Thanks to Sam Hollis from Sam Hollis Web Design for this weeks guest blog.
1. Post useful links on social media
For most of you, social media is a great way to start promoting your website for two reasons: One, it’s free and two, you’re probably already able to write text, add photos and post links to promote your website on it. First though, you need to ensure that your website is part of your profile on all the channels that you use.
Then, post often and provide relevant links to your site. Posting regularly about things your followers may be interested in will remind them you exist and are there for them.
The best way to do this is to ensure that you have a lot of great, relevant content on your website that you can post about and link to. This could include offers, giveaways or products and blogs, as discussed below. Keep it varied and link to a relevant place in your website, not just your home page. With regular and relevant posts like these, you can easily use social media to drive traffic to your website.
2. Get blogging
Good blogs give people a reason to want to visit your site.
You can gradually build a solid flow of regular visitors with the help of a well-written blog.
Start by following these essential guidelines and learn more in my blog on the subject.
- Get the reader engaged by informing or entertaining them. Ideally, do a little of both. Be informative to show that you’re a reliable and knowledgeable authority in your field. Meanwhile, an entertaining blog tells readers you’re approachable.
- Then consistency is key. People want something regular to read every week or month. Once you have a consistent blog up and running, you can reinforce it with a regular email to get into people’s inboxes and bring them back even more often.
- Think about what your readers and prospective clients want. Tell them about current affairs in their sphere, give them advice they can use or work hard to entertain them.
- Build links between blogs and from your blog to other useful parts of your site to keep readers engaged and get them where they need to go.
3. Invest in paid search adverts
This is the quick yet expensive way to be found for the search terms you want. You can set a strict ‘spend limit’ budget and assess your results easily though. You also only pay for success – The ads are ‘pay per click’ so you pay when a user clicks on it. If you’re in a competitive online market it can get very expensive. It also takes a while to set up well – You need well-worded ads for a variety of well-researched search terms. It’s usually best to have these ads link to a specially designed landing page promoting a particular product or service that’s relevant to the keyword and the ad itself.
4. Share links with other sites
How do you get other websites to link to yours?
First, get your business listed on business listings pages such as Yell and Bark. Sites like these allow you to list your business and site for free, they just try to sell you extra services when you do.
If your website contains useful content, point people who might be interested to it. Get onto forums, chat rooms and social media groups relevant to your content and link to it. For example, if your cleaning service has a blog on removing wine stains from a carpet, you could comment and link to it on Mumsnet a thread where visitors are discussing that topic.
You can also look for businesses who have clients who may use your service but who aren’t in direct competition with you, like a carpet fitter for the carpet cleaner the example above. All you need to do is ask them to post a link on their site in exchange for a link on yours for mutual benefit. Learn more on link building here.
5. Emails and lead magnets
Sending out a regular email bulletin helps to bring people who have already been on your site or encountered your business back again and again. Most importantly, regular emails are there to remind each contact that you’re there when they need your service.
Below are a few basics for creating a good email newsletter. You can learn more about collecting email addresses, creating a mailing list and writing a newsletter on my site.
- Make sure it has some links back to relevant parts of your website.
- Get it looking good – Bulletins that look attractive and are relevant and useful to the reader are more likely to be opened.
- Include some useful content that’s relevant to the reader and link back to more on your website.
- Remember to be careful with data and the GDPR rules that govern its use.
- I would always advise the use of Moosend here. It’s easy to create good looking emails and it’s free until you are sending out thousands of emails a month.
For more information please contact Sam at [email protected]
