28 Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website in 2025

Explore essential social media marketing tips and SEO strategies to effectively drive more traffic to your website and enhance your online presence.

Before anyone can shop your online store, they have to be able to find it. With just 22% of website traffic coming from people typing URLs directly into their browser’s search bar, it’s crucial for businesses to diversify the ways prospective customers discover their sites.

Below, you’ll find 28 proven strategies to promote your website across a wider variety of traffic sources and turn visitors into customers. Each traffic-boosting method is designed for savvy internet audiences, helping you build a robust online presence for your brand.

How to drive traffic to your website

• SEO
• Content marketing
• Organic social media engagement
• Paid marketing
• In-person traffic
• Other strategies

Whether you focus on organic or paid methods, there are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your website:

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of fine-tuning your website to increase its chances of appearing on the search engine results pages (SERP) for relevant keywords. For many major industries, including retail and professional services, an average of 33% of website traffic comes from organic search traffic.

But the way people search online is changing. A quarter of Gen Z searchers use generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT to search for information. And searchers of all ages are increasingly turning to AI search engines and social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube for answers.

Here’s how you can adapt to evolving ecommerce SEO best practices:

1. Consider AI

Source: Google

Even traditional search engines like Google are incorporating generative AI features. AI Overviews, which don’t require users to click into websites to get the information they need, are becoming more common on SERPs, particularly for informational content.

In March 2025, AI Overviews came up for 13.14% of all queries, up from 6.49% in January 2025. AI Overviews are particularly common for long-tail keywords, which are more detailed, or specific search queries with lower keyword difficulty. (If your focus is on commercial or transactional queries, you may not need to worry about AI Overviews just yet: They showed up for 8.69% and 1.76% of those types of searches, respectively.)

To optimize for AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and large language models (LLMs), here are a few things you can try:

• Add expertise. Google E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust) has been a ranking factor for years, but it’s arguably more important than ever. Relevant statistics, academic studies, and expert point of view can help your webpages show up in AI-powered search results.
• Experiment with video. If you’re not already on YouTube, now may be the time to start a YouTube channel. YouTube videos frequently show up in AI search results.
• Focus on product benefits. To optimize your product pages for LLMs, focus on product benefits and use cases.

2. Optimize meta tags

Meta tags, which include meta descriptions and title tags, help search engines understand what your content covers and how to categorize it. A title tag is the text that appears in the SERP, influencing whether a user clicks through to your website. Along with the meta description, this is the first impression your site gives to potential visitors discovering you via search engines.

Here are a few tips to improve your SEO when writing website title tags:

• Create unique titles for each webpage.
• Limit titles to about 55 characters.
• Include a target keyword.
• Ensure titles match the search intent of queries.

The text that appears underneath a website’s title tag on a SERP is the meta description. Whereas title tags grab attention and set expectations, a meta description acts as a summary of the linked page’s content.

To write a high-quality meta description:

• Summarize the linked page’s content
• Stick to about 145 characters
• Make the description unique for each page
• Use sentence case
• Include intriguing, click-worthy information
• Include a page’s target keyword

Shopify automatically generates title tags that include your store’s name, but you can also manually optimize your title tags and meta descriptions for your blog posts, web pages, products, and collections.

3. Prioritize backlink building

One of the primary ranking factors in Google’s algorithms is authoritativeness. Essentially, Google is saying that a website should have a good reputation and produce credible content to rank higher on SERPs. So how do you demonstrate to Google that your website is authoritative?

A backlinks strategy is one way to do it. That involves earning links to your site from other reputable websites. Earning backlinks to your content from high-quality and relevant sites signals to Google that your domain publishes reputable and reliable content and it should prioritize it in rankings.

The more backlinks you receive from trusted entities, the more authoritative search engines will deem your site, which can help your content come up at the top of SERPs. This gives you a chance to combine CRO and SEO by driving traffic to pages with high conversion potential. Think adding calls to action to your most popular pages.

Here are some ideas for building backlinks to help you improve your site’s authoritativeness and generate more qualified traffic:

• Guest post on other blogs. Share insights with new audiences and link back to your website where relevant.
• Curate expert roundups. Gather tips from industry experts, notify them once you publish the roundups on your website’s blog, then encourage those experts to share your posts with their networks.
• Solicit product reviews. Offer free products to bloggers with relevant, engaged audiences in exchange for honest reviews that link back to your site.
• Get press coverage. If you have a great story or an interesting product that people will want to write about, put it out there. Get in touch with journalists who cover businesses like yours and tell them what you’re up to. (Coverage from respected news outlets can also help you show up in LLMs.)

