Driving Google traffic isn’t easy! The 93 percent of all online experiences start with a search engine and Google alone holds 90 percent of the total search engine market share. Google now processes nearly 40 thousand search queries per second.
There’s a lot of content out there. Clearly, the intense competition for eyeballs is making it tough for marketers to attract enough Google traffic to their site. In fact, in a recent survey, 63 percent of marketers admitted that generating traffic and leads is the topmost challenge faced by them.
Without a doubt, Google traffic is an important indicator and driver of business success. For most professional digital marketers, search engine optimization is the only means to drive organic traffic. However, creating share-worthy content can also boost your website and blog traffic, without having to rely only on SEO tactics.
Here’s how you can drive qualified traffic to your site using an effective content strategy.
Table of Contents
Create Insanely Viral Content
Viral content will not only improve your authority in your niche but also drive tons of traffic to your site. Hence, digital marketers should have the ability to create admirable content that’s relatable and share-worthy.
Research reveals visually-rich content improves content performance. Make sure your content includes visuals in the form of images, infographics, and videos.
Further, high-utility content tends to go viral in no time. Use content-researching tools like Buzzsumo’s Question Analyzer or Answer the Public to find questions your target audience is asking online or the problems they are seeking solutions for. These tools find trending questions on forums and subreddits like Amazon, Reddit, Quora, and Q&A sites using the relevant keyword.
Once you are aware of your audience’s pressing needs, create blog posts that address their queries, thereby creating content that’s highly relevant and valuable. In the screenshot below, the keyword, ‘diabetes’ generates nearly 102 thousand questions, one of which is, ‘Does stress always cause high blood sugar?’
To generate interest among your target customers and drive traffic, create posts that effectively answer this customer questions. So, posts like ‘Diabetes and Stress: Know the Facts,’ or ‘How Stress Affects Blood Sugar Levels’ will help you generate interest and drive traffic to your site.
Lastly, content that evokes emotions, such as joy, anger, awe, wonder, anxiety, sadness, and humor is more likely to go viral. Jeff Bullas explains this beautifully in his post about emotional drivers of viral content. According to him, viral content is the result of a powerful emotional combination. Thus, if you want to make your content go viral, create something that triggers a highly emotional response.
Check out Gillette’s ‘We Believe: The Best Men Can Be’ campaign that challenges gender stereotypes and expectations of what it means to ‘be a man’. The campaign went viral with nearly 30 million views on YouTube and engagements on other social platforms. The video persuaded viewers to criticize and praise Gillette for its attempt to tackle this controversial subject.
Publish Content That’s Specific to the Buyer’s Journey
In his book, Content Inc., Joe Pulizzi cracked the code for effective content marketing with a simple tagline, ‘Build your audience first. Then create your product.’
Thus, marketers should target each stage of the content marketing tunnel with tailored content that helps qualify, nurture, and convert leads into loyal customers.
Let’s say, you are a marketer of a beauty product range whose target audience is interested in makeup tutorials and videos. In order to create brand awareness, you can post a series of 360-degree and live videos and appealing pictures of the products or models using them. This will not only boost awareness but also get them interested in your offerings.
Next, you can lead your audience down the funnel by posting articles on product safety and reviews by influencers and current users. Add a link to your site or blog, enabling them to know more about your brand and visit your site.
Having a detailed understanding of your marketing funnel and creating content specific to each stage will drive bigger organic traffic to your website and rank you well on Google.
Co-Create Content with Influencers
According to a recent report by Linqia, 74 percent of marketers shared that influencer content and co-created content helps them generate more traffic compared to brand-related content. Further, backlinks are one of Google’s 200 ranking factors. So, more backlinks from influencers indicate authority, quality, and relevancy, improving your position in the Google search results and drive traffic to your site.
One sure-shot tactic for gaining immediate traffic and a competitive advantage in your niche is to partner with the greatest minds in your industry to create content that’s relevant to your target audience. Further, since your influencers’ name is attached to your brand, they will go out of their way to promote your content, driving quality traffic to your site and increasing conversions.
Post Long-Form Content
A survey conducted by Orbit Media reveals that long-form content produces strong results. The graph below shows how blog posts with 1500+ words are likely to receive higher search ranking and traffic in comparison to short content.
This is because Google’s RankBrain algorithm rewards long-form content with a higher ranking. Further, a HubSpot study confirms that long-form content has a greater probability of earning quality backlinks, thereby boosting your site’s authority and traffic.
Finally, long-form content gets more social shares, increasing brand awareness and persuading people to visit your site.
However, as Rand Fishkin puts it across in his tweet, the goal should be to offer relevant content that serves the audience’s intent, not just to aim for a 1000+ word count for the sake of it.
In order to help your audience consume your content in an efficient manner, opt for different content formats, such as a five-minute video or an engaging infographic.
Digital marketing tools like SEMRush Writing Assistant can help you to assess the optimum number of words you should target for your post. In case you are planning to publish a 1600+ article make sure you edit it well to present high-quality content.
Summing Up
Without a doubt, high-quality relevant content forms the cornerstone of every successful website. When used aptly, content can help boost brand awareness, build online authority, and drive quality traffic down the sales funnel.
Use the tips shared in this post to develop engaging content that attracts a steady stream of Google traffic to your website.
