The story is pretty much the same for every new startups and marketer alike…
You put up this amazing website, tighten up your SEO tactics, try your hand at Social Media Marketing and start a regular blogpost…
3 months down the road, and besides a few visits per week with occasional social media ‘runoffs’ - The traffic coming to your site is ‘excruciatingly slow’ at best.
But don’t fret...
Estimates say that though 94% of small businesses, 93% of B2Bs, and 77% of B2Cs are using content marketing, only 9% of B2B Content Marketers consider their efforts to be ‘very effective’ (Source: CMI).
The stats do provide a sigh of relief and some sort of consolation – though it’s a ‘short-lived’ one – after which you may start questioning:
“Where did I go wrong?” or “Where is the ‘disconnect’?”
Well, there could be a number of variables at play, which could have jeopardized your content marketing efforts. For instance: Lack of or unrefined strategy; Not pouring in the required budget; Not promoting your content; Low content quality; Tough niche; Bad SEO… and the list could go on.
And it is very easy to fall into what some prefer to call as ‘SEO Myopia’.
Search Engine Optimization does play a crucial role in boosting your page ranks and driving search traffics but the truth is, SEO takes time to bring about effective results. Just relying on Google and other search engines to boost organic search traffic, could be a risky business.
The trick is to let the SEO take its ‘sweet time’, while we jump into driving referral traffics – Here’s how we do it:
1. Dip into well-known sites
These are the sites that deal with scores of topics and thousands of traffic, to begin with – an opportunity for you to redirect some of that traffic to your domain.
i. Quora
Quora is a platform where anyone can ask a question and find answers from an expert in the Quora community. It has the same feel as the Yahoo answers, but the site is ranked much higher.
The idea is to provide captivating answers to the questions posted. Great answers are sure to get upvoted – thus climbs to the top and becomes visible to more people. To redirect these traffic reading your answers – you simply insert a link to your website wherever appropriate.
ii. Forbes
Forbes is an online magazine site with varied topics related to business. The blogs on this site garner huge traffic. Below the blog, there is a section which says “comment on this story”.
A well-written comment can drive 25-50% of that traffic to your site (source: Quicksprout). They even allow including two external links, within the comments.
iii. Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed is popular among younger crowds in social niches like entertainment, food, movies, etc. You can write your own content/blog post on a text editor. Here too, you can insert links in the post to your site, for that traffic who loves your content.
At Buzzfeed, they will also help you promote your post on the site if it garners enough traction.
iv. Business Insider
Another site similar to Forbes is the Business Insider. Though it does reel in a vast amount of traffic, the topics dealt are a bit different, i.e. Finance, Tech, Politics etc.
At BI, the comment postings are unique, as you can add your URL next to your username when you leave the comments. Viewers who would like to dig further into your profile can click on the URLs next to your username, and visit your site.
2. Publish your site on online directories
A neat way to receive referral traffic is to submit your website to online directories. However, the directories you should enrol your site should be the ones mostly related to your industry or those that attract huge traffic.
Look out for the top directories in your city and industry first, and enlist your website with them. Google search can do the trick to figuring out the ones with the most traffic. Say if your niche is in hairdressing and beauty salons; you can then search for “Hairdresser in Los Angeles”.
The first two directories that pop up in the page rank on this search are both from Yelp. You can get your free referral traffic by simply registering on Yelp – The chances of users (the ones looking for hairdressers in LA) popping into your site through the directory is quite good, given the volume of traffic that Yelp attracts to its site.
3. Influencer Interviews
Bringing in a popular influencer, blogger or a thought leader for an interview for your content is a great way to add more value and authority to your site.
These influencers already have a huge following on social and professional networks, and as they share these posts or interview within their forums, networks and social media platforms - the chances of users visiting your portal or blog as referral traffic is highly enhanced.
The interviews can be in any format – video, audio or text; and it works for both, you and the influencer with regards to sharing each other’s referral traffic.
4. Guest Blog Posts
This is quite straight forward. If you can write for or get your blog posted to a huge industry website as a guest blogger, you can benefit from the referral traffics and links pouring to your site.
When blogging for authority sites like HubSpot or CMI; usually they provide space for external links, author bios and calls-to-actions, mostly at the bottom of the blogpost. This alone is enough to lure visitors to click the link to your site – provided your content is a compelling one and your blog comments and answers are well received by the users.
5. Social Media Buzz
This is by far the giant amongst the source for referral traffic. 89% of marketers are saying that social media have created more exposure to their businesses, and 75% assure that their website traffic has increased due to social media buzz. ( Source: HubSpot)
The topmost social media platforms for marketers are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+. Out of these, the top 20 traffic sites in the world are Google, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn – It is possible for every marketer to find their target consumers through any of these sites.
Every time you tweet, share, tag or pin one of your content; opportunities are created for referral traffic to flock to your site – Social Media is no more just a trendy way to get connected with your friends, but essential tactics for businesses and marketers to bring in more traffic and eventually boost their sales.
And Finally…
The process of generating high amounts of traffic to your site, and converting them to customers in this digitized market; is not just confined to any one technique. It is rather an art that takes a holistic approach by executing all of the above mentioned and more – via a carefully thought out and planned Content Marketing Strategy!
If you would like to know more or would like to contribute to this article I want to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249-5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Website is element7digital.com.au
