Simple Ways To Boost Your Traffic For FREE
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Is Social Media Really Important?
Many people ask this question…I often get asked if it’s really that important and why should we bother because it seems so time-consuming.
Well, the honest answer is – Yes, it is time-consuming but in order to grow your business, it is absolutely necessary! And here’s why…
If you’ve only just started your business or even if you’ve been going a little while and you have all your branded Social Media profiles set up but don’t know what to do next…and you’re asking questions like:
“Why am I not getting followers?”,
“Why am I not getting likes?”,
”Why is no one commenting on any of my posts?”.
“Why are my blogs posts not getting any views?”,
“How could I possibly use Social Media to drive traffic to my website?”,
“What happens if have the traffic but it doesn’t go further than a certain point?”
“How can I increase my traffic and keep it consistent?”.
DON’T WORRY! Keep reading and I’ll help answer all these questions…
I’m hoping that it’ll guide you in creating a Social Media strategy, as well as understand the elements that influence that strategy to come to life and change over time.
So…Why Is Social Media So Important?
The world spends so much time on Social Media now that it really is the perfect way to get referrals and to drive traffic to your website…for FREE!
One question that has been asked is – How Could I possibly Use Social Media To Drive Traffic To My Website?
Below are 8 simple ways to do just that:
Get your readers engaged by offering them useful and relevant content.
Connect with your audience…ask questions…create surveys…or polls.
Join groups and participate in all their threads to build your network
Don’t be afraid of receiving feedback. Then analyze and adjust your strategy accordingly for better results.
Brand recognition – get your brand in front of potential buyers. You never know who might be looking for your product or services, so give them a reason to buy.
Associate with Influencers – by collaborating and expanding your reach with industry influencers, you can strive to become a go-to source of information and advice through your content.
Increase brand loyalty and customer retention – Social Media is far better than any other tool because you have to get social! It’s an easy way to find out more about your target audience and it increases loyalty, as well as conversions because your audience knows who they dealing with. And we all like working with REAL people.
Trust and Credibility – in today’s world, it is assumed that every business has Social Media profiles. It’s the perfect way to make contact and find information. The more people hear about you and your brand, the more trust and credibility you will gain.
Choose The Right Social Media Channels To Use For Your Business
When you’re deciding what Social Media Platforms you should use for your business, it’s super important to make sure they fit your goals. Is always recommended that you use the S.M.A.R.T strategy.
A good idea is to take into account, the demographics in order to find your audience favourite platforms…So, have a look at:
Location
Gender
Age
Income
Marital Status
Education Level
Do they have Children?
Ask yourself the following questions:
What do they like?
What do they dislike?
Are they career orientated?
What motivates them?
Are they sociable followers?
“Trend” followers?
Attention seekers?
Don’t ever think that you have to be on all Social Media platforms because you really don’t. Just pick the ones that will best help you achieve your goals.
And, remember that having a profile on each platform will cost you absolutely nothing…BUT…maintaining each of those profiles will cost you a lot in time!
IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING PRESENT!
What Should You Be Posting On Social Media?
Well, the idea here is that once you’ve created your profiles on the various platforms you’ve chosen, you need to start creating and publishing posts.
How do I do that? You ask…
Well, start off by doing a bit of research…Spend some time checking out your competition, see what they are doing so that you can get ideas and inspiration…then go and do it better!
It won’t take long for you to find your own voice so that you can put your own posting strategy together. This is your chance to sell yourself…you can really shine with this!
Images and visuals in general, ie. Gifs and videos, get more views, more likes, more clicks, and more shares than any other type of post. A great tool to use to create all your images and text overlays is, Canva. I personally use Canva to create all images for myself and my clients.
And did you know…photos on Facebook and Twitter get 53% more likes, 84% more CTs (Click-Throughs), and 104% more comments than posts without any visual content. WOW!
Use visuals, short to the point text, hashtags, as well as emoticons so that you can get more interaction. You can also post images, links, quotes, and you can share posts. To monitor audience engagement, you could also post the same sort of content all week, and then on one day, you post something different.
Is There A Best Time To Post On Social Media?
I personally find this one quite tricky to answer…and the reason being; is that if your fans and your followers are around the world, no one is online at the same time. Therefore, there can not be a perfect time for posting on all platforms.
