An easy, straightforward path to a booming website is the dream of every digital marketing professional. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 100,000 daily visitors to your online shop or blogging site? Business-owners seem to like this idea too, since there’s a big reward for any marketer who can place a website on page 1 of Google. Sounds like a good challenge, right?
The bad news is that there is never a straightforward path to digital fame; it’s a highly complex path with a lot of variables. Let’s break it down. First, you have to deal with traditional marketing strategies such as researching consumer needs, supply and demand, pricing (if any), targeting, and promotion. Once you’ve got your game plan sorted there, you can move on to the next challenge – getting users to actually click on your site, navigate it properly, and take action by accepting your services or purchasing your product. It is easy to think that the same principles apply here, since we’re still communicating with the same people groups using the same text, audio and video. While this is true, online platforms require a lot more work on the consumer’s part, and it’s up to us to make this as easy as possible!
So what’s the best approach in directing large masses of users to your website? Let’s have a look.
SEO
This is something a lot of companies will pay big money for. And for good reason. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is any online strategy that will make your website appear at the top of search engine keyword searches. The idea behind this is that since almost nobody scrolls past the first page of Google, your website is wasted unless you get it to the top.
Now there are a few ways of doing this, and the best way is through the website’s architecture. You need to include as many keywords as possible in all content uploaded to the site – ask your web designer to do this. If you’re blogging, try to make your titles long, make use of tags, categories. Any image you upload titled “IMG_314″is a waste – instead rename it to “ABC Accountants will assist you in asset protection”.
Another thing you can do is to make sure your site is engaging and easy to navigate. Wouldn’t it be a shame if someone were to at last click on your site, only to find it confusing? I can assure you – put a lot of work into planning every single page, link and layout, and it will increase your revenue. Pure and simple.
Email Marketing – Dead or Alive?
Time to settle a long-running debate. EMAIL MARKETING IS NOT DEAD!
It can be easy to think the humble email is old history with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and a whole range of iOS and Android apps. But in my belief, nothing has truly (and I mean completely) replaced the email. Email protocol, Outlook and calendars are still the standard in most Western business IT systems. I’m yet to work for a company where these aren’t integral tools, and I don’t know if I ever will. What I’m trying to say is, the business world are obsessed with emails. The rest of the world too. So when you’re advertising on a platform with such a high viewership, why not give it 100%?
First you’ll need a marketing software tool (unless you’re a HTML wizard) to make your emails attractive, personalised and colourful. MailChimp is the most famous of these (and its free!), but there are hundreds. With these software tools, you can set up mailing lists, send personalised emails with appealing subject lines and attractive colour schemes to suit any recipient. Combine this with a mailing list spreadsheet of prospective clients, and it will have the masses visiting your website in no time!
Social Media
Facebook pages, statuses, Tweets, Instagram, heck even Snapchat is being used as a playing field for advertisers these days. Remember, social media sites often advertise themselves as philanthropic social tools (free for the good of mankind), but really they are at essence just marketing platforms.
Take Facebook for instance. Noticed lately that 80% percent of your news feed is made up of videos and content you never Liked? That’s because companies invest thousands of dollars in promoting their pages and optimising them for social media.
A few tips: COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT! Nothing scores visitors like a well placed comment on other blogs, pages, and Tweets. These personal messages give a face to your company, and is bound to draw a little curiosity in your audience. Curiosity draws customers. Are you managing a Facebook page with 44 followers? I have many times. Comments will grow this number into the thousands.
Social media also gives you the opportunity to promote content with real currency, just as you’d pay a newspaper for advertising space. This is great news. Luckily, you get to set your target audience, and a little tip here is to make your target audience as specific as possible. If you ran a fashion website for example, instead of setting your audience to females in Australia, set it to females in Sydney, aged 16-23, who have the beach as an interest. Doing this will increase your chances of getting clicks, likes, and therefore sales.
For Twitter, check out this article: 10 Tips for Crafting the Perfect Tweet.
Stay Active
Success may not come immediately. Like everything, it’s hard to get everything right on first try. Online strategies are always going to need some fine tuning before you start drawing in visitors by the thousands. In these times, persistence is key. The best you can do is keep posting, keep commenting, keep making moves. It shows your audience you’re committed to long-term success, will bring in new followers, and keep the old followers happy.
Just remember, a Tweet takes 30 seconds to write. Invest 90 seconds of every week into this alone, and you may just find your company earning a few thousand dollars in extra revenue this year.
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5 Tips to Promote your Facebook Page
e-CBD Top 11 Email Marketing Tips
Had any success with gaining a large mass of followers? Send me an email and tell me how you did it.
The PR Practitioner 