If you're looking for more traffic to your website in 2019, get going. It won't happen on its own. Here's what you need to do to make 2019 your blog or website's best year yet.

Update Your Content

With changes in rules, regulations, laws and the way technology is advancing at an amazing pace, something you wrote on your website 6 months ago could be totally out of date and mislead anyone that reads it. You need to reread all of the past articles and blogs and update any of them that fall into this category. Search engines will see the post as still being relevant and that can help with your SEO rankings.

The trend seems to be that long articles attract more attention too. One that is between 2000 and 3000 words gives the impression of being more informative than a 500-word blog and this means that more people go to your site to read it. Of course, don't stretch out articles or blog posts unless you have great information to add. Remember my manta: No fluff!

Optimize Your SEO

It is no secret that SEO is one of the most successful ways to drive traffic to your website, but the way SEO works changes all the time. Some of it has to do with keywords. Search engines try to discover the topic of a piece by looking for keywords in the article. If you use keywords no one is looking for, then your article will rank poorly. On the other hand, if you use too many keywords, your article will also tank.

They also look for other sites that have linked to the article and how well it is shared on social media. When the information, and it's good, they move you up the rankings. As most people only look at the first couple of pages of search results, the higher you are in the rankings the better.

There is more to it than written content though. As technology has advanced so have the capabilities of the tools used by the search engines. They can now take account of video and image content as well, and can even move you up the rankings if you get a good amount of followers on social media.

To learn more about SEO, check out my step-by-step article.

Use Ads to Move Up the Rankings

Most times, when you put something into your search engine, the top few results will say ‘ad’ at the side. This is because businesses have paid to be in one of the top spots. This can be well worth the money invested because then your page is much more likely to be linked to by viewers, raising your rank.

This is just one way the likes of resources such as Google Ads can help to increase the traffic to your website and with Adwords scripts collection you will have an automated service that will control your Google Ads data. That way, you can do more and reach more people with less effort.

Make the Most of Social Media

Social media is a must for all businesses. It is a vital way of getting your brand known and of sending more traffic to your website.

You should post every day, at least, but do not make all your posts promotional. If you do, users will start to scroll past your posts without bothering to read them. One promotional post out of five is a good rule. Some people post 20 percent promotional content and 80 percent other content. Your mix will depend on your target audience. 

Don't just use memes, photos and text posts. Videos are sometimes the best way to attract attention to your brand, and if they contain some humor they are likely to be shared many times.

Always respond to any comments in a positive manner, as this will help to build trust in your business. Nobody wants to deal with rudeness. 

Also, put a link to your site on all your posts, and then you will get people go to it more often. Here's an example of how I do that on Instagram. When they get to your website, it should be engaging immediately. You only have 3 or 4 seconds to grab their attention and if your website does not do that, they will move elsewhere.

Email Marketing

Email marketing fell out of favor for a while but now it is back. It is a great way to stay connected with existing customers or to make connections with new ones. Each email has to be of interest or solve a problem for your audience, and it should always have a link to your website included.

There are online resources that will send out thousands of these for you at very little cost. You set the email up, add new email addresses, and they do the rest.

Run a Contest

Running a contest is a great way to attract new traffic. You just have to make linking to your site as one of the rules of entry. Another rule is they must enter with their email address so you can add this to your mailing list.  

Consumers of all ages love something for nothing and if the prize is something they would like they will not only enter themselves, they will share it so their friends and family can enter as well. It seems from surveys that the favorite prizes have something to do with travel or something digital. The cost of putting someone up in a hotel for a few nights is nothing compared to the amount of new traffic these competitions can bring to your website.

Optimize for Mobile First

Around 80 percent of internet use is done on mobile devices. This percentage is likely to grow, as smartphones have become little more than handheld computers. There is very little you cannot do on a smartphone now and so it makes sense to optimize your site to suit them before anything else. 

Make Sure Your Business Deserves the Attention

It is no use in increasing your website traffic if once viewers get there the quality of the product or service is not up to standard. You have to ensure that your business deserves all the extra attention you are attracting and that it can cope with the extra sales when those viewers convert to customers.

Above all else, you have to give them a good buying experience if you want them to become loyal customers for the future. Keeping customers is as important as finding new ones, less time consuming than finding new ones and much cheaper than finding new ones. Look after the customers you already have, implement some of the suggestions above and your business will flourish.