In a world where there are now more web pages than there are people, finding ways to promote your site above your competitors is harder than ever. It simply isn’t realistic to just expect visitors to come to you – rather, if you want traffic, you’ll need to start promoting your site through any number of available channels and techniques.

If you’re struggling to understand the world of online marketing and promotion, read on for some top tips employed by the experts to drive traffic to new and existing websites.

Remember the importance of crafting compelling, engaging content

In 1996, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates famously wrote an essay entitled “Content is King”, and while the work might already be over 25 years old, its message remains as relevant today as ever. Indeed, with the sea of sites and services that exist online these days, Gates’ prescient writings have stood the test of time surprisingly well, and the notion still stands true that good content rules the web.

It’s a proven fact that users are attracted to engaging and compelling content so, if you’re to stand any chance of generating an audience, you should spend time crafting the best and most informed text for your site. Not only will you be more likely to attract new users to your pages, but existing visitors will also be more inclined to share your content. Good text also has the knock-on effect of improving your search engine rankings (more on that later).

Think about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The practice of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves a highly complex range of tricks and techniques designed to raise the exposure of websites in search engines to generate increased footfall. Successful SEO encompasses everything from changing the underlying coding of pages to be more search engine friendly to tailoring content, optimizing images, and adding meta code.

In truth, to explain SEO in any kind of depth would take far more space than available here, but, in short, unless you have a background in web marketing or understand the practices required for SEO, you would be far better outsourcing the task to a search marketing agency. Professional SEO firms will be able to propel your site far higher up the rankings far quicker than you’ll ever manage if you take a DIY approach.

At the end of the day, you can spend all the time you want tinkering with designs and crafting content but, if your site isn’t ranking in search engines, you’ll stand little chance of building that all-important audience.

With Google now accounting for around 92% of all search-engine-generated traffic, this is the platform you should focus on most – though any professional SEO work will increase your positioning in other engines too.

Consider writing about topics with high-volume, low-competition keywords

Depending on the type of site you’ve produced (and bearing in mind your potential audience), by doing a little research into popular keywords and phrases, you could strike upon content that your users are looking for most. There are two main metrics you should consider here:

Volume of searches: How many times a particular keyword or phrase is searched for by users in Google per month (and, if relevant, by country) to ascertain the keyword demand.

Difficulty of keyword: The relative difficulty of ranking high under the same keyword, based on a scale of 0 to 100.

If you can find keywords that have a low keyword difficulty (say 10) coupled with a high search volume (1,000 would probably work well), then you’ll be more likely to be able to write about topics that are of interest to your users. Note, this task will be made far easier if you first have a clear idea of the point behind your site and what it’s going to offer.

Guest blog for other sites

One of the simplest ways to drive traffic to your site is to piggyback on existing sites and services, using their reputation to broadcast your message. Guest blogging won’t just give you the chance to reach a wider audience; it will also let you demonstrate your knowledge and, crucially, add an inward link to your site.

Google’s first search algorithm was initially based primarily on prioritizing sites by the number of inward links they had from quality sites and, while the system has evolved considerably over the years, quality links remain at the backbone of how Google organizes listings in its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Get involved on Quora

Quora is a relatively new question and answer service where users can post or reply to questions on pretty much any topic. Similar to guest blogging, answering a question on Quora will provide you with a great opportunity to show your expertise and knowledge on a topic – and also insert that oh-so-valuable link back to your website.

Post content to relevant communities and groups

Forum sites have been popular for years, but these services have evolved considerably over the years – to the point even the likes of Facebook now promote groups while forum-based services like Reddit continue to grow in popularity.

However, while groups and communities can be a great way to promote your site, you should resist the temptation to just head in with a gung-ho spamming approach, as there’s no quicker way to find yourself banned. Rather, take the time to establish the trust of a group before adding links to your pages (this is particularly relevant for the Reddit service).

If appropriate to your site, post content to YouTube

YouTube is part of the massively successful Alphabet group that also owns Google, so it should come as no great surprise that, as well as being the king of streaming video, the platform also now doubles as the world’s second most popular search engine. Posting immersive content to YouTube is one of the best indirect marketing tricks you can use to generate a bigger audience and bring visitors to your site. Just remember that one all-important rule – make your videos relevant, interesting and engaging.

The post Proven Techniques to Drive More Traffic to Your New WordPress Website appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

With this rapid development comes competition, and with that, the need to stand out. It’s why visuals now play such a crucial role in online marketing, and none more so than your logo. And with the average American seeing up to 10 thousand adverts a day, we’re looking for ways of filtering out this visual overload, so we can choose content relevant to our wants and needs.

That’s what a good logo does. It engages and connects the audience it was designed for.  It’s always a quality strategic move to hire a good design company and let them do their magic. But it is a possibility to do it yourself, and in this post, we tell you how to do it. By creating a logo for your WP site in 6 simple steps.

