6 Proven Ways To Increase Website Traffic With Social Media
A version of this story was originally published on Ad Age.
Think of creating a strategy for accruing website traffic like creating a mix tape—your focus, time and energy should be spent on only the best (and highest yielding) techniques.
It isn’t only about bringing a high number of people to your site. You’re looking for the people who might eventually purchase your product or service. We’ve worked with many big name brands, from Qdoba to FIJI Water, to level up their integrated marketing campaigns.
Here are 6 proven and easy-to-implement ways to increase website traffic with social media.
Social Media To Drive Website Traffic
1. Garner the clout of influencers
For each dollar marketing professionals spend on influencer marketing, they produce $6.50 in revenue.
There are an abundance of experts in your industry whose large social followings completely trust their suggestions and expertise. You’re directly reaching the perfect audience when influencers share your company’s story.
Consider using influencers to tell engaging stories and link to a deal on your website. It’s a tiny expense that can yield the incredible results of reaching their large network.
2. Be resourceful with your content strategy
We are past the days where everything is valuable for a brand in terms of content. Evolved marketing professionals will tell you that the depth and delivery of content matters.
It’s easy to spot the gaps when applying content intelligence to understand how your content is spreading awareness, building engagement and generating conversions.
Run an experiment for the next 90 days by posting content on your blog and other channels. Examine the metrics to discover patterns as to what content drives the most traffic to your site.
As Brandon Anderson, founder of Ceralytics puts it, “Content intelligence provides the data-driven foundation for content strategies. It takes you from guessing what content will work to knowing what content will work.”
3. Experiment with several offers
When something is only available for a short time period or exclusive, it appears to be more attractive to customers.
You can typically see positive results and metrics within a few days of running a special “offer.” These short term offers are a great experiment for driving web traffic.
While offers will vary across industries, the general rule of thumb is that all offers should have a deadline, and you should be sure new customers taking advantage of a short-term offer get the best initial impression of your product or service.
Play with various offer types to decide what duration and messaging might be best at encouraging website clicks and registrations.
4. Develop video content
YouTube has the best conversion rate of any social channel. Though the upfront cost of creating a video can be exorbitant, it’s usually worth the time and effort.
The average YouTube video holds 37% of viewers’ attention to the last second, according to Hubspot.
Aside from YouTube, all other big name social channels are putting substantial importance on video content – it’s captivating, it’s winning and it produces results for companies that incorporate it correctly.
For Facebook, video is achieving powerful results for brands interested in profitable and practical ways for developing engagement.
5. Start with social media marketing
Before moving to paid options, consider using social media marketing as a completely free option for a fast experiment. But don’t just start posting content without formulating a strategy first.
Begin by watching your social media mentions to find discussions happening across your industry, and reply with insightful, informative comments and links.
Twitter is usually the choice channel for quick conversations.
Although organic reach has diminished significantly, this is a good place to start as you’ll have a benchmark before you start paying for awareness and engagement.
6. Dive into the “paid” social world
Paid advertising, especially if you’ve never explored that as a marketing avenue, is usually a reliable tactic. But push past Google AdWords that you’ve always done into the paid social ad domain.
Facebook and Instagram are potent when it comes to producing web traffic, with LinkedIn coming in a close third.
If you want to explore paid ads short term, it’s more practical to start with one social network and see what kind of immediate results you get.
Test, Test & Test Some More
A mixture of “tests” might be what you need to gain the website traffic required to create your brand. The majority of seasoned marketers will rightly insist upon the significance of experimenting and the willingness to try new things.
Just because a certain strategy created results one month, doesn’t mean it will work as well the following month.
Success isn’t about finding one method and sticking with it– it’s about being spirited enough to test out a winning blend– and never being too timid to change your techniques.