Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter receive millions of unique visitors each day and if you’re not utilizing these websites for extra traffic you’re missing out! No matter the size of your website, popular social media platforms can be used as a source for both several different things including brand exposure, incoming links and traffic. There are so many different platforms out there I could keep you busy for hours trying to learn each. Instead, I’m going to use this post for explaining more about some of the largest social networking sites and how you can use them for boosting traffic into your website.
Facebook – At this day in age virtually everyone has used Facebook at one time or another. It’s not uncommon for a website owner to setup a new Facebook page for their business, but many fail when it comes to properly promoting that page and using it to generate new traffic. First, if you don’t already have a Facebook page setup for your website then that should be at the top of your list. It’s fast, simple and free to do so there is no excuse for your website not to have one. Once your page has been created you need to begin adding some content to it. Content on Facebook pages can be as simple as a funny image or link to your website. Before you focus on getting traffic into your page it’s best to get a couple dozen status updates put on there. Mix it up between links to different products or pages on your website, images that may be helpful or funny to people in your industry, and even some videos if you can make them. Once your page has a variety of different things on it people who visit the page will be able to spend some time on there and browse through more than just links. The next step is getting people to like and follow it. There are several ways to do this and building likes to a page really isn’t as hard as you may think. First, you can purchase ads through Facebook directly. Boost your posts or setup a Facebook Ads account to simply buy exposure and likes. The second method is free and my preferred way – Groups. Join several relevant groups on your personal (or create an additional) Facebook account and then share posts directly from your page into the groups you’re a member of. Other members will see your posts and since the groups are relevant, many of them should find your posts helpful. If you share links this will generate traffic as well! Create a page, join groups, and then share links and images into each of those groups once per day. Try this and you’ll find your page will grow with new/relevant likes while also sending new/relevant traffic into your website!
Twitter – Twitter can be another great source for website traffic. Best of all, unlike some other platforms, you don’t need a million followers to have your updates seen on Twitter. In fact, you don’t need any followers at all. The key to properly promoting your website on Twitter (and getting traffic from it) is to use hashtags. Popular hashtags are always getting searched and yours can be found with ease if you use enough of them. Unlike Facebook where you may share 1 post into several groups just once or twice per day, you want to be posting on Twitter constantly. Status updates are all that’s needed, but you should also mix it up between images, links and videos. If I were promoting a website in the poker niche then I’d upload my image, type a short description, and then put as many tags inside as possible. Terms like #poker #texasholdem #pokertips #pokerstrategy #onlinepoker and others would likely get my tweet thousands of impressions per week if I were tweeting multiple times per day.
Pinterest – Unlike the other two I listed above, Pinterest doesn’t use status updates. Instead, Pinterest is completely image based. It draws a larger female crowd, but that can be great because studies have shown women spend more money online then men do. The key with getting traffic from Pinterest is to make sure your images are good. They should be something people will want to click on and then follow to your website for more information. For example, basic stock photos will not usually do well on Pinterest. However, photos of a delicious pie that has text on it saying the recipe is available will probably get several clicks. Users see that delicious pie and want the recipe for it, so they have a reason to wanna click the image and learn more. Pinterest can be a wonderful source of traffic for many niches, just make sure you’re pinning the right kind of images that people will want to click and learn more about!
