How To Find Hidden Traffic And Use It To Get More Clients

Finding clients isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Working above and beyond to get great customer feedback and solid word-of-mouth advertising isn’t always enough to keep the bills paid and the fridge stocked, so any client-grabbing advice is welcome news to the harried freelancer.

But did you know that underserved, ready-to-buy clients might already be visiting your website? Let’s take a look at how to use statistics tools and SEO plugins to find these “hidden” visitors to your website, and then how you can convert them into clients

First, Take A Look At Your Unexpected Traffic Sources

If you’re not already using a stats-gathering tool for your website or blog, you need to start doing it immediately. The easiest free web-based stats tool to use is Google Analytics, and you can easily add it to your site even if you don’t consider yourself a techie. Just sign up and get a free account, follow the instructions, and you’re on your way.

Once your stats tool has been gathering data, take a look at the keywords that bring traffic to your site and keep an eye out for unexpected search terms that you’re ranking for. For example, my blog was optimized for time management keywords but I realized that I was getting a good number of hits for things like “double your sales” and “triple your wealth.” I Googled those phrases and to my surprise I ranked #5 and #1 for those terms, respectively. That was an eye-opener, because business-builders are my main client base.

You see, these seemingly random terms that lead people to your site are important because it means that for those keywords, you probably rank on the first page of search results, which is very, very good. Because if you add more content to your site around those phrases, you’re going to continue to rank well for a focused group of searchers that want what you’re offering. Once you’ve identified these unexpected terms that bring qualified visitors to your site, you can move on to the next step:

Begin Writing Additional Content To Strengthen Your Ranking For Those Visitors

If you rank well on accident, it likely means that you don’t have a lot of competition for those keywords and creating targeted content can only make your ranking better. Once I realized that sales-based articles brought me traffic, I began to write more about how time management could help you “double your sales.” Web traffic increased, and I began to have more entrepreneurs contact me and ask for coaching.

If you write more target content for the unexpected keywords that bring traffic to your site, you have the opportunity to keep a dominant position on Google’s front page and bring even more of that highly qualified traffic your way. Just write an article series based on those keywords and add some strong internal linking to connect the articles and you’re on even better footing. Then you can move to the final step:

Optimize Your Pages For SEO To Bring In More Traffic

Remember, you’re ranking for these keywords accidentally, so being a little more diligent about it can only help you leverage them more. Here are two simple things you can do to optimize your pages SEO-wise, even if you don’t know a whole lot about SEO:

• Use your search engine results to link to your services. If you’re ranking on the first page of results for a random article or page you’ve written, make the most of it. Edit that page so that it has links back to your services page or contact forms so that when the visitor arrives, they are steered towards a buying decision.
• Get the All-In-One SEO Plugin if you have a blog. This plugin is easy to install and use to add some SEO power to your blog posts. Download the plugin here and read this tutorial or watch this video on how to use it.

Start Drawing In More Clients Without A Whole Lot Of Extra Work

Remember, you’re ranking well because you don’t have a lot of competition for those keywords (yet). Take advantage of that. Find those hidden gems, create some content based around them, and lead visitors to your service pages every chance you get. Do this well, and you may find yourself with a healthy boost in paying jobs before you know it.