The Ultimate Guide to Driving More Traffic to Your Site Through Content

By Matt Cowart

As a young company, getting people to notice you is one of the most pressing challenges. It often feels like you’re trying to win a popularity contest — not for vanity’s sake, but because getting more visitors to your website leads to more opportunities to make sales and gain subscribers, referrals, and exposure.

Publishing content that sparks readers’ interest is a cheap, powerful way to funnel visitors to your website. But with online content growing exponentially, standing out can be a huge challenge.

For the best results, you need to create compelling content that demands attention, so I asked Business Insider reporter Drake Baer for his secrets to writing breakthrough content.

3 Secrets of Professional Content Creators

As a professional content creator, Baer uses three main criteria to measure the success of his articles and increase shares: fluency, identity, and novelty.

To promote fluency, or how quickly and easily the reader can grasp your meaning, consider your content’s cognitive load. How much time and effort are you asking people to invest when they click on your content? Strike a good balance between providing value and not overwhelming the reader, and make sure the time and energy you’re asking them to commit is worthwhile.

People also want to identify with the content you create. Project an identity in your content so readers can relate and feel compelled to share it with others.

Finally, novel experiences signal importance and pique interest, which makes them a powerful tool to keep readers coming back for more.

By creating content your readers will find novel, approachable, and relevant, you’ll naturally generate interest around your company.

7 Clever Ways to Activate Your Content

Compelling content isn’t enough to drive traffic, though. The Internet is a massive space, so you need to use every resource possible to activate your content, maximize its reach, and funnel more visitors to your website.

Start blogging. Blogging is a powerful tool to communicate your message to your target audience in a way that’s accessible and relevant. Focus on writing quality content and then finding creative ways to use these posts to bridge the gap between your external content and your website.
If you establish a strong content funnel, you can cross-pollinate your brand on multiple platforms and drive qualified leads to your website.
Get creative with your headlines. With more than 528,000 followers, Dave Kerpen, co-founder of Likeable Media, is a LinkedIn Influencer whose articles have garnered more than 17 million page views. He started writing one to two articles a week, focusing on creating engaging headlines. In the beginning, his posts were hit or miss. But with time, he learned that lists and easily digestible information were the keys to snagging views.
Kerpen recommends spending the most time writing irresistible headlines and choosing images because they have the biggest impact on the success of your post. Focus on provoking an emotional response or telling a story. Make an intriguing promise, and then deliver on that promise in the body of the article.
Publish on StumbleUpon, reddit, Alltop, Triberr, Facebook, and YouTube. You have to put your content where people will see it, or it won’t work. YouTube drives the most engaged traffic, with users spending time on an average of about three pages per visit, but there are countless sites that can help you generate buzz.
Use your email list to promote your blog posts. Make sure you’re collecting email addresses from everyone you can — especially those visiting your site or reading your content. Set up a cadence for outreach that will help drive consistent traffic. Always include your content and links back to your website in the email. This simple tweak can considerably increase traffic, leads, and sales.
Post and repost frequently. Make your content a priority, and post as often as possible. Sometimes you can repost on multiple sites, too. Try optimizing headlines for each medium you’re posting on to drive additional engagement, and make sure you’re doing this at least five to six times a week. If this is too much, consider hiring a content expert like Influence & Co.
Collaborate with other influencers online. Maximize your exposure within your niche by taking advantage of forums and guest posting. Forums allow you to provide commentary, get feedback, and ask for support from other influencers. They can also direct people back to your website and create the perfect arena for collaborating with other bloggers, influencers, or competitors.Encourage sharing and discussion in forums, and invite influencers to post on your blog to strengthen these relationships. From there, you can ask to guest post on their sites if it makes sense.
Deploy a pay-per-click campaign. PPC advertising is a great way to generate traffic with relatively little work. Most social media sites will promote content, so taking advantage of these platforms can help potential customers discover your content.

It’s tough to be popular in such a cluttered marketplace, but creating engaging content and finding ways to activate that content are the best ways to attract attention and drive qualified traffic to your site. Just think of every blog post and article as its own marketing engine, constantly working for you to drive interest, capture leads, and nurture those leads down the path to purchase.

Matt Cowart is a business development manager for Dell for Entrepreneurs and Founders Club. Matt has been with Dell for over 10 years and has a background in technical sales and training. In this role, he supports the sales enablement efforts for the Dell sales teams in the U.S., works directly with the members of Founders Club, and supports global launch efforts.