If you’ve started an online business, the amount of traffic you drive to your online store is the deciding factor between its success and failure. So which are the best ways to maximise your traffic and promote your business? Here are our top tips.
SEO IS KEY
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and it’s used to describe a number of ways to appear higher up in the results of search engines.
SEO is vital in a world where everyone is constantly “Googling”. If your site is search engine optimised, it’ll appear higher in search engine results when people enter terms related to your products or industry, making your site easier to find. The higher the ranking, the more traffic and more brand awareness and revenue you receive.
Put simply, SEO helps you appear on the ‘high street’ of the internet as opposed to a side street or alleyway, so it’s much easier to market your business.
There are a whole host of ways to boost the SEO of your site, but we’ve picked out the most important two:
1. Use the right key words
Keywords are words or phrases that internet users search for that relate to your product or service. For example, if you sell curtains, your target keywords will be ‘quality curtains’, ‘roman drapes’ and ‘window decoration’. You can even use questions like ‘where can I find affordable curtains?’
If you make sure you’ve got keywords in place across your site that are relevant to your products and industry, this will help your business show up in the right searches. If you’re not sure which ones you should include, Google Adwords Keyword Tool can be really helpful. It shows the search terms people use when they search for your competitors, so you can use these to decide which keywords to focus on.
2. Create a company blog
Blogs are websites made up of multiple written entries, with the most recent entry appearing first. They’re designed to share the opinions, and usually include features such as comments and links to help bloggers engage with users.
Blogging is a powerful tool which can help increase your website’s search ranking (as long as your blog posts meet Google’s requirements around unique content and quality). Writing regular blog posts related to your industry or products can help to position your company as a leader in its field, and gives your customers faith that your business knows the market well.
3. Get to know key influencers
Sending out samples to bloggers or social influencers is a great way to drive traffic and promote your business, helping you to grow your business online. You can use tools like FollowerWonk to pick out popular influencers in your industry who can help you create a buzz around your brand.
Many will have contact details in their bios, meaning they might be open to accepting samples in exchange for a review. Some influencers are so popular that their followers are in the hundreds of thousands — so convincing them helping to promote your business could have a substantial impact on your bottom line.
4. Make the first move
Don’t be afraid to be proactive in your quest to promote your business. You can write a blog post for your company blog highlighting the key bloggers or social media accounts in your industry.
This is a great way to show engagement with your industry and get to know the people behind the blog or social media account. If you email or message them with a link to the article, they might even repost it themselves.
5. Do more with social media
You can use social media to start conversations with other users, whether they’re potential customers, prominent industry figures or fans of your brand, as this will help you boost engagement.
Different social media sites suit different types of businesses. For example, if you have a business with visually appealing products like food, furniture or art, Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook might be a good fit for you. If your business focuses more on B2B, LinkedIn might be a good strategic move to help you connect with the right people.
As mentioned earlier, FollowerWonk is great for growing your business Twitter account, as it helps you discover accounts that are relevant to your industry quickly and easily.
If you follow these accounts they might follow you back, which will help you to establish a solid presence online. From here, you can develop a social media strategy and keep followers up to date with your company’s latest developments.