Here we are again! Well I believe this is a hot topic for everyone who owns a WordPress website, just as hot as WordPress itself!
How many years has WordPress been in the game? 16 already! Yet it’s only getting more popular everyday! Nowadays, over 500 websites make their debut on WordPress each day. And that is 4 to 6 times more than the number of sites that are built on some other platforms (statistics from kinsta). We are all happy with our ever enlarged WordPress community. More friends, more chances. But more competition too. Yes, I’m talking about your rivals who also use this extraordinary platform to get customers. A cake is a cake, no matter how big it is, its shares are not endless. Since WordPress is a very delicious cake, the battle gets fiercer. The more websites built, the more competition there is to draw traffic.
So, how to win? How to get the lion’s share of WordPress and become one of the top traffic attracting WordPress websites of your niche? There are multiple answers, but you must decide which fits your website most! Still clueless? Here I have handpicked the top 10 ways that are easy to carry out, quick to make an impact on your sites and more importantly, suitable for most cases.
As you have got the gist, let’s scroll through the “10 Tips to Boost Traffic to your WordPress Website!”
1. Pay Attention to Content Quality
This thing I have put emphasis on in many of my articles, that content always come first in the priority list – that’s also my working motto!
Especially for new WordPress sites, content really matters. Good content is the quickest way to build your reputation, and bad content is the reason why it will never take off. Just put yourself into the position of a visitor. How would it be if you were so eager to learn and anxious to find solutions, then accidentally read an article that is completely non-sense and uninformative?
Not ideal at all, right? Then make sure your information is accurate, diverse, useful and free of mistakes – any mistake, from grammar to spelling. And with that you can be sure about the traffic you will get!
2. Optimize SEO Before Posting
One of the fastest ways to become a popular WordPress website with a great flow of traffic, is to top the Google ranking. But many that how your articles get displayed on Google ranking also matters a lot!
First impression is always important, and so keep in mind these two things before publishing anything:
- The Title: Know what your customers need, research the keywords, then be specific with your title. Or else, there are chances that your customers will miss out on your stuff.
- The Description: Give your post a meta description to clarify what will be included. This will earn the love of your visitors.
3. Broaden Your Circle
Enlarging your networking circle by making friends of your niche is also a proven way to get more traffic. You can do so by participating in relevant groups, share experience, discuss, help people with their problems. Once you have earned their fondness, they will likely to drop by your WordPress site and share content.
Remember to do the same for them though! Visiting their blogs and leaving some comments will definitely help in the long term.
4. Take Good Care of Social Media
As social media sites like Google, Instagram, Twitter, etc. are taking over the whole Internet, it is a matter of fact that you have to make a presence on these sites! It’s a great source of traffic, a source you must not ignore.
Thus, if you haven’t, please do yourself a favor and set up both a personal account and a brand account on these platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. – anything your target customers may be present on. Once you do, bear in mind two things:
- Do not spam your followers ever! It is understandable that you want to share all of your stuff. But it will have a reverse effect. So, do it gently and with care – share suitable content and accompany it with a caption. Don’t be a machine!
- Help visitors to share your content as well! There are good chances that they will spread your messages if they find them useful. Be a thoughtful site owner by saving them from the burden of copying and pasting links. Instead, install sharing buttons to your site. Use social sharing plugins!
5. Host Events Sometimes
Events like a giveaway or a small contest with some attractive prizes could bring you a large surge of traffic if done properly.
It would be awesome if you could design and create the prizes yourself, but it is already a good idea to have available free stuff as prizes. Make it simple, too! If you go with a contest, don’t make it tricky. It’d better be something that triggers your visitors to re-blog or share on their social media, or send to their friends.
The more widespread it is, the more traffic you will get for the event and the period of time afterwards too.
6. Do Guest Blogging
I myself have practiced this tactic a lot when younger, and this exceptionally fits for WordPress writers.
The idea is simple. You ask another website of the same niche to have your article featured on it. This article should contain a link inserted in the description or elsewhere that leads back to your WordPress site. They get a free article. You get traffic. A win-win situation, don’t you think? Of course, they might ask you to do the same thing, which you should agree to. After all, the more the merrier.
7. Track Your Performance Regularly
And oh! Do you have Google Analytics on your WordPress site yes? If no, get up and install it right away please. This, for a long time, has been the easiest yet most effective way to get insights into the traffic you get.
Thanks to the advancement of Google Analytics, you will know the specific posts that do better than the others, the location most of your traffic comes from, whether you are using the right keywords or targeting the right customers, etc. Everything will be revealed with just a simple install of a simple and free tool. And once you get the insights, you can make the necessary changes to level up your site performance and remove its weaknesses.
8. Create Interlinks
Why are interlinks important to boosting traffic to your WordPress websites, you wonder? Well, because in some cases, it is the fastest, even maybe the only way, to get customers browse around your site!
Thus, include as many interlinks as possible in your article. With interlinks, you are subtly showing your customers around just by triggering their thirst for knowledge! However, you may find it traumatizing to search for post titles that contain the keywords you want to link to. To ease the process, you could lean on Better Internal Link Search. This plugin will help you track all the post and page titles that contain your searched keywords!
9. Improve Page Loading Speed
Most of us know the two metrics – new visits and returning visits, yes? New visits mean the number of new visitors coming to your WordPress website, while returning visits comprise of those who come to your site again after the first visits. Having explained so, if your returning visits number is high, you are doing well! In the other case, something is wrong. In most cases, it is the loading speed!
We are all humans, working and rushing towards and spare no time to wait! Respecting your customers by not having them wait for your site to load is a smart strategy. Whatever you do, make sure your website load as fast as possible! Only then will they appreciate your hospitality and keep coming back as a reward.
Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix will offer a clearer look into how your site performs in terms of page speed, and give suggestions as well.
10. Don’t Forget the Website Design
Talking about humans, one more characteristic of us that I observe is that we admire beauty. WordPress visitors are the same! No one wants to come back to a poor designed and unattractive web site. You, for example, do you want to read a book in a beautiful café? Or an ugly one?
Then think for your visitors! Make your site responsive, install a well-coded and eye-catching theme, have it uniquely designed for yourself if you must. And then, traffic will automatically come your way.