Increasing website traffic by 250,000+ monthly visits — even 2,500 monthly visits at the start — can feel impossible.

It’s not.

Website traffic growth is at the top of any business’s KPIs because we know that traffic growth leads to:

  • Brand recognition
  • Revenue growth
  • Repeat customers

… and more. With this in mind, we developed tried-and-true methods for long-term, sustainable growth in the thousands (and hundred-thousands).

up and to the right ahrefs graph showing benefits of siege media

At Siege Media, we’ve even helped our clients grow their website traffic by 500,000 visitors a month. We’ve accomplished this not once, not twice, but five times in the past five years — and even more during our lifetime.

Sustainable website traffic in the millions is possible with a repeatable, achievable strategy.

up and to the right ahrefs graph showing benefits of siege media

So what’s the process and how do you replicate it so you can see your website visits grow at staggering rates? We explore our proven and dependable methods in this post.

How To Increase Website Traffic

There isn’t one perfect method to increase website traffic, but we have a strategy that works — and the proof to back it up.

By repeatedly creating unique, well-researched top or middle-funnel content, promoting your work, and using SEO best practices, you can also expect to see growth.

Similar to the Skyscraper Technique, we believe it’s important to find link-worthy content to write about, but our strategy doesn’t stop there — we know it takes a mix of content-worthy topics, Domain Authority, linking, and repetition to create truly irreplaceable content.

Table of Contents

  1. Establish Product-Market Fit
  2. Perform and Use KOB Analysis
  3. Prepare a Project Plan
  4. Prioritize Passive Link Topics
  5. Create Strong Content
  6. Optimize Internal Linking
  7. Update Content Annually
  8. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

1. Establish Product-Market Fit

Before you even consider implementing a new website traffic strategy, you need to establish product-market fit.

Product-market fit refers to the idea that your business’s products or services are being bought, used, and praised by your target audience.

If you can create a product that satisfies the wants and needs of your audience, you already took a giant step toward growing your traffic and business.

If you’re already seeing traction and you have a growing authority in the industry, your traffic will follow. Further, until you’ve created a product or service that satisfies product-market fit, you shouldn’t focus your efforts anywhere else.

2. Perform and Use KOB Analysis

KOB analysis, or Keyword Opposition to Benefit Analysis, is the crucial next step to growing your website visits.

Your KOB analysis considers your revenue potential and ROI in combination with your competition’s. Prioritizing your most beneficial, rankable content first can propel you toward more difficult topics in the future.

After enough time, effort, and subsequent rankings, your website traffic should grow and allow you to focus on other aspects of your business.

The KOB Equation for Content

Originally popularized by Todd Malicoat, KOB analysis has many different forms and levels of complexity.

For the purposes of this analysis and your own implementation, we’ll keep it relatively simple.

Traffic value is the estimated amount of revenue a page earns, and it’s calculated by multiplying the clickthrough rate (CTR) against all its ranking positions.

From there, each tool uses Google AdWords’ CPC to see what others would be willing to pay for that same traffic.

We use traffic value here because:

  • It is a strong estimate of the real value of a page
  • Helps approximate the monetary value when ranking for a topic
  • Focuses on pages rather than individual keywords

Because traffic value focuses on page valuation, using the content ranking #1 for your target keyword or topic in your KOB equation is important.

accounting calculator metrics on ahrefs

Additionally, we need to know the keyword difficulty of our target topic.

This score gives us a quick snapshot of the competition on a given keyword set, which allows us to determine how quickly and easily we can rank for a particular topic.

We include the difficulty score in our KOB because it:

  • Implies how competitive a keyword or topic is
  • Alludes to the strength of the competitor’s backlinks
  • Indicates the authority of competitor content

Because your revenue potential can be offset by the keyword difficulty, these two figures are used in an equation to determine the KOB score for a target keyword or topic set.

kob equation for content

Now that you understand what traffic value and difficulty mean, finding your KOB score takes a few simple steps:

  1. Plug in the necessary data: Popular SEO tools — such as Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs — are great for finding and calculating traffic value and difficulty.
  2. Divide traffic value by the difficulty score: This will produce an initial KOB score to help you prioritize keywords and topics.
  3. Repeat the process: At Siege Media, our fleshed-out KOB sheets have more than 150 keywords or topics.

KOB Analysis Example

To give an example of this process in action, let’s look at the keyword “content marketing.” Using Ahrefs, we get back the following data:

search volume and keyword difficulty for content marketing

At the surface level, we can see that this keyword is extremely competitive and has a fairly high monthly search volume.

