If your business has an online presence (and whose doesn’t?), it’s imperative that you focus on generating as much website traffic as possible. Why? Because more traffic equals the potential for higher sales conversion rates. After all, you want your customers to be intimately familiar with your products or services.

The best way to do so is to lead them to the content that will build brand awareness; offer them something unique and valuable; and ultimately educate them, answer all of their questions, and provide them with a solution to their problem.

But the million-dollar question is “how do you entice customers to visit your site to get the information they need?” Here are fifteen simple ways to drive more traffic to your website and help increase your conversion rates.

Increasing Users to your Website

1. Let Social Lead the Way

So you have incredibly informative content that would spark the interest of any potential customer. Unfortunately, out of sight is out of mind, so you need to know how to attract customers via social media. You need a solid social media game plan; one that can utilize the strengths of each platform and speak to each audience.

Whether it’s the light and friendly conversations you can have with customers on Facebook, visually showcasing your products on Pinterest, or using Twitter to tweet about your latest product or service, or a special discount you’re having, each platform can be used to drive traffic to your site.

1. Advertise Your Products

If you have an advertising budget, you should consider employing paid strategies to help drive more customers to your site. Display advertising, social media advertising, and paid search provide additional ways to get your products in front of your target audience and further build your brand.

Ultimately, you want to generate sales, so to do so, you should consider targeting high commercial intent keywords as a component of your paid search strategy. Yes, it’s more expensive and more competitive to place your advertisement in front of someone who is ready to take action, but it could very well result in a sale.

1. Vary the Length of Your Content

Although there seems to be a recent trend toward longer content pieces, there’s no set length that guarantees your readers will automatically turn into customers. It certainly depends on the person and the amount of time they have, so make sure you have a variety of content that meets everyone’s needs and preferences. Succinct, news-based blog posts can be intermixed with longer posts, videos, infographics, and eBooks to get the most bang for your buck.

1. Make On-Page SEO a Priority

Optimizing your content can still go a long way in helping your site, and pages rank high in search results and ultimately help customers find you online. Beyond utilizing relevant keywords, consider focusing on improving your site’s visuals, including useful internal links and high-quality outbound links, and revisiting your headlines and metadata descriptions to check if they need to be more relevant to the topic. In addition, make sure your pages have been edited well and don’t have any broken links.

1. Work on Your Internal Linking Structure

Speaking of internal links, your visitors will be better able to navigate your site and find the information they are looking for if you take the time to consider how the content you’re writing about relates to the rest of your content. So prior to publishing a post or article, take some time to determine what information is link-worthy, and be sure to mention articles or posts that would be beneficial for your followers and readers.

Ultimately as mentioned above, internal linking can also help improve SEO by convincing users to stay on your site longer, providing clearer paths for spiders, and tightening the network of pages and posts on your site.

1. Compose Compelling Headlines

Simply put, a compelling headline can convince someone who is visiting your website to read an article or blog post . . . or not. No matter how informative and well-written your content, your headline must be equally informative and engaging. Before deciding on your headline, consider a few options and carefully deliberate among your team to come up with the one that will generate the most traffic.

When writing a headline, you first need to convey what your article is about. You also want to educate your target audience and convey why your product or service is valuable. At the same time, you want to generate excitement while taking into account what your target audience is seeking.

1. Guest Blog

Another way to bring people to your site is by increasing your reach through guest blogging on industry-leading sites. It never hurts to ask bloggers in your industry, but you can also connect with them by keeping track of who links to your site. If they like your content, there’s a good chance they will be interested in having your blog on their site.

Guest blogging is also a great way to increase your brand recognition. That said, you shouldn’t be overly promotional; you don’t want to sound like an infomercial. If you write about what you know can illustrate your expertise and include relevant backlinks to your site, that will be enough to entice visitors to want to find out more about your products or services.