4. Add internal links to and from important pages

An important SEO strategy is internal linking—the practice of linking individual pages of your site to one another. This creates a structure for your site, improving both user navigation and the way Google understands the relationships between your pages.

Additionally, interlinking can help linked pages rank better in search results because of their association to the page that’s already highly ranked. By linking from less important pages back to key pages, you can reinforce their importance to Google.

Here are a few link building strategies you can try:

• Optimize your website structure.
• Find and submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
• Add website breadcrumbs to instantly create internal links.
• Make a list of high-value target pages and those that have the most authority and page rank, and link from your authority pages to your target pages.
• Incorporate links naturally, using anchor text related to the keyword you’d like the target page to rank for.

5. Add collection pages

Source: Princess Polly

This tip is for anyone with an ecommerce store: Add more product collection pages. Collection pages, also known as category pages, are the pages on your website where customers can find products with shared characteristics.

But they’re not just for website navigation: “Adding more collection pages is the closest thing to a hack that exists in ecommerce SEO,” says Kyle Risley, senior SEO lead at Shopify. “It’s one of the simplest, most effective ways of growing organic traffic and revenue without even having to add any more products.”

Princess Polly does an excellent job of this. Not only does the fashion retailer have a collection page for tops, but it also has a separate page for “going out tops” and even “pink going out tops.” Each new page is a new URL with an opportunity to rank for a niche keyword.

According to Kyle, collection pages have a better chance of ranking on Google than standalone product pages, because they offer searchers more options.

Here are Kyle’s tips for creating more collection pages:

• Check Google’s shopping filters. “Type the base product into Google and then look at the filters they add on the left,” Kyle says. For example, a search for “going out tops” yields filters like sleeve style (long sleeve, short sleeve, sleeveless), color, and features (cropped, with stretch, wrap). Based on these filters, you might consider collections like “long sleeve going out tops” or “cropped going out tops.”

• Use AI for keyword research. You can use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to help brainstorm collection ideas. Simply export your products as a CSV file, then import the file into your preferred AI tool along with a list of your existing collection names. Then ask your AI assistant to recommend new collections containing at least five products.

6. Stand out with rich results

Rich results features, a type of SERP feature, are search results that have been enhanced with extra information, such as ratings, pricing, images, and availability. These details can help your links stand out and attract more clicks.

To create these rich snippets, your website needs to use structured data. You can think of structured data as some extra coding that helps Google identify specific aspects of your page—like that a particular piece of text is a product’s price or that a star rating refers to customer reviews. “Google is showing more and more pieces of that structured data in your search results,” Kyle says. “So it helps to have that appear right on the SERP.”

To check and manage your structured data, use tools such as Google’s structured data testing tool, which helps identify and fix any issues with your site’s markup.

7. Focus on local SEO

An important aspect of building a traffic generation plan is to ensure you’re driving the right kind of traffic to your website. If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, it’s going to be pretty important that any traffic coming your way is coming from a specific geographic area: locally. 

Local SEO helps you accomplish two things at once: focus on the right audience and rank more easily on SERPs. For example, you’re going to have a much easier time ranking for “ballet shoe store in Lincolnville, Maine” than for the more general “ballet shoes.”

Here are a few things to keep in mind when building your local SEO strategy:

• Create a Google Business profile. Google Business is a free tool that literally puts your business on the map. Customers can find it when searching for related terms on Google Maps. Google knows to tie your listing to localized keywords (like “ballet shoes near me”).

• Keep your name, address, phone number (NAP) consistent. Google looks for consistent NAP details across your website, Google Business profile, and online directories to verify your business’s legitimacy. Inconsistent information can confuse search engines and harm your local rankings, as Google may struggle to determine if the listings belong to the same business.

• Tailor your keyword strategy to your locale. Use keywords that include your city, neighborhood, or region to attract nearby customers and boost your chances of ranking higher for local searches.

8. Audit your site regularly

A regular SEO audit can help you determine areas for improvement. “It’s a good opportunity to take a more comprehensive look at a website in a way that most business owners or site operators don’t do on a day-to-day basis,” Kyle says. “It’s like going over your financials once or twice a year. It’s a way to remember if pages you forgot about are still live on your site.”

