How to Increase Traffic on Website Through Social Media

SEO Search Engine Optimization contributes to a large part of your web traffic, but you can also increase traffic on your website through social media. Sharing blog updates and engaging in conversations with people on your favorite social networks can bring in visitors if you follow a few simple strategies.

For one thing, people don't respond to advertisements or constantly being told to click links. But if people like you and your organization, they'll want to support you — people tend to support people they like and trust. That means even something as simple as clicking your links, re-sharing your updates, and supporting your efforts.

Here are five ways you can increase traffic on your website through social media.

1. Be the Benevolent Expert

This step is going to inform the next four because it should be the way you manage your personal brand and reputation on social media. If you can do this, then the next four steps will be easier.

Your goal here is to give away the good stuff, the valuable information, the solutions to people's problems. This way, you can establish your expertise and knowledge, which ultimately helps you sell more products or services.

When you share your expertise, people will want to know more. They'll assume that you have a lot more great information in your brain, and they'll hire you or buy from you to get it. They'll pay for your products because you've demonstrated how those products can solve their problems. They'll pay for your services because they want you to work your magic for them.

How do you do share that information?

By having conversations and answering questions on social media. By sharing valuable information like blog articles or advice. By educating people through videos and podcasts.

Don't treat social media like a free advertising platform where you shout, "Buy my stuff! Buy my stuff!" That gets annoying fast and people will ignore you.

Just offer valuable information and let them see how your expertise can work for them.

My own short story

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, my company was the first to sell reflective insulation online to home owners. As part of my marketing efforts, I would hang out on the Usenet's alt.home.diy and alt.home.maintenance discussion groups. Every so often, people would ask questions like "How can I keep my attic cool? or "My house gets hot in the summer, what can I do?"

I would offer insulation advice, telling them about what reflective insulation could do and how it worked. Other times, I would answer questions about fiberglass and foam insulation, even though they were our competition.

I never mentioned my company or the fact that I sold reflective insulation, but I did leave my company website in the footer of every message. Occasionally, someone would wonder why I knew so much about insulation. They would visit my website, read about our products, and place an order.

They bought from me because I had proved my expertise by giving away the good stuff. They trusted me because I didn't try to sell to them. I didn't lead with a sales message, I only provided helpful information.

You can do this now just by answering questions and having conversations on your various social channels.

2. Join Social Media Watering Holes

Watering holes are the places where people gather to discuss issues that affect them.

Facebook is a watering hole where people share personal updates and other people comment on them. LinkedIn is a watering hole where people discuss issues about work and their careers. There are watering holes for shared interests, work, or our personal lives.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, one of the most popular gathering places were forum discussion boards. And even though we have LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, these forum boards still thrive.

These are usually industry- or interest-specific gathering points where people talk about anything from cars and motorcycles, horses and farm animals, or software and technology. I've found forum discussions about console radios from the 1940s, woodworking, beer making, and even specialty steel manufacturers.

Some forums are more than 25 years old, but they still attract passionate participants of that particular field. So these even may be good places to find possible mentors and thought leaders for you to connect with.

LinkedIn Groups are another type of watering hole. You can join different groups related to your industry, field, or job. You can participate in the discussions or you can start your own discussions. Ask questions or post surveys to get people commenting on your messages.

And if there's not a group for your particular field or job, start one. You don't need anyone's permission. Just create a group, invite your industry contacts, and post interesting content that keeps people coming back and engaged.

3. Build Listening Posts

Listening posts are basically social listening tools that will monitor different social networks for a particular keyword, phrase, or hashtag.

So Twitter's or Instagram's hashtag monitoring is considered a listening post.

You can pay for this kind of monitoring, which is ideal if you work for a large company and receive hundreds or thousands of daily orders. Or if you only get a few sales per day or week, you can create free or low-priced listening posts with a little knowledge and creativity.

For example, set up a search column on Twitter's Tweetdeck for a particular hashtag or keyword about your industry. Then, when someone tweets that particular word, that tweet will show up in your column. It doesn't matter if you're following that person or not. If they tweet the word, you can respond to it.

