How to Get More Organic Traffic on Your Wine Site
Wondering where all the wine lovers are? They’re out there, but chances are they’re spending their time on other websites. To win their attention, it takes a strategic dance to appease search engines, varying interests, and attention spans.
But the good news is that you don’t need complex formulas to win the algorithm game. You just need strong content that does the work for you. Here are four content strategies I’ve seen work over and over again for building up site traffic, organically.
1.) Optimize Your Service/Product Pages. This is a surprisingly easy fix I see on tons of wine industry sites, not to mention many websites in general. It may seem like a good idea to cut out all the extra words and get to your point fast. However, search engines (and more importantly, your potential site visitors) need some context around why they should look at this page.
Whether the page is a searchable inventory or a list of specialty varieties, it helps to frame the value of what you’re offering here. This can be as simple as a strategic headline and subhead, or a more complex introduction to your service or offering. The goal is to provide background on why a search algorithm and someone in your target audience should be interested in the page.
2.) Include a Strategic About Us Page. This is a great — and often overlooked — tool for SEO. The key here is to view your About Us strategically and not as a journal entry about your life story. A smart About Us page is a perfect opportunity to tell your readers about your unique qualifications and experience.
You’re telling your brand story, yes, from the perspective of how it’s valuable to your audience. It’s important to not waste this space because site visitors usually want to know who they’re hearing from and why they should care. This is your chance to set yourself apart and keep them around. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to integrate more relevant keywords into your site!
3.) Post Blogs Consistently and Often. Look, I know, talking about blogging feels so 2015. Are they even still a thing? The short and resounding answer is: yes. If you want an easy way to continue getting organic visitors for months and years and years to come, just do it.
Keep feeding the search engine algorithms with new and interesting content to find. Keep sharing your value and your benefits for your audience to discover. It will do wonders for your search rankings and site visits — I’ve seen it happen so many times.
However, you cannot expect results overnight. And you must be smart about using great keywords and long tail keywords. To do that, take some time to get into your audience’s head to understand what they’re truly seeking out. This is a long-game move where only the patient brands win. If you keep it up, after 4, 5, 6 months you’ll see major increases in your organic traffic. Even better, those blogs live on your site forever and keep compounding their effectiveness over time.
4.) Drive Traffic From Social Media. I hear a lot of brands say they don’t get much from social media, whether it’s customers or visitors. In many cases I can see why. For most industries, organic social media isn’t meant to be an overnight sales generator, it’s meant to connect you with people.
To make the most of your social channels, focus on building your relationships with the right people. This is your chance to demonstrate who you are, what you offer, and why you’re better than the rest. Appeal to the right people — and then bring them into your fold through your website and email marketing. Connect your posts and stories to longer form, high-value content that lives on your website or inside emails, where you can speak to them directly. Social media is a great place to start the conversation, then you can keep it going organically on your website.
This is by no means an exhaustive list! These are simply some of the strategies I love to start with when growing traffic and engagement for a brand. In fact, these are sort of the “low-hanging fruit” because they’re actually very straightforward to execute. You just need a great marketing strategist slash writer to pull it off ;)