A few things to look out for during a site audit include:

• Do any of your pages bring up 404 errors?
• Is there any outdated information that is no longer accurate or relevant?
• Are there any pages missing internal links?
• Does your site have pages that aren’t optimized correctly? For example, they might be missing the right metadata information.
• Is all your information clear and answering questions that a user might have?

9. Optimize for voice search

With voice search optimization, you seek to rank for search queries initiated by voice command. Voice search optimization includes traditional SEO best practices, such as creating valuable content, indexing your site, and improving site speed.

Here are a few other tactics to try when optimizing for voice search:

• Use a conversational tone. Typically, voice searches are more conversational, so avoid overly formal or technical language.
• Focus on long-tail keywords. Voice searches are generally longer than text-based searches since most users speak faster than they type.
• Optimize your site for mobile. Since many voice searches come from mobile devices, it’s important to use responsive web design.

Content marketing

Using focused content and promotion can help attract customers to your online store, making it more likely that visitors convert. From videos and podcasts to guides and ebooks, there are many opportunities for your business to branch out into the world of content to generate traffic.

Content marketing is the process of creating interesting, informative, and engaging content to organically attract traffic to your website. With original content, you can connect with your audience, build trust, and grow your brand’s authority. The more useful and relevant your content is, the more traffic you’ll attract over time.

Your content marketing strategy shouldn’t just talk about your products—that would get boring for you and your target audience. Instead, think about the topics or resources that relate to your business that your customers would find useful. It’s especially wise to focus on topics for which you’re a subject matter expert (SME) because that will help your credibility with readers—and Google.

Here are a few ideas to help you come up with a hard-hitting content marketing strategy that’ll have you raking in the clicks in no time:

10. Write a blog

Source: Epic Gardening

When it comes to content marketing, you can’t go wrong with a blog. It’s one of the best ways to build internal links, attract backlinks, and establish your business as credible in the eyes of both potential customers and search engines.

While there’s ample opportunity to reach an audience with blogging, you’ll need to be purposeful about your content to attract relevant traffic. The best editorial policy is to focus on blog SEO that answers questions and solves problems that are important to your target audience. While a list of blog ideas and a post template can get you started, taking time to build personas, conduct keyword research, and run content gap analysis will help you understand your audience and their needs.

To decide what to write about, consider what your target audience would benefit from reading and why your business is the right source for that information. Featuring influencers could be a good way to get traffic right out the gate, as they may be willing to share the article with their followers, which would broaden your blog’s reach.

You can also tap experts to add authority and encourage visitors to share your content. This is part of gardening brand Epic Gardening’s strategy. “We bring on other creators in different areas of the country because gardening is so regional,” founder Kevin Espiritu says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “They’re all trained in some kind of gardening, so we’ll pick the right writer for the right topic. But then we also have all articles passed through a horticultural review for accuracy.”

Epic Gardening also ensures the content remains fresh. “We go backward year-over-year and say, ’Do we need to refresh that blog?” Kevin says. “Let’s go ahead and see if we’re still accurate.”

11. Produce podcasts

Podcasting lets you tap into a specific niche and reach a target audience. What makes podcasts effective for driving traffic is their ability to build trust and connection with listeners over time. A loyal podcast audience is more likely to follow your recommendations and visit your website to learn more information or explore products.

Unlike a blog or social media post, however, there’s no call to action that easily turns a podcast listener into a website visitor. As a result, you’ll need to find ways for listeners to easily reach your website. Shuang Esther Shan, who hosts the Shopify Masters podcast, uses three methods to nudge listeners to the brand’s website:

• Publish episode transcripts and summaries as blog posts to make them more accessible for deaf or hard-of-hearing audiences.
• Write an episode summary in the show notes that includes a link to the episode’s corresponding blog post.
• Compile lists of useful resources mentioned in each episode—prioritizing any products or tools that you provide on your website—and link to them in the show notes.

12. Make videos

As one of the largest search engines in the world, YouTube gives you access to a massive audience actively searching for solutions, entertainment, and information. It has more than 2.7 billion active users and a wider reach than traditional US cable TV networks.

By starting a YouTube channel, you can engage viewers through visual storytelling. Videos hold attention longer than other types of content, making it easier to convey your message and build a connection with your audience.