I think the best way to figure this one out is by testing it all yourself! So, a bit of trial and error here – post at various times on various days and see which gives you the best results.
Studies have shown that Thursday and Friday have an 18% higher engagement rate. But again, you are going to need to see what works best for you and your business.
Here are some very good scheduling tools you can use:
Tailwind for Pinterest - schedule your first 100 Pins for FREE
Tailwind for Instagram - schedule your first 30 posts for FREE
How Often Can I Post Without Looking Like Spam?
Just remember that you need to be consistent when posting on Social Media. You want to build that traffic and get a good flow. So you don’t want to overdo it on one day then leave it…you have to spread it out evenly each day.
Bear in mind that this is not an overnight win! It takes time, a lot of hard work, and a lot of patience.
Below you’ll see the optimum posting frequency for each Social Media Platform to get the best results.
Should I Be Changing My Post For Each Platform?
Some people use the exact same message on all platforms. The problem here is that when you want to drive traffic to your site using Social Media because it does require a different approach.
Let’s say for instance; you have just created a new blog post and you want to share it on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. If you have followers that follow you on all 3 of those platforms, you can’t go and use the same message because they will end up scrolling right past your post.
You need to create a different message on each platform because if a follower scrolls past your first post, you’ll at least have another chance of grabbing their attention on the next platform.
Strategies To Increase Social Media Traffic
What happens with traffic if you share your posts more than once on Social Media?
Pay attention to what I’m about to say here…
A simple strategy that if done correctly, has the power to double your traffic!
So, this is what I want you to do…
When you create a post and publish it on Social Media, make sure you have a heading, add your link, and give it the necessary hashtags, then go ahead and post it to all networks. It’s important to remember that when you post it not everyone is going to see it because, as mentioned before, not everyone is online at the same time.
So, for this exact reason…
Go ahead and share valuable content more than once. As long as your content can be reposted as fresh content, you can even share the content 1 or 2 weeks after your first post. Whatever you do though, I don’t suggest using tools that will automatically share your content too often. By doing this, you end up looking like spam and your followers will just start dropping.
Using hashtags
Hashtags can be used for so many different reasons. You’ll find them being used on most Social Media platforms, and researched correctly they can help your content be found easily by those searching for exactly what you have to offer. Be sure to research relevant hashtags that rank high in traffic.
Join various engagement groups on Social Media
Make sure the groups you join aren’t spammy. You want real engagement. And you definitely don’t want to join any group where people just drop their links and expect you to follow and comment but don’t reciprocate. Or they unfollow you soon after they’ve made sure that you’ve followed them.
You want groups where you can find like-minded members who are also wanting to build on their traffic, where there’s real engagement and honesty. So try and find groups that have been created especially for your industry.
Tip: Make sure you are not too salesy in these groups. People don’t like to feel as though they’re being sold something. They want value…
Engaging with Influencers
Do you want influencers to share your work?
Here’s a perfect idea…how about featuring them and their business in your articles?
You can also contact influencers and ask them if they’re happy to share your content, which will help increase traffic to your site.
Include Social Media Channels on your Website
Make sure it’s easy to share any content from your website to Social Media. Your links have to work properly. It’s super important that your site is Social Media friendly!
Visuals On Social Media
Posts with images definitely have a higher engagement rate than posts without. They are more appealing and people tend to share posts more when there is something more to look at.
Videos are also really becoming more and more popular!
Should I Be Using Automation?
Using automation software is a very good idea, however, you do need to remember that it’s not only about posting…you have to engage and talk to people.
As mentioned earlier…Below are some very good automation tools that I’d recommend you use:
Tailwind for Pinterest - schedule your first 100 Pins for FREE
Tailwind for Instagram - schedule your first 30 posts for FREE
Ok, so now that we’ve gone through how you can boost your traffic for FREE…let's talk about what platforms are out there.
I think it’s safe to say that we all know the most popular platforms used are: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok (Australia is thinking about banning this!), and of course there’s Youtube. In no particular order of popularity, I've listed just about all of them for you, and they are all different in how they work.
It can be a bit confusing when you're posting to all of these platforms. Trying to figure out what the best times are, when users are online, and what the most effective pitch is, and if you're supposed to use hashtags or not, or even how many hashtags you're supposed to use without looking spammy.