But, if we dive below the surface, we can find other helpful information — namely, the potential value of each monthly visit and target-worthy longtail keywords.

ahrefs data of keyword content marketing

First, enter “content marketing” into your preferred search engine and copy the URL of the highest-ranking result that you feel is most similar to the content you hope to create.

For this example, we used the “What is Content Marketing?” page from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI).

Next, we input this URL into Ahrefs to analyze the revenue and traffic opportunities available to us.

In our case, the estimated traffic to the page is 25,000 visits a month, based on 9,700 keywords. Plus, Ahrefs also calculates the estimated traffic value, which is $280,000 a month for the keyword “content marketing.”

estimated traffic value of what is content marketing by cmi

To find our KOB score, we need to divide the traffic value by the keyword difficulty. Out of context, one KOB score means nothing, but additional research and a built-out topic database can help us use this score to prioritize how and when we work specific content into our strategy.

Once the initial score is created, you may notice there are topics that have high traffic value, but probably don’t have any chance of converting for the client due to lack of authority or relevancy.

We solve for this by applying a “Relevancy Score” to the KOB.

This multiplies the KOB by the appropriate number.

If it’s a great fit, give it a 3.

If it’s in the middle, give it a 2.

If it’s marginal but still relevant, give it a 1.

Do keep in mind that your Relevancy Score is effectively an educated guess. That’s okay, as the overall goal here is to improve our directional decision making around monetizable topics — not be perfect.

Now, you can reprioritize your keywords and topics. Clustering together similar ideas or services can decrease the content you need to create while strengthening your strategized content.

Before you start creating a project plan, check out our KOB analysis spreadsheet for our ready-to-use document.

pdf download of kob analysis template

3. Prepare a Project Plan

With your research in hand, it’s time to start thinking about your project plan.

While your KOB analysis is great for finding low-competition, high-benefit keywords, you still need to prioritize target topics and keywords to make sure you’re capitalizing on the content you can rank for.

Ask yourself these three things when preparing your strategy:

  1. What is your Domain Authority (DA)?
  2. What internal resources do you have?
  3. Are you creating top-, middle-, or bottom-funnel content?

For example, if your DA is lower than 70, your best bet for strong content creation is to prioritize topics or keywords with a difficulty rating lower than 60 or 70.

On the flipside, if your domain authority is 70+, your prioritization should consider what you can rank for without promotion.

how to prioritize topics on project plan

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your own domain will help you determine the content that is best for your business.

Additionally, after your project plan is solidified, refer back to your KOB to adjust scope. How long will you need to productively create each piece of content? Add this to your sheet and divide the original KOB score by the estimated hours to finalize your revised KOB score.

All in all, investing in your SEO content strategy and a team of content creators will allow you to grow and prioritize more projects, invest time and energy into revamping older posts, and create new content that is great the first time around.

It’s no secret that Siege Media has sent over 1 million outreach emails.

We started as a link generation company, but we’ve slowly stopped manual outreach for most of our clients.

Why? Because by focusing on search-driven topics that emphasize a brand’s services, products, and expertise, we have seen a substantial increase in content performance through passive link building.

roi of manual vs passive link building graph

Instead of allocating double the time and resources to a post that will need manual outreach to rank, we have learned that focusing our talents on creating search-friendly content to begin with can bring in hundreds of links to a single post.

Plus, Google prioritizes branded content, so our focus on shareable and promotable aspects just wasn’t cutting it alone.

While it’s not worth completely throwing manual outreach — what we call digital PR at Siege Media — out the window, you may want to consider reevaluating how your content is gaining links.

Downscaling your outreach to simply include link reclamation and nothing else may seem counterintuitive — but trust us, search-driven content is just as valuable (if not more valuable) to your website’s traffic as promotable content.

Take any statistics post, for example. For most of these posts, the people who are searching for a statistic are most likely looking to include it in their own content and link back to the original creator.

This is passive link building.

mint financial statistics post example

This study about financial statistics by Mint has gained more than 150 links simply because it is easy to read, has intriguing visuals, and offers the readers plenty of raw data.

Other posts with interactive content — like calculators, cost pages, trends, and quizzes or pages — are high search-driven topics that can gain hundreds of passive links.

Similar to service or product offerings, content that prioritizes passive link topics responds to the need and intent behind a search.

Who wouldn’t want to link to a post that answered an important question or solved a difficult problem?

5. Create Strong Content

Now comes the hard part — actually creating the content (great content that is).

It’s a no-brainer that you should always focus on creating good content, but do you know what you need to create content that’s 10x better than the competition?

Being two or three times better may not be enough for your pieces to rank.

Don’t bet on your semi-better piece winning the race. Implement simple changes to your content creation strategy to propel your content from good to great.