If they ask a question, answer it. If they share an observation, respond to it. If they complain, help them solve it. The one thing you shouldn't do is sell to them. If they ask a question, don't point them to your catalog page. If they complain about a competitor, don't tell them how you could do it better.

You can also create your own listening posts by creating hashtag chats on Twitter.

Years ago, I used to participate in the weekly #blogchat on Twitter, and was even asked to be a guest "speaker" once. Everyone sat at their laptops Sundays at 7:00 PM, and a moderator would ask questions of the speaker.

Each question or answer had to use the #blogchat hashtag, and everyone would monitor the discussion on Tweetdeck or another tool called Twitterfall. As the moderator and speaker discussed the questions, other people would share their own answers or ask their own questions.

Just like a LinkedIn group, if a particular chat hashtag doesn't exist, you can start one. Create a term, set a time and date for the discussion, and invite all your contacts. It may start slowly at first, so stick with it for a few weeks and it should start to catch on.

4. Share Blog Articles on your Social Networks

You want to make sure you're providing value in your social updates. One of the best ways to do that is by writing blog articles that inform, educate, or entertain.

They shouldn't be regular sales messages; instead, they should help your customers in some way. Answer questions, provide solutions, analyze industry happenings, or educate people about a particular issue.

Expand each frequently asked question from your website.

Find email messages where someone said, "How do I ?" or "Why should I ?" and answer them in about 800 - 1,000 words. Remember, this may be the first and only article anyone sees on the subject, so you want to be thorough. *

• If people have told you that "no one reads long content, they only want short content," that's incorrect. People are more interested in long content than ever before. Plus, Google prefers long content, so if you want to get Google's attention, write long articles.

Share your blog articles on social media a few times each week. Don't just tweet your article once and hope for the best. Use a service like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck and Zapier to push your blog article to your favorite social networks several times per week.

My usual social sharing schedule is to promote a new article three times per day in the first two days, twice in the next two days, and once in the last three days. Of course, I make sure to have other content between each article posting, so no one has complained.

This way, I can be sure that more people are seeing my articles because everyone is not on Twitter or Facebook at the same time. By sharing the article at different times of day, I reach different people.

5. Focus on the best networks for you

There are a lot of social networks out there — somewhere in the thousands. Some of the most popular ones are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. (There are also podcasting and blogging, but those are content channels, not necessarily the same kinds of social networks as the ones I've mentioned.)

Because there are so many platforms, it may be tempting to try to join as many as you can in order to reach the greatest number of people. Unfortunately, that strategy won't work as you will eventually reach the point that it takes you half a day just to post a single message, let alone read each of the newsfeeds and still manage to get all of your work done.

Normally, I recommend that people select Facebook if they sell to consumers and LinkedIn if they sell to businesses. Pick Instagram if you sell products and can show them to customers. Select Twitter regardless of what kind of business you have. TikTok is great if your audiences are young Millennials or Generation Z, but not necessarily Gen X and Baby Boomers.

If you sell office equipment, skip Facebook. If you sell clothing for teenagers, skip LinkedIn. If you sell consulting services to corporations, TikTok is not for you.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. I know B2B companies that have locked up big contracts on Facebook, and people who have sold services to older adults on TikTok. But for the most part, the lines for the audiences have been drawn.

There are social networks for different countries and languages, as well as interests and industries. And there are new social networks being launched all the time.

Should you get involved with any of the new ones? Possibly. They might be worth a try, but don't abandon the social networks you've already grown. While nothing lasts forever, the Big Six will most likely be around for several years. And if one of them fails, something new will take its place.

The most important thing is that you pick the ones that appeal to your customer base the most and put all of your energy into those. Pick only two or three, share messages between them, and focus on growing those networks to their peak.

Final Thoughts

SEO is critical to your website's success, but don't ignore social media. People will find your website through any number of channels, so put plenty of energy into your two or three favorite social networks.

Share interesting and valuable content, have conversations, and avoid being so sales-focused that you bore your followers. With the right voice and attitude, you can increase traffic on your website through social media and build a name for yourself by doing it.

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