Getting traffic to your site can be tough – especially when you are just getting started.

You want to make sure that you are using the right tactics, and that you are using them in combination. A successful marketing campaign should always include SEO, pay per click, and social media marketing, but sometimes you need to take it a step further, and combine all of these methods to really drive traffic to your site.

1. Build a community.

To build a community, you need to provide value to your audience – something that will be valuable to them even after they have left your site. The key to building a community is by being social and engaging with your audience on various platforms. You can start by engaging with your readers on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, and continue with LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube – all of which are community-based platforms.

By continually engaging with your audience, you are giving them value – and value will always be a key component in attracting, engaging, and retaining customers. When you are providing value, you are also establishing yourself as an expert in your industry or niche, and showing that you can help others by sharing your knowledge.

2. Use keywords in your content.

You must use keywords in your content when employing SEO methods. The aim of SEO is to ensure that your content shows up when people search for specific terms relating to your industry or niche. There are many free tools like Google Keyword Planner that can help you find the best keywords for your content, and then use them consistently throughout your site’s content. You should use a combination of high-ranking keywords and long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are essentially phrases, rather than whole words, which often lead to more specific searches. For example, if you are targeting gamers, your content might include words like “Nintendo,” “Xbox,” and “PlayStation,” which are all high-ranking keywords, but also include the word “help,” which is a long-tail keyword. Searching for any one of those three phrases will still bring up your content.

3. Host community events.

The community that you have built should be the driving force behind your marketing efforts. To start, you can invite local business owners and bloggers to contribute to an article or podcast about your industry. You can also reach out to other bloggers in your niche to see if they would be interested in participating in a webinar or live chat – both of which are great ways to build credibility and authority in your niche, and attract potential customers to your site. You can even set up a Facebook group for people with shared interests, and encourage them to engage with you and each other.

4. Run promotional offers.

Customers are always looking for ways to save money, so you can bet that they will be flocking to your site to take advantage of any promotional offers that you might have. You can use tools like Swagbucks to get $1 to $5 off your next purchase when you shop online. There will always be some sort of offer for a product or service that will help you save money – whether it’s a special discount, a chance to win a car, or even just free food.

The sky is the limit when it comes to the types of promotional offers you can make, from free product samples to discounts and coupons to win-a-trip-to-a-beautiful-foreign-destination.

5. Build a website.

If you are looking to increase your traffic, you should consider building a website dedicated to talking about your industry. There are plenty of totally free, industry-specific platforms like WordPress that make it easy to get a website up and running in no time. You can use a tool like Google Analytics to track traffic and learn more about your audience, and what they are doing on your site. 

When you have a website that talks about your industry, you are giving your audience knowledge that they could not get anywhere else. Additionally, when somebody searches for related terms, they will find your content first, and be directed to a page with a call to action like a sign-up form, or a product purchase button.

6. Measure results.

To determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, you should always measure results. The perfect marketing campaign would be one that drives traffic to your site, converts that traffic into paying customers, and then measures the ROI of that campaign – something that most marketers can’t claim as their own. Thankfully, measuring results is easier than you think – with tools like Google Analytics already built in to verify your claims. With Google Analytics, you can track the entire path a customer takes, starting from the time they arrive at your site, all the way through to when they make a purchase or take some other action – like subscribing to your newsletter or joining your Facebook group.

You can even set up event tracking, so you can see how much traffic you are driving to each event, and from each platform (social media, for example). With a little bit of work, you can have a proven marketing plan within no time.

7. Optimize your site.

Having a well-developed knowledge of SEO is critical to the success of any online marketing campaign. You want to ensure that your site is doing everything possible to rank high in search engines for relevant keywords, and that it is doing so for the right reasons. There are a couple of factors that you need to focus on to achieve the best results from your SEO efforts:

– Content strategy. This is all about deciding which keywords to focus on, and using them effectively throughout your content. When somebody finds your content, they should also find the keywords that you focused on, and be able to identify with the content, based on what they know and want to learn about.– Micro-optimization. This is all about making small changes to your site, that will help with your SEO. For example, you can create a blog post about fashion, and add a couple of relevant keywords and micro-tweets to it. The idea is to add as much value as you can, while remaining true to your blog’s style.

– Long-term strategy. This is about planning to achieve a certain amount of traffic, then using that as a benchmark, and planning for future growth.

SEO is a never-ending process, and one that should always be reviewed, and improved upon. But in order to continue being effective, you must have a clear plan, and be following the right steps – something that can only come from having a proven record of success. It’s never easy getting started, but once you do, the results will be well worth it.

Choosing which industries to specialize in is one of the most critical decisions you need to make as a business owner or brand manager. You need to make sure that you are focusing on a niche that is both lucrative and within your reach – a kind of ‘win-win’ scenario that will help you move forward, and allow you to scale your business quickly and efficiently. Once you have established yourself as an expert in your chosen niche, you can begin to think about expanding your horizons – and once you have done that, you will have a whole new set of industries to choose from – perhaps literally! – Good luck out there.