To make YouTube marketing work for your business, it’s important to focus on content that aligns with your brand and audience. Here are three types of YouTube videos you can create to attract the right viewers and drive traffic to your website:

• Educational content. Teach new skills to build trust with your audience and, if possible, use your product as the centerpiece for solving their problem. Educational webinars are an especially great way to highlight your product features as solutions to your target audience’s pain points.
• Storytelling. Communicate your brand’s image and values to a wider audience with inspiring narrative videos that fit your business’s identity and your audience’s lifestyle.
• Entertainment. Capture viewers’ attention and focus it on your products with fun videos that cater to your audience’s interests and use humor relevant to your niche.

13. Invest in email marketing

Whether it’s promotional campaigns or recurring newsletters, email marketing is a dependable way to drive traffic to your website and build a loyal audience. With the right strategy, emails can do more than generate visits; they nurture long-term relationships with customers by offering value and keeping them engaged.

Even better, email marketing is highly cost-effective. With an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, it can deliver massive returns for minimal investment. And the best part? It doesn’t have to be complicated. Focus on sending personalized, timely messages—such as product updates, special offers, or helpful educational content—to stay top of mind and encourage recipients to return to your website.

Olive oil company Graza shares recipes and blog posts, like a “What I eat in a day” diary from comedian John Higgins, to get email subscribers to visit its website.

Source: Graza

If you have Shopify, you can get started with Shopify Email. The built-in software allows you to segment email subscribers based on any tags you have set up in Shopify, like how often they purchase. And it comes with advanced features like AI-optimized subject lines and the ability to cancel email campaigns mid-send.

14. Host webinars

Webinars are live or prerecorded videos that brands use to provide information. Ecommerce brands can use webinars to introduce new products and share more information about their design process. They can also give audience members a chance to ask questions.

Webinars help drive traffic to your website by directing visitors to register on your website. At the end of the webinar, you can also encourage your audience to visit your website for extra resources.

Organic social media engagement

Social media is a discovery engine. According to a 2024 survey conducted by Coveo, 73% of shoppers discover products on social media. After that initial discovery, 18% of shoppers will navigate to the retailer’s website. For some brands, a majority of their traffic comes from organic social media. “TikTok has been our main driver of traffic, particularly in the US,” Erika Geraerts, founder of beauty brand Fluff, says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “What we found was our content really lands with consumers in that it sort of catches their eye with the nature of the product that is so beautiful, like the Cloud Compact itself being very eye-catching.”

Aside from capitalizing on a photogenic product, you can drive social engagement by doing things like:

• Encouraging conversations with your target audience
• Responding thoughtfully to inquiries and discussions related to your brand, products, or industry
• Driving enthusiasm and investment through community-building tactics

Here are a few social media marketing strategies to consider:

15. Get friends and family to share

When you launch your business, turning to friends and family for support is a great tactic to generate initial awareness, traffic, or even your first sale (thanks, Mom!).

Reach out to your friends and family in a targeted way. Are there channels for talking to your extended family, coworkers, or community? Send a note and tell them about your new store. On social media, tell the story of your business in an update.

Once you have the attention of your friends and family, ask them to share your website with their networks. This type of exponential reach is the key to successful word-of-mouth marketing.

According to 5WPR’s 2024 Consumer Culture Report, 46% of consumers are most compelled to make a purchase through word-of-mouth recommendations—more than customer reviews (44%), press coverage (26%), and organic social media content (16%).

16. Proactively engage on social media

You don’t need to start selling products or publishing content before you engage with people on social media. It can help to build up an engaged following before you start selling, so you have an audience who is invested in your brand and willing to visit your website to learn about your products come launch time.

Beauty vlogger Jackie Aina started posting makeup tutorials on YouTube before launching her fragrance brand FORVR Mood. Jackie was able to leverage her established audience to grow her brand.

Here’s how you can engage with your brand’s audience:

• Once you’ve started building an audience, look for chances to help people or add value to their conversations in a way that connects on a human level and lacks a sales pitch.
• Use Instagram Reels to promote specials that are only available to your audience if they contact you on the platform.
• Spend time engaging with those talking about your brand. Instagram is a great place to answer questions and proactively engage with your community.

17. Engage in online forums

Online forums are a great place to build community. People typically turn to forums to ask informed audiences specific questions and to exchange ideas. “If you look at any community, they have shared problems,” says Liah Yoo, founder of beauty brand KraveBeauty, on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. Liah joined forums to talk about skin concerns with other people in the same position.