1. Find Inspiration for Your Logo

The first steps are often the hardest. And yours are choosing a logo design that resonates with your target audience and finding the inspiration you need for creating it.

Fortunately, there are proven strategies that make both of those a walk in the park:

1. Brainstorm Ideas for Your Logo: The purpose of brainstorming is to take what’s in your head and get it out into the world. It’s not a time for self-censorship, instead, allow your creative juices to flow and write it all down, regardless of how ridiculous you think it is. As sometimes, it’s the craziest of ideas that make it into your final design.
2. Think Like Your Audience Thinks: Once you’ve got your ideas down on paper, you can start adding essential design elements that are proven to attract and connect with your audience. Like colors, fonts, and shapes. But suppose you’re unsure of who your audience is. In that case, you can discover more about them by conducting a target market analysis.
3. Build a Mood Board: A mood board is a visual presentation of your logo concept consisting of colors, fonts, shapes, and imagery that reflects your business’s style and personality. You use it by creating basic designs that are related to the fundamental ideas of your business. And it’s also a great way of getting other people involved, receiving feedback, and most of all, it’s a lot of fun.

2. Check out the Competition and Consider Your Target Market

Your competition and target market both require the same approach, and that’s research. Let’s take a look at why.

• Conducting Competitive Research:

By researching the leading competitors in your niche and steeling (sorry, I mean borrowing) ideas for your logo, you’ll begin to notice similarities. Those will be color, logotype, fonts, and shapes, and your competitors are using them because they’re proven to work for your market.

But you could also find ways of standing out from your competitors by incorporating the essential design elements and then going in a completely different direction. For example, if they’re all serious and traditional, you could get recognized by adopting a fun styled logo and a modern design approach.

• Conduct Market Research:

Market research is all about understanding your customers by gathering analytical data showing their needs, motivations, attitudes, and behaviors related to your business.

The more you understand your consumers, the better you’ll be able to market your business directly to them. And by understanding their needs, you can create your products and services to fulfill them, gaining you a competitive advantage over your competition.

3. Choose Your Color Palette

While conducting your competitor research, you may have noticed specific colors that your competition uses repeatedly; this is due to color psychology.

Color psychology is the study of colors and the influence they have on our thoughts and behavior. And it’s one of the most crucial elements of branding and a key player when choosing your logo colors.

It doesn’t take much research to discover the color that sends the right message. However, the ones you use for your logo must also be relevant to your marketing niche and target audience.

For instance, if you’re running a gym, orange is a color that conveys vitality and fitness. On the other hand, an insurance company would opt for blue to represent honesty, security, and leadership.

Whichever colors you decide on, apply these rules:

• Brand Relevant: Your logo must match the color palette you’re using throughout your brand. Such as your website, merchandising, etc. It’s about creating a consistent connection that consumers will recognize regardless of where they see your business.
• Use as Few as Possible: The golden rule in design is simplicity. When it comes to your logo, you achieve that by using two or fewer colors. It’s why 95% of the world’s brands use only two.

4. Start Creating Prototype Logos

Now that you have a concept in mind, with the design elements chosen based upon your audience and market place, it’s time to create a logo prototype.

Professional designers advise us to start by sketching it out in black and white, creating at least six samples, and doing it quickly, so you don’t overthink it. Once you have your first ideas down on paper, you can start making minor adjustments to the position, spacing, and font thickness to create balance.

Next, you want to see how your logo will look in a digital format. And if you’re happy with your logo’s design at this stage, you can either use software like Adobe Illustrator or hire a designer to bring your logo to the digital stage.

However, if what you have on paper isn’t exactly what you had in your head, you can use a logo generator to find market and consumer-related logo ideas and see several versions of how your logo would look both digitally and on physical merchandise. It’s also an excellent way of bringing your logo to life so you get a feeling of how it will look when completed.

5. Get Feedback

It pays to get feedback before you make your final decision. Since our choices are subjective, what we might think is the perfect-looking logo might not hit the right notes with others.

You do this by having your sample logo reviewed. And while family and friends are great, they’re not the most reliable resource for feedback. Instead, you should solicit feedback from impartial 3^rd parties, and you can do that by distributing an anonymous survey.

If you adopt this approach, ensure that those taking the survey are of a similar demographic to your target audience.

6. Finish by Revising Your Logo’s Design

Once you’ve received feedback, your next step is to make some revisions. If you hire a design agency or a freelance designer, they usually provide three revisions as the norm. However, if you require more, always agree upon the extra cost per revision upfront. And that’s one of the benefits of using a logo generator; they provide unlimited revisions.

Finally, check out how your logo will look when you use it on your website, and you do that by trying it on a WordPress staging site.

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