How to Increase Your Website Traffic - Social Media Marketing

The best way to bring more visitors to your website? You just need a good marketing plan!

Marketing – any sort of marketing – is about being seen. And being seen means finding a big group of people you can show off to.

Now, if only we could find a huge digital community that’s willing to interact with businesses and brands… a sort of ‘social network’, if you will…

What? We already have them? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

I’m joking, of course. But the fact is that social media is regularly overlooked as a way of boosting traffic, despite it being one of the most effective methods.

Why does it work so well?

Consider that…

• 4.9 billion people use social media
• The average person has 8.4 social media accounts
• People spend 145 minutes on social media each day, on average

Basically, social media is where your audiences are. So you need to be there, too.

How does social media boost traffic?

Social media marketing works to boost website traffic in 3 smart ways:

1. Attracting new visitors

Forming a strong social media strategy can extend your reach and increase engagement with new leads. It’s essentially an opportunity to break out from the confines of your own website and interact with a ready-made pool of potential customers by joining communities, participating in discussions, and commenting on posts.

You can even get your existing visitors to lend a helping hand, prompting them to share your blogs and articles on their own social media accounts and helping to get your brand in front of even more new people.

2. Encouraging return traffic

If you’ve been following this ‘How to Increase Your Website Traffic’ series, you may have already read the Content Marketing & Blogging post. If you have, you’ll know that publishing new stuff on your website regularly is key to getting visitors coming back time and time again. So how will they know when there’s something new for them to look at?

Let’s be honest, they’re unlikely to be checking your site every day. But they’re probably checking their socials. Use your social media accounts to announce your new blogs and updates.

3. Activating passive audiences

Sometimes, your online audiences just don’t think to visit your website, even if you’re visible, and even if they think you look good. It happens! Social media can help. You can use your social media CTAs to direct people to your website – and it really works.

Top tips

Here are my top tips for boosting traffic using social media marketing:

Link in profile

While you can add links in all sorts of places – like posts and comments – these should be more targeted for specific audiences. Don’t forget to include a general link in your profile, which will be visible to anyone visiting your social media account – a sort of ‘home link’.

Use a ‘link in bio’ service

If you’re adding links to your bio or social profiles, you’ll soon grow tired of manually changing those links – on every platform – each time you’ve got something new to share. A specialist service like Linktree allows you to share everything in one link, and make changes really easily. This is especially helpful if you want to link to multiple pages or resources.

Consider CTA destination

Don’t fall into the trap of using the same link for all your CTAs. Instead, consider the nature of the post and the type of people that might be interested in it, and think about what they want to see. Tailor your link to the most relevant landing page, blog, booking page, useful resource, etc.

Add links in comments

Research shows that adding links into the comments section of a post – rather than into the post itself – can result in improved awareness and better engagement. Just keep in mind that some people may miss a link in the comments depending on their comment display settings.

Choose your platform wisely

While 50% of female social media users say they use Pinterest, only 20% of male users say the same. So if you’re targeting male audiences, Pinterest may not be the best channel for you. You may even want to consider more niche options, like specific Reddit subreddits.

Keep it consistent

Remember that any social media accounts you open under your brand’s name are an extension of that brand. So it’s really important to try and keep a consistent message and tone of voice across your website, your social media, and anything else you choose to use.

Try URL shorteners

Really long links in your posts or comments aren’t very pretty. They can be confusing, too, and might even make your audience question the validity of the link. A URL shortener can help. A good (and free!) tool that I often use myself is Short.io. It’s worth checking out. URL shortening is also really useful if you want to get into UTM tracking (adding URL parameters to help segment where your website traffic is coming from, which is a whole topic in itself).

It’s all about value

I’ve probably made social media marketing sound a bit more tricky than it needs to be. But really, I’ve shared the above tips just because I want you to succeed, and I want you to see amazing results. The above is all just advice and guidance.

Remember – social media marketing needs a bit of creativity, so it’s well worth trying out different techniques.

The most important thing of all is providing value. When you provide value in your social posts, people will want to see more of your stuff. They’ll head on over to your website – and keep coming back.

At the end of the day, that’s exactly what we all want!

If you’d like to learn more about how to maximise your marketing presence to drive traffic to your site, contact me or if you want a discussion, I set a limited number of 2 slots aside every Wednesday afternoon to have free chats about websites or website strategy. You can book one of the limited slots here.

Looking at how your website couples with your social media and other traffic sources is also part of the website strategy we can form for you. That all starts with a 90-minute clarity workshop, which you can book here.

This is part of a series of articles all about bringing more traffic to your website. After all, what’s the point of having an engaging, exciting and effective website if there are no eyes on it?

You can find the other articles in this series, but also sign up to our mailing list, The Lumin Letter, to get alerted about when the next article drops so you can start getting more leads through your website. In each letter, you also get 1 strategic insight, 1 quick website tip and 1 bit of visual website inspiration.

• Article categories:
• Website strategy