Driving Traffic via Social Media - #TuesdayThoughts

Social media has many great benefits and uses for business, but it should always have a primary goal too. Social media can drive valuable traffic in to your website and the primary goal is to make those visitors buy into your product or service. As great as social media is for your digital strategy, it will rarely make money for your business by itself. However, there is revenue to be made through the valuable traffic it generates.

This journey starts on your social media pages. Make sure that your website's URL is easy to find within your page. Whether it is shown in the 'about' description or in a pinned post, ensure that it is accessible for those who want to find it. Test the link yourself so that you it works.

Consistently publishing updates on your website's blog or news page will help drive traffic to your website organically. Google loves finding new content to index, and sharing links to these on your social pages can only help to increase traffic. In your posts, you should give an insight into what the article is about; post statistics reflected in the article to engage people, or ask a question to draw people into what the article is about. Grab the attention quickly and get people on to your website.

Sometimes people simply need to be told what to do. This is why calls-to-action are very important. These are statements such as ‘Contact us now’, ‘Click Here’ and ‘Find Out More’ which tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do. These simple phrases could be the difference between someone clicking through to your website or not bothering. Make sure to try different calls-to-action to see which works best for your audience. Also, bear in mind that different platforms and different types of article will work better with specific audiences. Don’t be afraid to run some tests until you find the best engagement.

Different business sectors research and use different Social platforms. Not all companies require a LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you spread yourself too thin then you won’t pay the necessary attention to each individual platform to fully utilise it. Do some checks and find out where your target customers tend to gather. By focusing your attention on the right platforms, you can drive traffic more easily and spend less time on platforms where you’re just not getting the results. Read our article on what platform works best for your business to get a full understanding of the potential social media has for your business before deciding.

Although one of the many appeals of social media is that it is free, sometimes a small boost will do the world of good. Advertising on social media is a simple and effective way to increase traffic to your pages and website. With Facebook you can spend less than £10 to 'boost' your post to a wider audience of people. And with social ads you can be very specific with who you are targeting. This can include positions, company sectors and geographical areas. If you are going to pay to boost your social media posts, make sure that you are specifying who you want them to reach so that you get the best results.

Social media is one of the many ways you can drive traffic into your website. To find out about more strategies, contact me here - 0141 771 7242

By Amy Carpenter