10 Best Strategies To Bring US Traffic To Your Website
Best Strategies To Increase US Traffic
You have a website and receiving some organic search traffic. However, you are not happy with the US traffic proportion in your Analytics.
Let's talk about the facts. Everyone doing SEO wants to receive search traffic from the United States. It doesn't matter the website owner from South Africa, India or Canada. Majority of the online businesses targeting US traffic primarily.
The reason is very simple. People in the US have the best purchasing power. Yes, there are countries richer than the US as Per capita income (PCI).
However, they are not the target countries of SEO campaigns. Because they either don't speak English, don't have big enough market, or they don't use the internet as popularly in the US.
I am not planning to give generalized SEO advice in this post. You can read my other posts to learn how to write content, implement white hat SEO practices, build backlinks, etc.
Let's discuss what we can do to maximize US traffic on our website.
1. Outsource content to US writers only
If you are American and writing your own content it is perfect. If you outsource your content to someone else, make sure English is their first language.
English is not my first language however I find benefit writing my own content. Because I believe my content is my voice and cannot be outsourced.
American language has its own culture and humor that people from other parts of the world may not understand easily. Try working with American writers or hire native English writer from other English speaking countries (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand)
Content marketers quite often ignore this point since it is more expensive hiring a writer in the US than a 3rd world country. They want to pay the least amount of money while having the longest form of content. Honestly, they succeed. They get the longest fluffy content filled with transitional words that serve no purpose.
You get what you pay for outsourcing content. If you pay $10-15 per 1000 word of content, chances are high it is fluff.
Good content that has chances to rank on Google is expensive. Because it requires planning, keyword research, competition analysis, and structuring.
When you outsource content, what most writers do, they grab the first Ezinearticle they found which is written in 2012. They plug it into an article spinning program and rewrite it to pass Copyscape. Maybe later changing certain words to make it look like written by a human writer.
That is what you get if you outsource content for cheap. Yes, you have unique enough content to pass Copyscape, maybe hardly readable, but definitely not engaging.
People will be turned off from your content in 2-3 seconds when they feel you give them fluff. They will quit your site without buying your products or services, and Google will slap your site due to the low user engagement your site provides.
In short, if you are outsourcing content, find American writers that have at least some sort of background in your niche or in journalism. Tell them what exactly you want, and quality check every time you have a new piece of content.
I have outsourced content for my niche site from the Content development pros, and I got pretty good results from their work.
2. Include keywords that only US searchers would type in Google
This one is very subtle, but implemented well will bring a lot of US traffic to your website.
Let's assume you are writing a post about driving a car when you are drunk. Obviously, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone to do.
Including the keyword, DUI (Driving Under the Influence) in your content would help you to attract more visitors since it is a US-originated word. You may not believe my friend from the UK heart this term for the first time since it is not used there.
Put yourself in the position of a US searcher and find those keywords only US searchers would type in Google. Make a list of the keywords to include in your content.
3. Include keywords referring to specific locations in the US
If you have a niche website about hiking, you should include in your content all hiking locations in the US. Don't spam by including all of these locations on a single page.
Try to sprinkle your list of keywords to different pages on your website. Google will prioritize your content above other hiking related content when serving to the US searches made. Because by adding the location names from the US you suggest Google your site is primarily related to the US.
4. Have a US Address in Your Contact Page
Having a contact us page is by itself will increase the quality score of your website. Google is not willing to serving information from an unknown resource.
Create a contact page, include US phone number, US address and email. If you are not living in the US don't trick Google by giving fake address information. Google finds out such behaviors and usually penalize harshly.
There are companies that rent US addresses you can use as your contact information. Also, you can buy US phone numbers from a variety of places online.
The more your website is related to the US more likely Google will prioritize your content over others.
5. Have A Webhosting Server with a US-based IP Adress
Although we don't exactly know if it could a ranking factor, hosting your website on a server that is close to your target audience would be very useful.
US searches can be served faster if your Webhosting server also located in the US.
I am hosting this website on Digitalocean and lets me host my site in New York. This website is quite fast as you may also experiencing it. WP Engine is another great Webhosting provider I would highly recommend.
6. Participate in local forums and discussion boards in the US.
Forums are a great place people discuss a specific topic. If you find forums related to your niche and local (belongs to a particular state or US) and engage with the other people you can share the link of your website.
People outside of the US are usually not visiting local forums or discussion boards. Links on forums drive referral traffic almost forever.
7. PPC (Pay Per Click) Traffic
Although it is not free, PPC can provide country-specific traffic if you set it so. If paid advertising is one of your traffic sources, PPC will do it for you. With PPC your ad is only shown to the people who match the criteria you set earlier.
8. Advertise on Craigslist
Craigslist is one of the unconventional sources of traffic. It is fast and scalable if you have the budget and time to do what it takes. By the end of 2019, it is the 30th most popular website in the US.
Craigslist has free and paid sections. In recent years, Craigslist started to request payment for some categories that were earlier free to advertise. You have to specify which category would be the best fit for your business.
Advertising on Craigslist outside the US can be challenging since Craigslist doesn't like it. They make it more difficult by asking people to make multiple levels of verification (US phone number, visiting from a US IP Address, etc). However, you can outsource advertising on Craigslist since it totally worths it for most businesses.
9. Yelp Listings
If you are a small business owner it may be challenging to increase your online exposure right away. The fastest way to ignite visibility of your business is by listing it on Yelp.
You can set up a Yelp business page in less than an hour simply by adding your business name, contact information, and related photos. Yelp helps businesses by taking reviews and letting businesses to respond to those reviews.
Yelp listing will definitely appear on search results, especially for the local searches. It will bring you laser targeted traffic of people who are interested in your product or services.
10. Use Solo Ads
Solo ads are email list traffic send to a website. Basically, you pay someone who has a list to email for you to their list.
It is the fastest type of traffic any website can get. It is even faster than PPC and display ads.
You can buy solo ads from Udimi since they are the most recognized provider. You are going to be able to tap into the email lists consist of %100 American people.
Final Recommendations:
If you are paying for traffic choose only proven to work traffic resources. These traffic resources are accepted by everyone that has no click fraud or similar type deceptive traffic can be served for your money.
Proven to work traffic sources are Google, Bing, Facebook and other major advertising networks that will not fool you.
Stay away from the Fiverr Gigs like “50,000 US-based visitors”. Because no one in the world will bring you even 1000 visitors for $5 only.
If you drive 50,000 visitors to a page, that page should earn on average $1500 depending on the monetization applied on the website.
These are the gigs bringing you bot traffic generated by software using US private proxies.
Although you may see in your Google Analytics the traffic they provide is coming from a particular source, any referring domains can be introduced in these programs as traffic sources.
