A major component of content marketing is sharing your articles, videos and other media from your website to various social media channels. In turn, this will attract social media followers back to your website and create a steady stream of organic traffic.
That’s if you’ve ticked all the boxes and used the correct social platforms. Each social media channel has its strengths and weaknesses, so choose the best one for the task at hand and the results will show.
There are a few steps that we take for our clients to drive traffic from social media to their website, so here are some tips:
1. Have a constant stream of shareable content on your site – Keep uploading content on a regular basis (once a week, even) to keep the website fresh and relevant. Content can include a weekly tip, news story, helpful list or an interview with someone in your industry.
If you have a stagnant site that never changes, people won’t want to return once they’ve already visited. You don’t want to post links to the same page on your website again and again.
2. Make it easy to share your content to social media – Having great content on your site is one thing, but you need to make it easy to share by adding little social share buttons. Small Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ logos can be added to your articles that will allow readers to instantly post the link to their own timelines.
A plugin such as Digg Digg can be used to float these buttons alongside the article on your WordPress site. Include these share buttons on all pages of your site.
3. Optimise your social media posts – The most common way of posting a link to your website is by copying the link and pasting it into your status box. This pulls in the main image and the metadata for you, which you can’t change. You can then delete the link text and add your own.
Another way to post a link is to upload a photo of your choice and then add the link and your own description to the status section. This way gives you a little more control over your message. Use both of these methods and see which one gets more engagement and works the best for you.
4. Use links in other sections of your social media channels – To drive more traffic from social media to your website, include links in your ‘About’ page, on your profile photo descriptions and in your intro description.
Consider adding links on your personal profile too, especially in your ‘About’ tab. This will encourage your friends and family to check out your website as well.
5. Boost your posts – Advertising your content on social media is a great way to reach a wider (but targeted) audience. To boost a post, you decide who you want to target and how much you’re willing to spend on the advertisement and Facebook will boost the post to a certain number of people according to your budget.
Boosting content is a great way to get more likes, comments and shares on your posts, but it doesn’t necessarily result in more clicks through to your website. The Facebook Ads Manager does have an option to use news feed ads that improve your click-through rate.
6. Use visuals – The most commonly-shared type of content on social media is images. Strong visuals encourage more shares and engagement from your audience.
People like visual content as reading takes effort, and if they can see an image of your products, they’re more likely to make a decision to buy. If you have strong images, then utilise Instagram as this platform is designed to work well for photos and actually results in the most engagement when compared to other platforms.
7. Engage with your audience – Respond to your followers’ requests, suggestions and queries. People are quick to go to another brand if they feel ignored on social media.
Having a voice for your brand and speaking to your audience solidifies their trust and relationship with your company. They’ll be more willing to visit your website if they feel like you listen and care about them.
It’s important to understand why you want to drive more traffic to your website. Getting eyes on your site is pointless if you have nothing to offer in return.
Each piece of content on your site should either help the audience in some way (by offering advice, perhaps) or guide them further along the sales process by getting them to sign up to your newsletter or visit your store in person.
If you wish to partner with someone who knows how to apply these best practices to achieve your audience growth targets, don’t hesitate to contact us at: zani@mobimeme.com.
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