  • Short URLs: Your URLs should be simple and identifiable. Use single-word tags where possible, and try to keep the keyword as the topic of the URL.
  • how to keep urls short example

  • Intriguing titles: Titles and title tags should be short, punchy, and clickable. We aren’t looking for clickbait, but they need to be interesting.
  • PPB Introductions: When introducing your post, using the PPB — or Proof, Preview, Benefit — structure is the best way to draw the reader into your content.
  • Scannable content: Using bullet points, short sentences and paragraphs, and breaking up content with visuals can help your readers scan and understand your content.
  • Larger font and smaller margins: It can be difficult for the eye to track really small fonts or really large margins. We recommend using at least a 16pt font and keeping your margins at one inch.
  • Differentiated copy: Don’t be afraid to shake up your content using our V.I.N.E.S. method. Include videos, images, illustrated graphics, news stories, experts, and social media research to make your content stand out from the crowd.

make creative content by looking to video images news experts and social

While these may seem like small adjustments, implementing them consistently can improve your content and lead to traffic growth.

Our infographic helps explain and summarize all the best practice data that can help you create content that is 10x better than your competitors.

If you can create strong content and execute your strategy well, it’s possible you could outrank all your competitors.

how to create content better than competitors infographic siege media

6. Optimize Internal Linking

Optimized internal linking is important to any content strategy because it helps your visitors — and search engine crawlers — navigate your content and site.

Internal links refer to links within the body of your content that link your post to other pages on your website. There are two types of internal links:

  1. Inbound internal links: Links that guide readers back to your post from a different website page.
  2. Outbound internal links: Links that guide readers away from your post to a different website page.

Giving readers (and Google) internal resources to research a topic further helps boost passive linking assets, keeps readers on your site longer, and determines website hierarchy.

Plus, internal links are great for spreading link equity.

Knowing what to link and what not to link can be difficult, especially if you have plenty of content on your website. As a rule of thumb, including between five and ten links per post is a safe bet for optimized internal linking.

good versus bad internal linking examples

Our best tips to optimize internal linking include:

  • Keeping all content within two clicks of the homepage
  • Ensuring your blog or learning center is in the navigation bar of your website
  • Displaying 15+ posts on your blog homepage
  • Linking sparingly and strategically
  • Using clear anchor text

do this not that internal linking tips

7. Update Content Annually

After you researched, created content, and focused on link building, it’s time to consider your posts’ sustainability.

There’s no guarantee that your rankings will hold, even if you’ve gained the #1 spot.

Fluctuation is normal and content becomes outdated, but you can avoid losing all your progress with one simple method: content updates.

Creating and publishing a great blog post does not mean you are banned from ever updating it again. In fact, maintenance and refreshes to your content should be strategized concepts in your content marketing mix.

traffic increase benefits of content updates via graph

If your posts aren’t delivering updated facts and statistics, your site visitors will get fed up and leave. Annual content updates are a great way to ensure your readers receive the information they need without putting a ton of strain on your project plan or content team.

Who’s going to click on “Content Marketing Statistics for 2019” when your competition has created a “Content Marketing Statistics for 2023” post?

We also suggest keeping an eye on the SERPs for something we call freshness distance, or the distance between the oldest timestamp and the newest one. If you are consistently in the top 25%, there’s a good chance you’ll rank well.

Keep track of your content updates with a project tracker. This will help keep your team organized while achieving high-value wins with low effort.

If you stick to updating your content at a pace that works for your business, you’ll see great website traffic growth over time. Maybe even a growth of 250,000+ a month, sustainably.

8. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

While the title of this post is intriguing and accurate, it has taken 10+ years for our Siege Media team to grind out this process.

In our opinion, the strategy itself is not that complicated. It’s the execution — and the repetition of that execution — that will increase your website traffic and improve your overall online presence.

Your best bet for traffic growth is our proven, tried-and-true strategy:

  • Keyword analysis
  • Content execution
  • Strategized linking
  • Content updates
  • Repetition

Don’t believe us? After implementing our techniques, you can compare your pre-strategy ROI with your post-strategy ROI, or even estimate the potential change in your traffic with our marketing ROI calculator.

Upgrading Your Process

If you find this method complex and its implementation difficult, check out our content marketing services. With more than 10 years of experience and 100 team members, we can help you through the process.

Looking for an in-depth look into our method? Consider taking our SiegeLearn course where you’ll have access to more than 25 content marketing videos with tips about content creation, SEO, and outreach.

Soon, you can enjoy the benefits of receiving 250,000+ website visits with our strategy and experience.

download free content marketing guide

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Secret recipes sold here.

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