Reddit is one of the most popular forums, providing an interesting opportunity to grow brand awareness and generate website traffic. It’s a place where passionate folks congregate around their favorite topics, sharing advice, best practices, and personal life stories. Reddit has thousands of niche-based forums, called subreddits. You can find a subreddit on nearly any subject, for example, /r/bicycling, /r/scifi, or /r/corgi.

Here’s how you could use Reddit if your business is selling hair products: Navigate to a few subreddits such as /r/femalehairadvice, where there’s discussion on all aspects of hair care for women. There are also subreddits like /r/haircarescience, /r/curlyhair, or simply /r/hair. Find threads relevant to your brand and products, and find a variety of ways to join the conversation.

For example, when Sock Candy founder Mary Gui discovered a spike in traffic from a single Reddit post, she decided to create an account to share pictures of her outfits (featuring Sock Candy socks, of course).

“We are not directly marketing on Reddit,” Mary explains on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “People like seeing my outfits and almost all of them have my socks in them and they’ll be like, ’Where are your socks from?’ I’ll be like, ’It’s from Sock Candy.’”

To promote your business and drive traffic to your website, create a new post in a subreddit relevant to your brand. Make the post brief but detailed, with concrete examples to engage readers.

Here are the components of a great Reddit post:

• Catchy headline. Keep it topical to the subreddit. For example, when posting to the curly hair subreddit, you could try the headline, “Who says that short hair can’t be fancy?”
• Add value and be concise. The text within the main body of the post should be snappy, catchy, but not salesy. Also, consider a TL;DR (“too long, didn’t read”) subheading that gives visitors a quick summary of the gist of your post.
• Include a photo. Adding images can help convey your message and more easily captivate readers.
• Link to your store. Make sure you link to your most relevant product, so visitors can find out more about your brand and product line by visiting your online store.

Pay attention to Reddit’s platform guidelines and Reddiquette values. Some subreddits don’t allow promotional material. If you post about your site in a thread that doesn’t allow it, you may find that no one upvotes your link, and you may get banned from the subreddit.

Alongside promoting your website on niche subreddits, you can also turn to broader subreddits like /r/entrepreneur or /r/smallbusiness to get business advice, tapping the know-how of millions of subscribers at varying levels of experience across industries.

18. Drive excitement with online promotions

Contests and giveaways are a great way to get more followers on Instagram, increase social media engagement, and drive traffic to your website. With viral contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes, you can quickly drive traffic to your website by exchanging contest entries for sharing your site or following your social accounts.

Contest and giveaway apps in the Shopify App Store make it simple to embed giveaways into landing pages and blog posts. Social sharing gives sweepstakes a chance to go viral and extend your reach.

19. Offer time-sensitive discounts on social media

Offering time-sensitive discounts on social media can be an effective way to get people to take action, generating traffic and increasing sales. Putting an expiration on your discount leverages scarcity, a powerful psychological sales trigger. You can even use a countdown timer on an app like Instagram.

Consider adding a minimum qualifying purchase for your discount offer. This can be a smart way to offer your audience an incentive without compromising your profitability.

Product discounts aren’t the only time-sensitive offer you can provide customers. If you don’t normally offer free shipping, then occasionally doing so can be a compelling incentive to direct traffic from social media to your store.

20. Leverage user-generated content

Let’s face it: Coming up with fresh content regularly can take time. That’s where user-generated content (UGC) comes in. UGC promotes your brand through the authentic voices of your customers, which increases brand engagement and reach. This can introduce new people to your brand, who might feel compelled to visit your website after hearing a positive review of your products or services from someone they already trust.

Reposting UGC on your business account encourages more people to share their experiences and tag your business in the future, generating even more organic visibility.

21. Partner with influencers

Influencer marketing involves partnering with successful social media content creators to promote your website to relevant users. This form of marketing harnesses the creativity and reach of notable people in your industry, leveraging the trust they’ve earned with audiences to refer traffic to your store via affiliate links and links in bio.

TikTok and Instagram marketing are excellent avenues for boosting brand visibility and driving traffic to your online store—especially when you partner with an influencer who knows how to hack the algorithm.

Finding a relevant influencer to feature your products is often an effective tactic for increasing your traffic. For example, lifestyle influencer Estée Lalonde promotes brands by incorporating products into her lifestyle content.

