Attract
Traffic
Consumers
today have become highly adept at ignoring advertising in all its
forms—they skip TV commercials, stream free online radio, block
emails from unknown senders and are virtually blind to banner ads.
Paid advertising alone is no longer a viable option for driving
traffic to your website; you have to earn traffic by creating
valuable content that attracts visitors.
Content
can mean many things to many people, but really it’s any valuable
piece of information or entertainment that attracts leads to your
site.
Some
content is naturally prone to lead generation purposes, such as
reports and webinars. For example, if you sell interior design
software, you could write a report called “10 Tricks for Better
Space Planning.” Other content could focus more on brand
awareness, such as a blog post titled “2016 Forecast on Colors
in Interior Design.”
In
both cases, you’ll attract traffic to your website with the lure of
valuable information. More importantly, you’ll start to develop a
trusted relationship with your visitors. When creating a content
library, it’s best to create one piece at a time. Before you know
it, you’ll have built a body of work that raises your brand equity
and serves to generate leads and raving fans.
Once
you have content in place, you want people to find it. Here are a few
ideas to get you started.
Get Discovered with SEO
SEO
(search engine optimization) is the process of getting your content
and website found when people perform searches on sites such as
Google or Yahoo. Better search engine rankings mean you get seen by
more people—and that increases traffic to your website.
Get
Results with PPC
Paid
advertising, or Pay-Per-Click (PPC), enables you to boost online
traffic by paying a fixed amount to promote link clicks to your
content and website. The best ways to get started in paid advertising
are through Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.
Google
AdWords—Google is the simplest and
most well-known platform for PPC advertising.
Basically, you bid on keywords that are most relevant to your
business, and then pay Google a certain amount for each time someone
clicks on your ad. The more popular the
keyword, the higher the per-click price.
Facebook
Ads—Facebook is second only to
Google in terms of site visitors per day. Where Google allows you to
target based on what people are searching for, Facebook allows you to
select what type of people your ad will be served to—say, yoga
enthusiasts or moms in a certain ZIP code.
Get
Social
Social
media doesn’t have to be daunting. And since 75% of consumers use
social media in some format to learn about products and services, you
can’t afford to not be in the social sphere. Start a blog to talk
about new products, industry news or company updates. Reward Twitter
followers or customers who “Like” you on Facebook with exclusive
offers and specials. And maintain your B2B connections on LinkedIn.
All of these services are free and easy to manage with only a little
effort. The keys to successful social engagement are being consistent
and being real.
