I recently had a customer ask me, “how can I get more traffic to my website?” The answer can be broken down into 2 parts: free (organic) traffic and paid (advertising) traffic. Let’s examine the benefits and disadvantages of each.

Free traffic: This is what everyone wants, but has become increasingly harder to get and sustain ongoing. The way to get lots of free traffic is to create amazing content on an ongoing and consistent basis. Whether it be great photos that get shared, viral videos, or articles that offer information that visitors want to consume, content is what drives free traffic. If you build great content on a regular basis and keep doing it week after week, month after month, and year after year, then people start to notice you. And when people start to notice you, Google and the other search engines start to notice you. It takes a long time and a lot of work to generate free traffic. The advantage of course is that it is free, and it last a long time – when you put out quality content, your information may very well still be found months later. But it does take a huge amount of time and effort.

Paid Traffic: The other option is paid traffic. Paid traffic is great: create an ad for Facebook or Google, and they will send traffic your way. Plus, the traffic is highly optimized, either based on a specific search term or the targeted interests of your customers. I’ve heard it said that amateur web designers rely on free traffic, while professionals pay for traffic by advertising. And here’s the thing: you WILL get a lot more traffic when you advertise. Of course, your offer still has to be of interest to your customers; if they don’t care about what you are selling or what your lead magnet is, they will still not buy anything. I just did an entire podcast episode today on “conversion optimization,” which is all about getting someone to take action once they reach your website – watch for it in a couple of weeks.

So, is Facebook advertising worth it? Of course it depends. It depends upon if what you are offering is enough value for someone to click on the ad, visit your site, then take action. The action might be to buy something, it might be to give you their email address in exchange for a free download, or it might be to call you or come visit your physical store. If your offer is enticing enough to get them to take action, then digital advertising can drive a ton more traffic than organic traffic alone can. And it’s kind of like driving in the express lane – you get the right people to your website in a hurry and not just a bunch of lookie-loos, especially with a good call-to-action. But the disadvantage (besides costing you money), is that as soon as you stop, so does your traffic.

Which means of course, you need to do both. Especially at this time of the year when the holiday season is about to begin. You want targeted traffic, and it isn’t going to happen organically unless you have built a huge following over the years. It’s time to advertise. WebStores Ltd. has put together a great program that consists of:

1. Driving initial traffic to your website via Facebook ads.
2. Tracking the visitors that come to your site, and
3. Creating retargeting ads that then follow your visitors around the internet and they go from site to site.

Call us at 877-924-1414 and get started advertising now before the Thanksgiving to Christmas rush.

GregJameson

Greg Jameson has been writing blog articles on ecommerce and internet marketing for over 10 years. Learn more about Greg at https://webstoresltd.com/about/