accept guest posts. Contact them to pitch a guest post. Once your pitch is accepted, prepare your blog post and submit it to them. Don’t forget to include one or two backlinks to your website or mailing list in your post.

Continue doing this, keeping guest posting in your marketing strategy to help you continue to grow your brand.

10. Requesting shares

This strategy is incredibly easy. First, write content showcasing other experts. Then, contact them to let them know that you shared them on your website and ask for a shout out or link on one of their existing or upcoming pieces of content.

That’s it!

In fact, when you contact them via email, you don’t even have to ask for a share. Notifying them that you’re a fan or you support their website or expertise in a field is enough for them to share your site without even asking.

How to build website traffic with email marketing

11. Email marketing

Lastly, we have email marketing. This is about sharing your content, brand, and products with your email list. If you’re looking for a boost in traffic, emailing your list is an easy, hassle-free way to get that extra traffic.

First, make sure you have an email list. You can start list building by ensuring you have opt-in forms across your site. You can have more than one opt-in and if you really want to get good results, tie your opt-in form to an enticing lead magnet your audience will appreciate.

Examples of lead magnets include:

• Ebooks
• Checklists
• Coupons
• Entry to a sweepstakes or giveaway

Make sure it makes sense for your brand. For example, if you’re an ecommerce store, a coupon lead magnet makes sense. If you’re a content creator with a blog, then a free ebook or checklist might be a good fit.

It’s true, the money is in the list!

You want your email list to be ever-evolving and continuously growing. This means you’ll need to be active in growing your list, email your subscribers regularly and practicing email marketing.

Final Thoughts on how to build website traffic

There are so many ways to build website traffic — From using ads or guest posting to your content in front of new people to building Facebook groups and email lists to keep your current readers engaged.

Even if  you don’t have the budget for ads, there are tons of ways to generate traffic for your website. I hope these traffic generation ideas inspire you. Which idea will you try?