E-commerce thrives when the site has growing traffic and visitors who later convert into leads and customers.
However, having a website is not a guarantee you will get traffic, as such, you have to use different tools and means to drive website traffic. We will look at some of the free and paid tools/means you can use to grow your traffic.
What is Website Traffic?
Web traffic is the web users who visit your site which is measured in terms of visits. It is important because it lets you know:
- The number of users who purchased your site. This is usually expressed as a percentage of the total;
- The duration of a visitor stays on your site. This can be checked through bounce rates and time on the page.
Best Tools to Check Any Website Traffic
When you want to check your traffic and compare different competitors, there are various tools you can use. Some of these are free while others are paid for. Each of these tools is unique with distinguishing features.
Though some of these tools can work just fine on their own, it is recommended to use at least two for comparison purposes. This helps you to get more insights into the traffic.
Below is a list of some of the free and paid tools you can use.
1. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the popular and trusted website traffic checker tools that give you traffic reports of your competitors and why they are ranking.
With more than 200 million websites in its index, Ahref is a massive tool that analyzes about 6 billion web pages in a single day.
It has a user-friendly interface through which you simply need to enter the URL and you will get all the needed information. This information includes your biggest competitors, their domain authority, and organic traffic.
The information will be from the last 30 days. Unfortunately, you cannot view the channels/ sources like social media that are driving the traffic.
Pricing
It starts with a 7-day trial at $7 then the premium plan goes for $99 per month.
2. SEMRush
SEMRush is a traffic analysis and competition research tool. You can do several things with it. Some of which include keyword research, keyword ranking, and checking your competitors' traffic.
To do the latter, you simply enter your competitors' URL and you will get a comprehensive breakdown of their traffic. You can also view metrics of other websites including their most used keywords, monthly traffic among others.
With a special feature of the 'Traffic Analytics' tab, you have access to special figures such as total visits, number of page views, number of unique visitors, bounce rate, and more.
If you are in a highly competitive industry, it would be much easier to analyze all your top competitors at once.
The SEMRush Bulk Traffic Analysis feature lets you do that comfortably and conveniently comparing up to 200 websites. The average number of websites you can compare will depend on your SEMRush Plan.
If you're still not sure whether this is the tool for you, you can take advantage of the 14-day free trial to get yourself acquainted with its functioning.
Pricing
The premium plan starts at $119.95 per month.
3. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is one of the free tools from Google that lets you check website traffic for free. This means you can analyze how your site is performing across different search engines.
You will get metrics such as the position of your keywords, number of impressions, Click-Through rate (CTR), and the number of clicks.
You can also view which keywords you’re ranking for and the traffic they’ll bring in.
Pricing
It is a FREE Tool.
4. SimilarWeb
When you want a tool that gives you an overview of your competitors’ traffic and most achieved channels, the SimilarWeb is the tool for you. It takes you beyond the confines of getting traffic analysis, including a detailed report of the strategy behind the traffic.
You can also use this tool to trace which country or location is driving more traffic to your competitor, quite helpful if you are running an international business.
With SimilarWeb, you get comprehensive metrics such as page views, bounce rate, top traffic sources, and visit duration.
You also get a breakdown of the audiences to form those metrics, their demographics such as the sites they'll be interested in, and referral sites among others. This will help you do deeper research.
Pricing
You can use the free version or get a customized plan by creating an enterprise account.
5. Serpstat
Serpstat is one of those website traffic checker tools that come with other SEO tools making it an all-in-one website analysis tool. It is quite easy to use and all you need to do it is to enter the URL and you will get the needed report.
Other features from this tool include site auditing, rank tracking tools, and backlink analysis. You can also get a report on the organic and paid keywords, the most visited pages, and the average number of visitors.
All this information can be provided in a trend form, to help you analyze how you or your competitors are performing over time.
Pricing
There's a free version that gives you a portion of the needed data. The premium plan with all the added tools starts at $69 per month.
6. Ubersuggest
Wouldn't it be great to use a tool specially designed by a top marketer? Ubersuggest is one of those tools. It is specially designed by Neil Patel. It is user-friendly and the interface is an added advantage for beginners who need to get hung of things.
With the traffic analyzer feature, once you enter your competitors' URL, you'll get a detailed report including their top ranking keywords and popular pages.
With this tool, you get to view the organic monthly website traffic, the number of backlinks, and the number of organic keywords a site is ranking for.
You can go a step further and analyze each published page of a website and how much traffic that page is bringing in every month.
With all this, you have an overview of your competitors and the best way forward to beat them.
Pricing
There's a free version that gives you data from the last three months. The premium plan starts at $29 per month.
7. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsight is a Google Analytics Plugin. It helps you easily analyze your data with Google Analytics. You simply need to set up Google Analytics in WordPress and you can view your data directly from the dashboard.
This tool is for those people who simply need to view their traffic. It lets you analyze your landing pages, homepage traffic, and performing posts among others.
Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Website
Do you need to drive more traffic to your site? Then you might want to study some of the different ways you can do this.
With business, having a well-established store will not garner you any profit if people can find it, but you can change this. Let us look at:
Why Get More Website Traffic?
The world is evolving and as you may know, most businesses have turned into e-commerce stores. Driving traffic to your site helps you to get your business running as you strive to convert the visitors into leads. Web traffic also helps you to:
- Analyze the success of your marketing strategy;
- Improve on your SEO;
- Get more leads and conversions;
- Gather your audience’s demographics.
The only way to do the above is through driving traffic to your site.