In one video, Estée reviews products she received from makeup brand Fara Homidi, breaking down everything from the weight of the product to the texture of the makeup to the refillable packaging. Estée has more than 600,000 followers, who she’s encouraging to visit Fara Homidi because of her glowing review. Estée also uses the digital storefront ShopMy to link her followers directly to products that she uses and likes.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Estée Lalonde (@esteelalonde)

Paid advertising

With paid ads, you can create highly targeted campaigns that serve tailor-made ads to customers who are most likely to purchase your products.

If you have the marketing budget, here are a few methods to get started with paid advertising:

22. Social media ads

Social media advertising lets you target users by their interests, behaviors, locations, and more. Here are a few platforms to consider:

• Facebook. Facebook’s dynamic ads let you target potential customers based on their browsing history and online activity. Automatically generated ads show users relevant products from your site. For more precise targeting, add the Meta pixel, an analytics tool, to your website to track user behavior and refine ad content and placement.
• Instagram. Instagram ads can boost your website traffic and increase sales. An Instagram business account unlocks additional essential features. Exploring Instagram’s tools and hashtags and jumping on the platform’s latest trends can win you more followers and strengthen your ad campaigns.
• Pinterest. Promoted Pins are a type of Pinterest ad that displays your content at the top of search results, which can influence users’ purchasing decisions. Pinterest works best when targeting niche markets.
• TikTok. Organic virality is central to TikTok marketing campaigns. However, you can also use paid ads on the platform. The TikTok ads platform is easy to use, with preset options for budgeting and audience selection.

23. Search engine ads

When it comes to search engines, Google stands out among the rest. On desktops, Google accounts for 79.1% of the online search engine market globally. Unlike social media advertising, with search engine ads, you can target people who are already searching for the type of products or content your website provides. These ads let you place your web pages in front of users who’ve made relevant searches on Google and YouTube.

“If your product is a very searchable product, and people are looking for the problem all the time like, ’I have rosacea on my skin. How can I fix it?’ Google Ads could be a really good way to get in front of a new audience,” says Anaita Sarkar, the cofounder and CEO of Hero Packaging, a sustainable packaging company. “What I would do is actually target the keywords that are the problem areas and then get visitors to go straight to a product page.”

There are several Google ad formats, including:

• Search ads that appear on search engine results pages
• Display ads that may appear anywhere in the Google Display Network
• Shopping ads that highlight media and products in search results
• Video ads to capture the attention of YouTube viewers

Understanding these tools and effectively applying them can maximize your ad spend. Creating and managing these types of ads is a discipline that takes time to learn, but when deployed effectively, it can flood your website with relevant traffic.

In-person traffic

If your brand has a physical presence—through events, brick-and-mortar storefronts, or product packaging—you can turn interactions in real life (IRL) into website traffic. Bridging the gap between offline and online channels helps you engage customers wherever they’re already interacting with your business.

24. Encourage in-person customers to connect online

If you have a physical store or pop-up shop, use it to build your online audience. Existing customers are more likely to engage with your website if you give them a reason to do so. Incentivize them to explore your online store by offering perks such as exclusive discounts, loyalty points, or early access to new products.

Advertise your website prominently throughout your physical space. Use signage, receipts, and product packaging to direct customers to specific landing pages or promotions. You can also collect email addresses at checkout by encouraging customers to sign up for your newsletter in exchange for an incentive. For example, with an in-store purchase, they could get a discount code to redeem at your online store.

25. Create a QR code

QR codes make it simple for potential IRL customers to visit your website if offline advertising piques their interest. To scan your QR code, a customer simply opens their phone camera, points it at the code, and taps the link that pops up at the bottom of their screen.

You can embed QR codes into product packaging, event flyers, or in-store displays to direct customers to your site, product pages, or exclusive offers. To create your QR code, use Shopify’s Free QR Code Generator.

26. Participate in local events

Find ways to team up with fellow local businesses at community events, trade shows, pop-ups, and other types of IRL brand activations. This is a smart way to generate buzz and attract new customers locally. Offering free samples, handouts, or product trials helps spark interest by letting people experience your brand firsthand.

When you participate in events like these, make sure it’s clear how attendees can engage with you later online. For example, you could hand out flyers, promote event-exclusive offers they can claim on your website, or encourage them to follow your brand on social media.

