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Generating more clients for your business requires a great deal of effort and resources. Growing your monthly sales volume would mean attracting users from every possible source. After all, you can’t always rely on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts to bring in the money; other means of building your client base are just as important.
While organic visitors (people who look for your products or services using keywords) are very likely engage your brand through other sources can help enhance your lead acquisition efforts, improve the search engine ranking of your websites, and, more importantly, make your brand credible and trusted to your audience.
It’s for these reasons that you should put a greater focus on getting referral traffic coming from other places online. However, experiencing the benefits of better referral traffic doesn’t come easily. You need to put your best foot forward in optimizing your brand when it comes to generating referral traffic.
So, before you get started on crafting an awesome strategy for getting users coming from other websites or social networks, consider these six surefire ways for referral traffic.
1. Social Media Marketing
The most basic way you can generate referral traffic is through social media networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. These platforms help a lot with raising brand awareness, but they can serve as effective sources of referral traffic.
For this, you can simply publish a social media post and attach a link which redirects to your website. It’s simple enough, but the challenge involves creating a social media post that engages your audience and causes them to convert by clicking the link.
It’s all a matter of coming up with a social media marketing plan which includes the specific types of content you will want to post.
Here are a few of the best activities to include in your campaign:
- Share blogs: If you regularly post blogs on your website, you may want to share them through your social media pages to widen your reach and improve your readership. Be sure to automate your social calendar so you can share blog content at the best possible time and day.
- Create posters: Do you have special events or promos your audience should know about? Designing eye-catching posters with an effective call-to-action should do the trick!
- Develop a video series: You can never go wrong with video tutorials and vlogs that can be easily shared across different social media platforms.
- Use the right hashtags: Hashtags can help your business find people who are looking for a specific product or service. Whether you are using Facebook or Instagram for marketing and brand-building, take time to research relevant hashtags with high engagement rates.
2. Guest Posting
Social media is not the only place you can share links that redirect to your website. You can also include backlinks in articles you contribute to authority sites. In case you don’t know what an authority site is, it’s a website that people trust for industry-related news and other content.
These authority sites are a goldmine for referral traffic and being able to contribute an article or two (or guest posts as marketers like to call them) goes a long way. Many of these sites allow you to add links to your guest posts so you can redirect traffic to your website.
Attaining the privilege of writing for authority sites like Forbes comes at a very hefty price. In some cases, you need to be an established leader in your industry to start guest posting. Either way, the returns can be very substantial if you are able to provide a quality article that also adds value to the readers of the authority site.
Before you even contemplate writing for news sites and industry blogs, make sure to have a clear goal in mind. Here’s a suggestion: You can identify trends in your industry and how these are impacting the niche you are in.
3. Forum Posting
People flock to forums to ask questions and get answers straight from other people. For this reason, forum posting is highly effective when it comes down to raising brand awareness and, of course, generating referral traffic.
Using the right methods, you can enhance your online presence and build authority as an industry leader. First, you need to look for forums that specifically talk about your industry. If your business specializes in automotive maintenance, you can join forums dedicated to motoring. Make sure to choose forums that are high on the search engine rankings.
Before joining, make sure to determine if a forum accepts no-follow links or, in other words, allows you to include links. The best way for you to know is to use Google Chrome’s “Inspect” feature and see if the forum’s web address contains the “rel=nofollow” tag.
Once you have found a forum that lets you build links, you can proceed to joining threads on topics that are very close to what your business offers. For this, it’s always important not to approach every thread with the intention to “sell.” Concentrate on providing value to your audience and include your links as naturally as possible.
Lastly, publish your responses in a timely manner so as to keep potential visitors engaged.
4. Listing Your Website to Online Directories
Online directories provide information about businesses that specialize in a certain product or service. These directories help small businesses get found easily by the right customer, and can support your business by redirecting potential customers to your main website.
Getting your business listed in high-value online directories is simple enough. All you need is to build an engaging profile or page on platforms like Yelp, Bing or even Google My Business. As you set up your profile, you need to complete every detail about your business so it will be easier for search engines to index. You will need to add your contact information, business address, as well as pictures of your facility.
Completing your profile brings in numerous benefits for your business. By providing important information that potential customers can use to reach out to you, you also build credibility and authority.
When it comes to getting traffic from non-organic sources, online directories are definitely the way to go. You just have to provide enough information about your products and services and provide the backstory of your business.
5. Releasing Press Releases
A press release allows you to announce major developments in your organization, whether you are opening up a new branch or expanding to another market. News websites and even authority websites in your industry can publish your press releases, allowing media organizations and the general public to pick up the information you want to convey.
As a powerful tool for generating referral traffic and building credibility, publishing a press release is something your business shouldn’t overlook. When writing one, don’t focus too much on selling your brand. You want to provide information that your audience has to know. You need to be very cautious when placing links to the content of your press releases. You wouldn’t want online publications or blogs to think you are publishing for the sake of enhancing your search engine rankings.
Another important consideration is the choice of news or media website who will publish your press release. Before you can even submit your press release, learn more about the kind of content the website picks up. It’s also important to know if the website has certain editorial guidelines you need to follow.
Remember that writing a press release is only half the battle. You also need to pitch your article through a well-written email. The process can be a handful, but it can generate massive returns in the long run.
6. Becoming an Industry Authority
At the end of the day, having the ability to generate referral traffic boils down to how your audience views your business. Demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in your niche or market gives you greater leverage in attracting people from other sources other than the search pages.
While some of the suggestions above can help out with building authority, there’s a lot more you can do to make an impact on your audience and direct them towards your website.
For one, you can write ebooks you can sell on Amazon, start your own podcast or an educational video series on YouTube, or connect with influencers who are closely related to what you sell. Regardless of the platforms you are using, it’s how you bring value that encourages people to click the links that take them to your website.
You can’t always concentrate on SEO to put your brand front and center. You also need to bring your message directly to your audience and broaden your reach. By focusing on referral traffic, you also get to rake in potential clients wherever they are online.
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