Channels that Drive Traffic to Your Website
Various channels can drive traffic to your site, some of these requirements can require extra work, time, and even money. These are:
- Email;
- Blogging;
- Social media;
- On-Page SEO;
- Off-Page SEO;
- Online Ads;
- Online Directory listing.
Free Ways to Increase Website Traffic
With Google, you can increase your traffic by:
1. Optimize Your Free Google Business Profile
Statistics show that an optimized Google business listing drives about 7x more traffic. If your listing has all the needed information, it makes it easier for a visitor or customer to make the final call to transact with you.
The same goes for an incomplete listing, visitors will often be put off by lack of necessary information and may even opt to seek another business.
With your Google listing:
- You can set it up for free;
- Drive more traffic to your store and site;
- Make it easier for your customers to leave a review;
- Rank higher in searches relevant to your business and its location.
Other beauties of an optimized Google Business Listing include:
- It makes it easier for people to find you via different devices such as mobile and desktop;
- Makes it easy for visitors to interact with your hence increasing your engagement;
- With well uploaded high-resolution photos, customers get a visual walk of your business.
That said, ensure your Google My Business Listing is fully optimized.
2. Build Backlinks
A backlink in simple terms is a link to your site from another site. It means other businesses link to your business. Backlinks are highly preferred because they expose your business to a large audience that is hyper-relevant to what you're selling.
When trusted sites link to you, it helps build your brand's trust not only in customers but from Google as well helping you to rank higher and get more traffic.
3. Get Listed in Online Directories
You can also make good use of free online directories and review sites. With these, you create a profile for your site and add a link to your site and add it up with regular updating and getting reviews. This will increase your chances of driving more traffic to your site.
What’s more, some of these directories are connected with Google which means your site might rank higher in Google searches.
4. Perform On-Page SEO
SEO is one of the most effective ways that enable your business to rank higher on search engines and help you drive more traffic to your site.
With each page on your site, there are different tactics you can use to improve your website SEO and get more traffic.
Some of these tactics include creating high-quality engaging content that keeps your audience coming back for more. With the content, you can also add concise Meta descriptions that help your visitors know what that page is about.
Likely, such moves are free but if you are not familiar with SEO, you may want to get someone proficient enough to do it for you. Remember that with SEO, it takes some time before you can get tangible results, but ensure your site is fully optimized.
5. Start Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the fastest-growing means of driving traffic to your site. It helps get your business out there while building trust in your brand as you convert visitors into leads and customers.
Email marketing has no limitation on the kind of business that can profit from it, so whether you are running a brick-and-mortar store or an e-Commerce store, this strategy works perfectly for you.
Regularly sending newsletters to your customers helps you to stay in touch and keep the traffic moving. You can also optimize your site such that each time a visitor comes to your site, you can gather some information about them including their emails.
This information can offer important demographics that will help you to create and send hyper-relevant emails to them.
Luckily, various tools can help you to automate your emails and have them sent regularly. In those emails, add some links to your site, blog posts, and other pages.
Emails are also a good means to let your customers know the latest happenings in your business such as new products, discounts, and promotions as you add a Call-to-Action. Ensure the email content is engaging with a captivating subject line.
Email marketing should be done strategically to avoid boring your customers or forcing them to unsubscribe.
6. Utilize Social Media
Social media is a broad platform that has a wide range of audiences. With social media, you have a chance to connect with other people through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms.
With these platforms, you can promote your site and posts. You simply need to open a business page and regularly update it.
Through these platforms, you have a chance to connect one on one with your customers and address any query they may have and provide more information about your business.
You should target getting more followers on those platforms and these followers can transition into website visitors and more traffic. Ensure you regularly post good and engaging content on these platforms and keep it active.
Paid Ways to Drive Website Traffic
7. Google Ads
Google Ads are an effective means for your business to reach people when they need them. This works in the sense that your landing page turns up at the top of Google search results for a particular keyword.
Paid Ads mean your business appears at the top enabling you to attract more visitors and drive more traffic to your site.
8. Social Media Advertising
With social media advertising, you can specify the audience that your business will be shown. This is a great means to get more visitors to your site.
Things To Avoid When Checking Your Website Traffic
Use Instant Website Traffic Generators
One might ask, why you need to go through all the trouble of getting more traffic when you can use instant website traffic generators? While this can seem like an obvious reasoning and the easier way it, it would be best to remember that cheap is expensive. This is because:
1. They Damage your Rankings
Google always knows and can easily detect spam activities. They monitor all sites and get suspicious of any abnormalities such as spiked traffic.
With traffic generators, you are attracting the wrong attention to your site, and this can hurt your ranking.
2. Your Site can be Banned
Once Google realizes your site is getting bot traffic, your site can easily be banned from Google. This would be tragic considering all the effort you put into developing your site.
3. Your Traffic is Not Targeted
Driving more traffic to your site using the different approaches discussed above can help you target a specific audience that your business relates to.
This increases your chances of converting customers into leads. Since your traffic is not targeted, in the end, you’ll have high traffic with low leads and conversion rates.
That said, do not go for cheap traffic that will cost you your site in the end. Focus on growing sustainable traffic.
Why You Should Monitor Your Website’s Traffic
Website traffic helps you to increase your customers and build your reputation. You can increase your traffic through email marketing, social media, paid advertising, and other means.
Lastly, make use of the different tools highlighted above to check your performance, compare different competitors as you analyze their strongholds, and optimize your business in the same line to increase your traffic.
Tags: increase traffic, traffic, website