Other strategies

Here are a few other strategies that can help you drive traffic to your site:

27. Affiliate marketing

An affiliate marketing program is a reward-based system in which influencers, and other partners promote your products. In exchange, your partners receive a commission on the sales they generate. Affiliates drive traffic to your online store through their unique referral links that they share on their websites or social media channels.

Affiliate programs tend to be a win-win: Your affiliates earn passive income, while you earn more sales and exposure to qualified leads.

28. Push notifications

Push notifications are brief, informational pop-up messages that appear primarily on desktop and mobile devices. Brands typically use them to drive visitors to their sites by letting customers know about sales, new products, and other important news.

Here are a few tips for sending out push notifications:

• Personalize your messages. Creating personalized messages that include the customer’s name, preferences, and past shopping behavior can encourage them to engage with your brand.
• Be concise. With many things vying for a customers’ attention, it’s important to deliver your message concisely. Longer messages may also get cut off. The norm for app-based push notifications is about 25 to 50 characters for the push title and up to 150 characters for the message, but exact counts vary per device.
• Use GIFs, emojis, photos, and videos. These elements can show off your brand personality and attract customers’ attention through compelling visuals.

How to choose a marketing strategy

1. Set your goals
2. Consider your audience
3. Take a look at your budget
4. Use your existing skills (or be ready to hire someone)
5. Start small and scale up
6. Measure and adapt

Having so many options for marketing means you can find one that’s perfect for your business—but it can also feel pretty overwhelming.

To pick the marketing strategy that’s right for your needs, start by asking yourself:

• What are your marketing goals?
• How much time do you have to dedicate to marketing efforts?
• What’s your marketing budget, and can you afford hiring anyone to help?

Next up, we’ll walk you through answers to those key questions to help you choose the best marketing strategies for your business.

1. Set your goals

Your business stage will inform your goals. If you’re just starting your business, you need to build brand awareness fast with a big surge of traffic that will get your business off the ground. Building a social following and testing paid ads could help.

On the other hand, if you’ve been running your business for a few years but haven’t seen the kind of growth you had hoped for, it may be time to try strategies that take longer to pay off but lead to more consistent traffic generation over time. In that case, SEO marketing practices could be a long-term boon.

Outside of your business’s age, consider your immediate and long-term priorities: Do you want quick conversions for a new product launch, or are you looking to create a steady flow of visitors who will return over time? Some marketing strategies generate highly relevant traffic for your website, while others produce large volumes of general visitors. Your goals should guide your choice of tactics, so think about how soon you need to see a return on investment (ROI), and select the best strategies that fit your timeline.

2. Consider your audience

It’s crucial to understand who your target audience is and which marketing tactics will resonate most with them. For example, going viral on TikTok can direct loads of traffic to your website, but if visitors aren’t buying what you’re selling, that traffic isn’t going to be of much use to you. On the other hand, a well-positioned LinkedIn post or a targeted Google ad doesn’t have to make a lot of noise to both drive traffic and convert.

To narrow down the best marketing strategies for your audience, ask yourself:

• Where does my audience spend the majority of their time online? Social media platforms, search engines, or forums?
• What kind of content do they respond to? Informative blog posts, engaging videos, or short social media updates?
• What problem are they trying to solve, and how can my product be a solution? Align your marketing efforts with their needs and interests.

For example, if your audience is primarily young professionals, you might focus on LinkedIn ads or email campaigns. For a younger demographic, Instagram Reels or TikTok could be more effective. Tailoring your marketing to your audience’s preferences ensures that your efforts generate meaningful traffic that leads to sales and engagement.

3. Take a look at your budget

According to a 2025 CMO Survey, businesses that make less than $10 million in annual revenue typically spend around 11.4% of their budgets on marketing. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule—if your business is new or struggling, you might not be able to allocate quite that much to a marketing budget.

In general, though, you’ll have to look at the books before you can make a decision about which marketing strategy is right for your business:

• High-budget strategies like paid advertising often deliver fast results but come with higher costs and don’t compound value over time.
• Lower-budget strategies like content marketing and organic social media take more time but can be cheaper and more sustainable with long-term compounded value.

4. Use your existing skills (or be ready to hire someone)

You can pull off some strategies without much of a marketing background, though some require time, skill, and experience to execute. When you’re running a business, you can’t dedicate the time necessary to developing a new craft. For instance, if you aren’t already social media savvy, you might not get the hang of it quickly enough to rake in views without a significant time investment, but it is possible.

