You’ve spent hours writing unique content for your new website. You’ve taken fresh pictures. You’ve spent many nights burning the candle at both ends, slaving over a hot computer. Or, perhaps you’ve just spent a sizeable chunk of your budget paying someone else to do all that hard work for you. However you’ve done it, you’ve created your site and it’s a masterpiece.
But no-one’s looking at it.
It’s a common problem that many people run into. How do you attract visitors to your new website?
You might consider paid advertising, adding a line into your email signature, displaying your website address more prominently in your shop, or on your company vehicles and on any headed paper, compliments slips etc. But depending on the size of your company and your budget, you may need to be realistic as to how much web traffic those options will generate.
While content is still king, when it comes to Google’s algorithms, links from other websites are a great way of increasing traffic to your website. But attracting those isn’t always as easy as it first appears. If you’re not lucky enough to sell a particularly sexy, funny, or interesting product, you may find you need to work a little harder to get links from other websites.
Five link building tips to get you started:
1. Participate in relevant discussion groups, forums and blogs – Demonstrating that you’ve got a good knowledge in your field is a great way of building both a good reputation and links to your website. It can be hard work, but the long term rewards are there for those with enough dedication and patience. Many forums will allow you to include your website link in your signature and if it’s relevant to the discussion, you may be able to post links to articles you’ve written or even to useful products that you sell or to services that you offer.
A word of warning here: Don’t spam. Post links and participate when you think you can add something valuable to the discussion. Positive online reputations can take many months to build within a community, but any credibility you’ve built can easily be destroyed within minutes with impulsive, negative or flippant comments posted in the heat of the moment.
2. Web directories – There are many online directories listing websites within each business sector. You don’t need to go crazy and try to get yourself listed in every single one on the internet, but put yourself in the shoes of a potential visitor to your website and search out the most relevant and likely ones they’d visit should they be looking for your type of products or services.
3. Social Media – Social media is a very powerful method of driving traffic to a website. Sign up for a Facebook, Twitter and Youtube accounts. You’ll be able to post your website links, of course, but more importantly you’ll be able to start driving some of the huge amount of traffic from those websites to your own. Get yourself involved in communities and discussions. You might want to post some videos of your product being used on Youtube, or create a page about your product/service on Facebook, perhaps post an ‘offer of the day’ on Twitter. There are many ways to engage people with social media, so don’t be afraid to embrace it and make it work for you.
4. Suppliers/manufacturers websites – Many suppliers/manufacturers are happy to link to their customers’ websites, so search them out and simply just ask for a link! After all, when their customers are doing well, they get more orders for products. Getting yourself listed as a location to buy one of their items can be great not just for the link, but for the extra sales it may bring
5. Give something away and SHOUT about it – Running a competition or giving something away for free can be a great way to build links. The important thing to note is to tell people about it! Mention it in discussion groups, on forums and blogs (see above!), use social media (see above!), add your competition page to the various competition sites on the internet, do a press release, add it to your own blog etc.
Don’t forget, when the competition is over, shout about it again! Tell the world who the winner is. If there’s an interesting story, or innovative product involved, it’s another opportunity for a press release and again to attract more visitors/links to your website.
If you’d like help building links and driving traffic to your website using social media, marketing or press releases, contact us
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