You launch a new website, expecting an immediate onslaught of email inquiries and online purchases. But after a few weeks of little to no emails, blog comments, store purchases or lead generating downloads, you realize something: Websites are very needy.

You – and probably a web builder, designer, copywriter (or that rare three-in-one person like me) – all poured your hearts and souls into a spectacular new business website. Then, launch day comes and you glory in your brand’s online presence. You get a few curious drop-bys, but the early hype wears off, and after a few weeks you’re wondering where everybody went – ??

Here’s the thing about a website: it’s only one piece to the marketing puzzle. And it’s a fairly needy piece at that. I hate to break it to you but your website needs ways to get visitors to it. You’re going to have to put effort into getting visitors to your site and it’s work.

Okay, so after the website launch, what do you do? How does an entrepreneur, already busy with plenty of other demands, keep the website traffic flowing? Well, you can put part of your marketing budget toward Google ads, but that can add up quickly. I do recommend paid ads to business owners because nothing keeps the traffic coming better than ads in the face of your audience, but only if that business owner has the capital not only for the ad spend but the professional to run and manage those ads. Trust me, you do not want to throw money at ads you don’t know how to operate properly. And those algorithms are ever changing. It’s a full time job just to keep up with them.

So until you have a few hundred extra in monthly paid ad spend, here are a few much cheaper/free ways to drive site traffic.

Maintain an irresistible, SEO-rich blog

There’s blogging to increase your site’s search results and there’s blogging your audience will go frantic over. You want both. Don’t simply blog to get some content and keywords on your site – blog helpful information your fans will devour. You know them and what they’ll take the time to read so make your posts completely irresistible. And a word of warning – don’t hire someone to blog who is great at one or the other. Get the strong writer who also understands SEO and stays updated on the latest search engine trends.

Email like a bestie

You absolutely need to be sending out emails. I’ll save the advice on how frequently you should email for another day, but regular emails will make a massive difference in site traffic. Even if you don’t have much of an email list accumulated, start emailing anyway (it’s good practice to figure this part out before you have a huge email list at stake). Aim for sounding like you. Genuine. Thoughtful. Open. Relatable. Try to accomplish something with each email, like: 1. Tease latest blog. 2. Offer an incentive 3. Promote a new product/service. But for a personal brand, your tone should fit how you would talk to the reader in person. Because in our cases, boss babe, business really is personal.

List your website. Everywhere.

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many of us can miss the opportunity to plug our site. Is your site linked in your Instagram bio? Your Facebook page? A Google listing? Linked In? Twitter? Is it on your email signature, your proposals? Your business card? Your PDF downloads? Time for an audit!

Push products/services.

This is the real reason you want more traffic to your site – it houses all the goods! Promote them! Pick a new product or service each month to make a big deal about, then get on your social accounts and emails and spread the word. Your call-to-action is to get the customer to go to your website for more info or to make the purchase. Don’t just make it about site traffic, make it about the items, services, events, community memberships you want to sell.

If your website has been up for a while and you’re not sure what it needs to perform better, contact me for an audit. I’d love to run a diagnostic and help you start getting much more from this critical part of your marketing journey.