The Best Ways to Get the Traffic and Links You Crave
Recently, small business owners asked for my advice on getting traffic to their website.
- What’s the easiest way to get more traffic?
- Can you recommend the most efficient way to draw traffic to my new website?
- I’m fairly new and still learning. Could you help me with attracting more traffic?
- How do I bring traffic to my site?
So much, that at times I wonder if the Internet turned us all into traffic junkies.
At this point, if you’re asking about driving traffic to your website, you pretty much know that people NEED a reason to visit and keep returning to your site.
Which means you must produce relevant and valuable content. You must be “the best answer” in a world of abundant answers. And you must become a trusted informational provider.
Of course, creating the content and acquiring this position is only half the battle. The other half is distributing.
In order for your content to rank in the search engines and generate the kind of traffic you crave, it has to be found, shared, linked to and liked by lots of people. Smart marketers, know very well that if you have three hours to spend on content, you should spend two hours, promoting and driving traffic to it.
Here are the best ways I recommend to get the traffic and links you crave.
1. Build in Virality. Add social media share buttons to your content. Make it easy to spread. Your content is like riders and they need a horse to go somewhere and interact with the outside world. So, if you have compelling content, but you can’t find a way to connect it to a medium to travel, nothing happens, and there’s no activity.
2. Use Popular Permission Channels. Take the time to promote and create buzz around your post in Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with a nice image to help attract eye balls.It’s also helpful to take the time to write a blurb about why someone might want to read your content.
There are no traffic jams when you go the extra mile. ~ Zig Ziglar
3. Anticipated, Personal and Relevant. Don’t forget to let your email list know about your latest and greatest article. Develop a monthly newsletter to point out the post and invite offline readers to come online and read and share. Make sure your email is sharable and ask your readers to send it to a friend.
4. Use Ads. Buying social media ads do work. But most of us have more time than we do money, making the whole idea of paying for traffic unpalatable. However, If you would like to use ad I suggest clicking here.
5. Guest Blog Posting. I’m a huge fan of guest blogging. In my opinion, it’s the most effective online marketing strategy there is, assuming you do it correctly. The great thing about guest blog posting is that you get introduced to a whole new audience, which means a whole new amount of wallets, not to mention that content last forever.
6. Fusion marketing. Embrace not the concept of competition, but the beauty and advantage of cooperation. You should be or have had built a network of strategic partners.
Fusion marketing is you saying, “Hey Patrick, if you create an article on “How Life Coaches Can Get More Customers in Half the Time” for my website. I’ll link provide a link back to your site and promote it through my media channels.”
Thanks to DeKesha Williams Business Strategist at Vizions Consulting for spreading her wisdom. I found out, you can also build a social sharing network in places like Triberr.
7. Allow Your Network, to Become Your Net-Worth. Reach out to other bloggers or people in your industry by way of sharing and commenting on their content. Remember that online influencers are people just like you are. Networking is 98% about being a nice person and having good manners.
Make it a habit to let generosity be your guide.
8. The Headline Business. Sometimes I think we all forget what business we are in. Headlines are everything in ads, social media profiles, newspapers, magazines, telemarketing calls, direct mail letters, websites, sales presentations, commercials and on blogs.
Whatever you do though, don’t make the mistake of thinking your headlines are irrelevant. In my opinion, getting better at writing headlines is the single most important action you can take to go further, faster and to skyrocket your traffic.
But Don’t Take My Word For It
Test it.
Spend focused, uninterrupted blocks of time promoting and amplifying at least one piece of content each month and let me know your results.
Question: What advice do you have for getting traffic to your website?
About the Author: Patrick McFadden is a marketing consultant that helps SMBs navigate the most effective ways to attract and keep customers. He is also an advisor and featured marketing contributor to American Express Open Forum and has been named a marketing thought leader for small businesses.