Business owners, even those with little-to-no marketing experience, can handle some strategies, like blogging or email marketing. These tactics are straightforward, affordable, and can be learned through practice. For example, creating email campaigns or writing blog posts can be done in-house with tools like Shopify Email and a simple content calendar.

However, other strategies require more specialized skills. Running PPC ads, managing SEO campaigns, or producing high-quality video content can take months to learn and execute effectively.

Be honest about what you can handle and where you need help. If you’re stretched too thin, consider hiring an expert. Outsourcing key marketing tasks can free up your time and improve your strategy’s chances of success.

5. Start small and scale up

A good digital marketing strategy layers both short-term and long-term tactics so they work in tandem. That said, throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks isn’t going to be the key to success in this scenario. Spreading yourself thin with too many tactics can lead to frustration and poor results.

Start by focusing on one or two strategies that align with your goals and resources. Once you’ve mastered them and they’re performing well, return to this list to pick your next traffic-driving tactic to expand your marketing mix.

6. Measure and adapt

Every few months, you’ll want to sit down and evaluate the performance of your marketing tactics. Your primary tool for doing so will be your website analytics. If you’re a Shopify user, you can use Shopify Analytics to learn how your digital marketing strategy is faring, according to traffic as well as by more direct metrics like average order value, website engagement, and percentage of traffic that comes from first-time customers. Shopify Analytics includes pre-built reports and real-time monitoring. You can also connect to other apps to measure supplemental data.

Depending on your strategy, you may also want to employ other tools. For example, if you’re embarking on an SEO strategy, you’ll want to use SEO tools like Google Analytics or Google Search Console. Tools like these can help you automate the website analytics process and more easily gain insights into your marketing campaigns.

Analyze whether your chosen strategy is meeting your initial goal. If your goal was to get higher-paying customers, but you’re seeing a strong influx of first-time customers on that marketing channel, it might be time to deprioritize that strategy and choose one that better aligns with your objectives.

More website traffic equals more customers

Increasing website traffic starts with picking a marketing strategy and a relevant marketing channel. Remember, a good digital marketing strategy is about using short-term and long-term tactics in conjunction. Once you feel like you’ve mastered one, come back to this list and pick your next traffic-driving tactic.

Drive traffic to your website FAQ

How do I bring more traffic to my website?

To bring more traffic to your website, here are a few strategies to try:

• Optimize your website for search engines to increase visibility in Google search results.
• Engage with your audience using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
• Tailor content to the interests and needs of your target demographic.
• Invest in high-quality, engaging content to encourage shares and build backlinks.
• Consider running targeted pay-per-click advertising campaigns and collaborating with influencers to extend your reach.

How can I drive traffic to my website for free?

You can increase website organic traffic by leveraging some of these free website marketing strategies:

• Build a loyal follower base, boost engagement, and grow your reach by regularly posting valuable organic social content that resolves common issues or provides insightful information relevant to your audience.
• Keep your audience informed and engaged with your brand and products by growing and nurturing an email list.
• Increase brand visibility by participating in conversations with relevant online communities and forums.
• Improve your organic search rankings by utilizing SEO strategies.
• Tap into new audiences by guest blogging.

How do I drive organic traffic to my website?

Driving organic traffic to your website hinges on optimizing your content for search engines—a tactic known as search engine optimization (SEO). Begin by identifying key terms and phrases that your target audience searches for, and create relevant, high-quality content to answer those search queries. Regularly updating your website with fresh, relevant content will keep your audience coming back and signal to search engines that your website is a reliable source of information.

How do I get traffic to my website fast?

To quickly drive traffic to your website, invest in pay-per-click advertising to place links to your website in front of your target audience on search engines and social media platforms. This method allows you to generate significant traffic immediately after your ads go live.

How can I use social media to drive traffic to my website?

Use social media to engage your audience and link back to your website. Post content that appeals to your target market—such as product showcases, blog posts, or special offers. Include clear calls to action (CTAs) that guide followers to your site. Leverage paid advertising to reach a wider audience, and share user-generated content (UGC) to build trust and increase engagement.

Should I focus on mobile optimization for website traffic?

Yes! With mobile purchases expected to reach 63% of retail ecommerce in 2025, mobile optimization is essential for your ecommerce website. Ensure your site has a responsive design, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate on small screens. Mobile-friendly features like click-to-call buttons and simplified menus can (UX) and boost conversions.