Let's go through just a few of these. We won't cover them all, but I'll cover the big ones that I personally use or are trying to get into.
Pinterest is hands down my biggest traffic driver. It is more popular with women, and especially mums. It’s an awesome platform as its users are mostly geared towards visual content, finding inspiration and ideas, then pinning the posts we are interested in.
This platform allows people to shop from a board, allows marketers to give the user a visual search for products, and use keyword targeting to get to their audience. This is a great platform for those using e-commerce and trying to drive traffic to their site. The key here is to have content-rich pins that people will want to click on and re-pin.
It is advisable to use hashtags with our pins but we need to keep it under 20 hashtags. They need to make sense and be relevant to that pin.
If you are really serious about gaining traffic and utilizing Pinterest Marketing, I would recommend a minimum of 5 “fresh” pins per day and a maximum of 25. Try and stick with consistency. Don’t post a ton on one day and then nothing…so spread it out evenly on a daily basis. This would include both your own content, as well as curated. It’s important to remember that Pinterest likes “fresh” pins. So make sure you are constantly uploading new content.
Everyone knows Facebook! With Facebook, it’s important to know your audience first before you start sharing content willy nilly with everyone. Once you figure that out, you can then start sharing and appealing to your audience, in order to get those likes, and hopefully a bunch of shares, and with that comes page clicks too.
Facebook is a grand way to drive traffic to your site with rich posts that you can create using polls, posts, carousels, and other graphics that will bring the readers interest in.
Facebook demands engagement, though, so, if you're not prepared to engage with your audience, don't start a conversation!
Sometimes you need to start the first comment in order to get that conversation started. Ending posts with a question is another option, or creating polls is a great way to get the ball rolling with engagement.
This puts your finger on the pulse of your audience and gains their attention and gets you those clicks.
Instagram and Facebook are in the same bed together when it comes to content; however, how Instagram works is that it's more visual-based rather than post based. A lot like Pinterest in that realm of media.
Here you focus on your core audience with up to 30 hashtags (which are encouraged) and tagging people to help grow your audience with your content. Usually what happens is that people follow you and you follow them back to get a following. When people see you're doing that, you tend to get more followers—just bear in mind, no one likes a taker.
Instagram does regularly make changes to its algorithms, so it is something we are always needing to keep on top of.
When used correctly one can gain a good amount of traffic with content, so it is definitely a platform to consider.
This is honestly a platform for seasoned professionals in their field and is usually full of upper management and CEO of companies. This is also a place where people go to make connections through work to manage their portfolio of jobs, and to get a foot into a company or workplace that they're aspiring to work for. This is great for B2B markets or those trying to get in the door with influencers and thoughtful leadership marketing.
The best times to post on LinkedIn are during working hours. Outside of working hours you're not likely to see much engagement. Monday is also the least engaged day of the week, probably because the professional crowd is trying to catch up on their workload.
Now this platform! I personally don’t get the best engagement from Twitter, but that may be because my core audience isn't here.
It's also difficult at times to stay on top of the trending hashtags and not want to get spammy. Adding too much more than 4-5 hashtags and Twitter thinks you're spamming, following or unfollowing too many people in a day gets you landed in Twitter jail.
It's all a delicate balance that you have to follow. This platform is great, though, for those wanting to get into it, and you're familiar with the audience you have on here and what hashtags work for you.
In general, most of the time, Twitter audiences are tapping into it to look for the latest news and updates on current events, and the engagement times are usually best had between 8am-4pm EST on weekdays.
And there you have it! The top platforms that I personally use to drive traffic to my websites for FREE. How you use them, and your core audience is crucial to getting the best use out of them, and that also determines how you'll engage with your audience. Make sure that no matter which ones you choose, you're prepared to have content that will engage with them meaningfully and move them to have a reason to click through to your website.
One last reminder…Be YOU…Be genuine…be interesting…and of course…BE SOCIAL!
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I really appreciate you being here and hope that you've learned as much from this article as I did writing it!
If it has helped you in any way, please do take the time to comment below and share whether you’ve tried any of these methods I’ve mentioned.
And if you ever find that you need help with your content or your traffic, hop on over to my Services page and get in touch with me! I'd love to work with you...
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