The digital world has become an important market place for all businesses. Whether you sell a simple commodity like soap or specialty products like cruises, it all comes down to referrals and reviews. Your website is your identity and your social media defines your credibility. Even if your website is nice and pretty, it won’t add any business value if your target audience don’t visit it.
If you want to boost traffic to your website, you have two choices; paid advertising or search engine optimisation.
Paid advertising
You can use a service such as Google Adwords and display sponsored links on search results for selected keywords. You will be paying per click (ppc) or the number of impressions made. The cost of the click will be determined based on competitiveness of your chosen keyword.
For example, if the chosen keyword is “digital consultancy”, its cost per click is £5 and the expected increase in visitors is 10,000, the total investment to boost visitors just through that keyword is £50,000.
Ironically, paid advertising is more expensive if you already have a poor rank for the particular keyword.
Search Engine Optimisation
We all like our website to appear in that first page on Google results. According to a 2014 study from Advanced Web Rankings, 95% of the visitors stop from the first page of search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means getting your webpages ranked well for your relevant keywords.
If we take an “Executive English courses provider” in the UK, some of its main keywords will be:
Executive English courses
English courses in UK
English for executives
Professional English courses
English courses for adults
Learn English in UK
So how do you rank well for these keywords? It all comes down to content marketing. To begin with, you need to optimise your webpage text, meta descriptions and page titles to include the selected keywords.
In the above example, if the name of the provider is ABC, its home page title can be changed to “ABC Executive English Courses in UK”. Its meta description can be set to “A reputed provider of Executive English Courses in UK, offering professional English courses and English courses for adults”
Next, you need to invest time and energy to write content such as blog posts, whitepapers and case studies, highlighting the selected keywords. If we take the above example, some of its blog posts can be:
Credibility of English courses in UK
How to select a course to learn English in UK
Can English be learnt as an adult?
How much does it cost to learn English in UK
When people search for “English courses in UK” and then click on your blog “Credibility of English courses in UK”, your blog page gets ranked for that particular keyword.
Realistically, it takes at least 12 months to see a significant improvement in number of visitors through SEO. However, this kind of organic growth is more affordable and sustainable. All you need is a well-drafted digital marketing plan that connects your buyer personas, keywords to content.
