Generating website traffic can be a challenge for anybody, especially if you’re just getting your website started. There are plenty of ways to funnel traffic into your site if you’re willing to pay the big bucks but there’s also plenty of cheap to free alternatives that can have a huge impact on traffic. Social media has changed the traditional ways of marketing and reaching audiences giving small or new companies a viable area to grow. Take a look at some easy ways to generate traffic to your website:

Add Links To Social Bookmarking Sites

There’s far more out there than just Facebook. Try submit your content to StumbleUpon, Reddit, Pinterest, or other social bookmarking sites. This is a pretty hands-off approach to promoting your content but by floating it out there, you never know where it might reach.

Add Calls To Action

People love to ‘Click Here’, ‘Read On’, and ‘Learn More’. Using calls to action like those phrases can help demand attention from viewers and also gives a clear direction for what to do next. You don’t want your website traffic to slowly drift away because of navigation problems. Whenever you’re trying to get an audience to interact, it’s good practise to try to use a call to action phrase or button.

Make Your Social Media Page Cover Images Calls To Actions

Simply using a beautiful image or graphic to create an aesthetic on your social media page isn’t enough. You can use cover images to display call to action phrases and graphics to help draw in your audience.

Answer Questions On Social Q&A Sites

Direct replies from a company to your audience is a great way to garner trust from your audience. Take the time to respond to comments or questions because it’s a great way to start relationships and can drive the commenters back to your website.

Comment on Blogs, Forums, and Videos

Get your name out there in the vast internet world by commenting on popular blogs, forums, or videos. This can be a great way to establish yourself in a particular industry and get some referral traffic. Commenting can also be an excellent way to establish relationships with other content creators or peers in your field.

Have Employees & Friends Share Content

People trust their peers. Having your friends or employees share your content can help reach an audience more naturally than targeted advertising. However, it’s important not to overshare and lose credibility with your audience but occasional content sharing posts can be highly successful for generating website traffic.

Start a Facebook Group

A big part of getting traffic to your website is having lots of entry points. Creating a specific Facebook group for members to ask questions and start discussions is a good way to find yourself an audience. Generate trust with your members and direct them to your website when appropriate.

Blog All The Time

Blog posts are a great way to get traffic to your site. Create useful content that answers questions or solves problems in your field. Publishing multiple blog posts per week has been known to increase traffic to your site by a significant percentage. Establish your number of blog posts per week and keep to a schedule to make sure traffic keeps coming in.

Promote Your Blog Content on Facebook

Posting on Facebook used to be a great way to organically reach a large audience. In recent years the organic reach has been lowered meaning far less people will see your posts. However, putting a little bit of cash behind your ad can help tremendously. You can target custom audiences and use remarketing targeting to help bring in customers.

Get on YouTube

YouTube has only been steadily growing in popularity since it’s release. YouTube now has the most engaged traffic out of all social media sites. Videos are a good way to get an audience to engage in content. Keep your videos short and informational or long and thorough. Clips under 2 minutes and over 8 minutes tend to keep most people's attention, try to stay away from meandering medium length clips.

Spend Time On Your Headlines

Your headline may be the most important aspect when creating content or advertisements. Try to spend a good amount of time creating the perfect headline. Most people don’t read past the title and in a world of scrolling through large amounts of content, headlines are incredibly important to catch your audience's attention. Creating compelling headlines can be a challenge sometimes but there are a few general guidelines you can follow to get started:

• Use Lists
• Ask Questions
• Create Curiosity
• Trigger Emotion
• Make a Sense of Urgency
• Use Alliteration
• Establish Your Value

Internal Linking

Adding internal links to your blog content is an easy way to generate traffic in your website. Not only will it help build the SEO strength of your page but it also allows users to navigate through your site. Internal links are overlooked far too often, however like anything you don’t want to over do them. If you’re writing 1,000 word blog posts try to limit yourself to only 5-10 internal links, anymore than that is overkill.

Need help with your Social Media Marketing? Custom Fit Online can help. Feel free to contact us!

Filed in // Content Development, Social Media Marketing, Strategy