And don’t forget to pay it forward by asking industry experts to blog on your site. This can also help bring traffic to your site because your guest bloggers will surely share the link to your site with their customers and followers. Finally, don’t be shy about asking some heavy hitters in your industry to guest blog on your site; the worst thing that can happen is that they say no.

1. Establish an Active Voice on Other Industry Sites

You can’t be everywhere at once, but part of being an industry expert is taking the time to comment on and interact with other people on prominent industry blogs and sites. Chances are you have a lot of experience and knowledge about your industry, so why not share it with others? If you do it often enough, people will recognize and look for more of your expertise, which can result in more traffic to your site. Finally, commenting on other sites can also help you establish and nurture relationships with industry bloggers.

1. Get Referral Traffic Organically

If your content and expertise are valuable enough, you might not have to attempt to get backlinks. As your reach and brand recognition increase, so will your reputation for knowing the ins and outs of your industry. Once you become a well-known, go-to industry reference, others will surely link back to your site to provide more information on a particular topic for their readers and followers.

1. Interview Industry Thought Leaders

Developing connections and relationships with those in your industry is extremely important, regardless of whether you want to drive traffic to your website. But why not lend a little credence to your blog and/or website by interviewing industry thought leaders and then publishing those interviews on your blog? It’s a surefire way to get the attention of those who are interested in your industry.

After all, it’s almost the same as receiving an endorsement from the individual you interviewed, and he or she will most likely share the interview on his or her sites as well, further helping to increase traffic to your site.

1. Promote and Nurture an Online Community

People like to speak their minds and offer their opinions on industry-relevant topics, so establishing a community forum on your site is another good way to generate more traffic. It’s also a helpful tool to ensure that visitors will stay on your site longer, while also reducing bounce rate. However, before doing so, make sure you implement the right commenting system that can meet all of your and your customers’ requirements.

If you use WordPress for your blogging needs, you already have access to its comment features. Some other quality comment systems include Disqus and Livefyre, or if you have the bandwidth, you can create your own forum where visitors can ask questions and discuss topics.

Regardless of which direction you decide to go, you need to have someone monitor your forum to make sure proper etiquette is being followed. By doing so, you can guarantee a pleasant experience for everyone. Beyond monitoring your online community, you should play an active role in thoughtfully responding to people’s comments and answering any questions they might have. This will help you build relationships with your customers and earn their trust.

1. Utilize Video as Part of Your Content Strategy

Everyone likes visuals, particularly videos that can provide more insight into your business and help tell your story. Using video is a better way to connect with your target audience and help them identify with you. It’s also a proven fact that people learn and retain more information when they are presented with visual material, so make sure it’s an integral part of your content strategy. And don’t forget to upload your videos to YouTube as well; the site drives a lot of engaged traffic.

1. Know Your Competition

Take some time to research your competition to find out what they’re doing on social media and on their website and blog. How are they driving visitors to their site? You can use software such as BuzzSumo to give you a sense of the topics they are focusing on with social media and what’s garnering the most attention from their followers. Once you know what people are liking and talking about, you’ll be able to produce content that can help drive traffic to your site. That said, if there are strategies that are working for you, don’t abandon them just because they’re not effective for your competition.

1. Offer Free Webinars

A good way to show your industry knowledge is by hosting recurring webinars. This is another way for potential customers to visually learn about your products or services. You can promote your webinars via social media and send out email blasts to your followers and customers as a way to attract new customers. Also, after each webinar, make sure you archive them for those individuals who don’t have the time to attend or would prefer to watch them on their own time.

1. Frequent Industry Conferences

Attending industry conferences is another way to build brand awareness and meet potential customers. If you get the opportunity to speak at a conference, it’s even more beneficial. You’ll not only have a platform to show how knowledgeable you are about your industry, but you’ll also have the chance to do a little self-promotion, which could bring more traffic to your site.

Discovering how to drive traffic to your website can be challenging, but it’s essential if you want to add more customers and ultimately grow your business. The 15 simple solutions mentioned in this post provide an excellent starting point and can help you generate the traffic you’re looking for.