Insights · Getting more customers
How do I get more visitors to my website?
Getting more visitors to your website is not usually the real goal. The real goal is getting more of the right people to your website.
A business can increase traffic significantly and still see very little improvement in calls, leads, bookings, or sales if the people arriving are not actually looking for what the business offers. That is why website traffic should be treated as a signal, not the outcome.
The better question
How do I attract more people who are likely to become customers?
More traffic is not always better traffic
It is easy to assume that more visitors automatically create more opportunity. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do not.
Imagine two businesses:
- 10,000 visitseach month, from a broad mix of people.
- 1,500 visitseach month, from people actively looking for exactly what the business sells.
The second business may have the stronger marketing system.
Traffic volume matters, but relevance matters more.
The strongest website traffic tends to come from people who:
- Have a problem the business can solve
- Are researching a product or service the business provides
- Are comparing options
- Are looking for a business in the right geographic area
- Are far enough into the decision process to take action
That is the traffic worth building around.
Where do the right visitors come from?
There is no single source of good website traffic. The right source depends on the business, the customer, and how people typically make the buying decision.
Search
Search can be one of the strongest sources of website traffic because the customer is actively looking for information.
But not every search is equally valuable. A person searching a broad informational question may be much earlier in the decision process than someone searching for a specific service, solution, or business near them.
The goal is not simply to appear for more searches. It is to appear for searches that are relevant to the customers the business actually wants.
Google Maps and business listings
For many local businesses, customers may discover the company before they ever visit the website. They may first see the business in Google Maps, Google search results, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, or other business directories.
Accurate business information, strong profiles, reviews, and clear links back to the website can turn those discovery platforms into meaningful sources of website traffic. If you want to know how people find a business on Google Maps, that is a good place to start.
The website is part of the journey, not always the beginning of it.
Content
Useful content can attract potential customers much earlier in their decision process. A good article answers a question the customer is already asking, such as how something works, what something costs, which option is better, whether a service is worth it, what to expect, or how to solve a particular problem.
The best content does more than create pageviews. It attracts people whose questions connect naturally to what the business does. That is what makes content valuable.
Paid advertising
Paid advertising can create traffic quickly. It can also create expensive traffic quickly.
The question is not whether advertising can send people to a website. It can. The question is whether the campaign is reaching people who are likely to care about the offer. The quality of the audience, the search terms being targeted, the message, and the landing experience all matter.
More clicks are not automatically better results.
Referrals
Referral traffic is often highly valuable because some level of trust already exists before the visitor reaches the website. A referral might come from another business, an existing customer, an industry partner, an online publication, a professional organization, or another website.
These visitors may arrive with stronger intent because someone or something they trust has already pointed them in the right direction.
Social media
Social media can introduce a business to people who may not have been actively searching for it. That can be useful, particularly when the business has something visual, educational, entertaining, or highly shareable to offer.
But large reach numbers do not necessarily mean strong website traffic. The important question remains the same: are the people engaging with the content the same kinds of people the business wants as customers?
The best traffic strategy starts with the customer
This is where many traffic strategies go wrong. They start with the marketing channel: SEO, Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, content.
The better place to start is the customer. Ask:
- 01Who are we trying to reach?
- 02What are they looking for?
- 03Where are they looking for it?
- 04What would make them choose to visit us?
Once those questions are answered, the right marketing channels become much easier to identify.
The channel should follow the customer. Not the other way around.
You probably do not need traffic from everywhere
A strong traffic strategy is usually selective.
- Local service businessMay benefit heavily from search and business listings.
- Professional services companyMay benefit more from search, educational content, referrals, and LinkedIn.
- Ecommerce companyMay rely more heavily on search, paid acquisition, email, affiliates, and social.
The goal is not to participate in every channel.
The goal is to identify the places where the right customers are most likely to discover the business and invest there.
What should you actually measure?
Website traffic is useful. It just should not be judged by itself. A business should also understand what happens after people arrive. Depending on the business, that might include:
- Phone calls
- Contact forms
- Appointments
- Quote requests
- Bookings
- Purchases
- Email signups
- Visits to important service pages
- Repeat visits
A traffic source becomes much more meaningful when it can be connected to actual customer behavior. To see where your visitors are coming from today, start with how to tell whether people are finding your website.
That is how a business begins to understand which traffic deserves more investment.
So, how do you get more visitors to your website?
Start by identifying the people you actually want to reach.
Then determine where those people are looking, what questions they are asking, and what would cause them to visit your business instead of someone else's.
Search, business listings, content, advertising, referrals, and social media can all generate website traffic. But the objective is not simply to increase the number at the top of an analytics report.
It is to create a steady flow of relevant visitors with a reason to become customers. That is a much more valuable kind of traffic.
The CSM approach
At Cool Shades Media, we do not start by deciding that a business needs more SEO, more ads, more content, or more traffic.
We start by understanding what the business is trying to accomplish and how customers currently find, evaluate, and interact with it.
Sometimes the answer is more traffic. Sometimes the answer is better traffic. And sometimes the biggest opportunity is somewhere else entirely.
Data informs the decision. The business outcome judges it.
Not sure whether traffic is the real problem?
If you are getting visitors but are not sure whether you need more traffic, better traffic, or a stronger customer journey, tell us what you are seeing. We will start there.
Written by Scott Meier · ← Back to Insights
Frequently asked questions
How do I get more visitors to my website?
Start by identifying the people you actually want to reach. Then work out where they are looking, what questions they are asking, and what would make them visit your business instead of someone else's. Search, business listings, content, advertising, referrals, and social media can all generate website traffic, but the goal is a steady flow of relevant visitors with a reason to become customers.
Is more website traffic always better?
No. Traffic volume matters, but relevance matters more. A smaller number of visitors who are actively looking for what the business sells can be worth more than a much larger number of people who are not.
Where do the right website visitors come from?
It depends on the business, the customer, and how people typically make the buying decision. Common sources are search, Google Maps and business listings, content, paid advertising, referrals, and social media.
Do I need traffic from every marketing channel?
No. A strong traffic strategy is usually selective. The goal is to identify the places where the right customers are most likely to discover the business and invest there.
What should I measure besides website traffic?
Measure what happens after people arrive, such as phone calls, contact forms, appointments, quote requests, bookings, purchases, email signups, visits to important service pages, and repeat visits. A traffic source becomes more meaningful when it can be connected to actual customer behavior.
Sources: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, Google Search Central · Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help