What is the one thing that your business struggles with online?
For a lot of business owners, the hassle of growing web traffic seems to dominate their marketing efforts. They could be doing everything they can — their web design is responsive, their search engine optimization is in place, and they have enough quality content — but traffic is still low.
Indeed, traffic is the lifeblood of online businesses. Without good traffic, there will be no leads, no sales, and eventually, no business.
There are over 160 million blogs online, and many of them (71%) get fewer than 5,000 visitors per month. Even if you have the highest conversion rate, it’s impossible to build a successful business with 200 visitors per day.
The following are tips by expert marketers to help increase your traffic and give you an edge over your competitors.
1. Find and connect with influencers in your niche
Presumably your target customer cannot be described as “journalist’’ or “influential blogger.”
As such, your audience can’t be expected to share your content in any significant degree.
Your audience might very well respond to your content; however, since they don’t run websites in your niche, they have no impetus to share your content on multiple platforms.
On the other hand, the influencers in your niche most likely share in-depth articles. This means you need to strike a balance between creating content that your audience needs and content that your influencers can promote.
2. Send free samples to influencers on Instagram
Instagram gives brands far more engagement than Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus. It’s also a great way to drive traffic to your store if you can connect with popular users in your niche.
Connecting with influencers shouldn’t be a complicated task: let’s say for example, you’ve just started a new company that sells hair products online. Look through Instagram for popular accounts that list “hairstylists” or other similar titles in the bios or usernames.
When you find such a person (and their contact info), send them a message about your new product and ask if they’d be willing to accept samples.
Take time to learn what your influencers care about; that way, you can come up with content, messages, and products that get their attention. If you make an impression, they will follow you back and share your content with their thousands of followers.
3. Reach out to the press and bloggers
Yes, there are other people that you can reach out to as well: bloggers, vloggers, and the press.
Some of them have large followings and the process of connecting with them is quite similar to that of influencers.
You can do a quick search on Google or play around with keywords to find people that write regularly on your niche.
Reach out to local news websites and community papers if you have a unique story to tell, and discuss your product in a way that makes the business stand out.
When reaching out to get press attention, write a short, compelling story about what makes your business or product unique, and if possible, try to pitch yourself as a success story.
4. Post your business to Reddit to get more traffic
A huge section of the internet hangs out on Reddit. Reddit has thousands of niches called subreddits and you can find a subreddit on just about any topic. As a business owner you may be interested in popular subreddits such as /r/entrepreneur and /r/smallbusiness, which cover great business advice.
Take a look at related subreddits and make brief posts that mention your store and products, always showing why people need to visit your website and make a purchase. Make it catchy, snappy, but not very sales-y; and pay attention to the rules of your subreddit.
5. Get all your family and friends to share
Are you tired of looking at baby pictures from your friends on Facebook?
If you’re feeling left behind because your friends have crossed over into another phase of life while you were still busy researching industry secrets for your new online business, it would serve you well to showcase your new online store.
People don’t launch businesses too often, so it will generate some interest within your circle of friends to see you march off to start a business.
Reach out in a targeted way to all your friends and family; it won’t come off as irritating. Just talk about your store in an update, and don’t focus on getting them to buy your products: instead, you should offer your products for free (they are your friends and family after all) and encourage them to share.
When you proactively engage on social media, it generates interest and momentum. If you can keep posting relevant content and presenting your product in a fun and unique way, it will get you more traffic in the long run. Traffic + responsive web design + quality content all contribute to attracting potential clients and retaining them.
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Originally published at www.bookmark.com on December 12, 2016.
