Creating engaging content on your website and social media nets customers for life, argues Max Pollington
It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, whether you’re well established or a brand-new start-up, every SME’s marketing aims should include increasing traffic to their website.
I’m about to show you some great ways you can get this increase in traffic using the power of inbound marketing. But, for all those newbies out there, first things first…
What is inbound marketing?
Put simply, inbound marketing is the process of creating valuable experiences for your potential customers, which has a positive impact on them and their business.
You might be asking, that sounds a little too simple, how do I do that exactly? Well, you attract prospects and customers to your website and blog through targeted content which is relevant and helpful to them. Once they arrive, you engage with them using conversational tools like email and chat and promise continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.
Unlike traditional outbound marketing, you don’t need to fight to get the attention of your potential customers; by creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, you attract qualified prospects and build trust and credibility for your business.
5 steps to driving traffic using inbound
Now that we have a basic understanding of what Inbound Marketing actually is, we can take a look at some of the best tactics you can borrow from it to see immediate, positive changes in your marketing and increase traffic to your website.
- Content is King. It’s a tried-and-true phrase, but it’s never stopped being correct. You need to be putting out quality content as that is what your ideal customers are looking for. A great place to start with this is blogging. You should already have a blog on your website (and if not, you need yesterday) and strive for a frequency of three to four blogs released each week.
- Make the most of your social media. You should be promoting yourself and your content on whatever form of socials you have. Be sure to share your blog content with your social media followers as soon as they go live to get the most traction. And make sure to post with pictures, as photos generate 53 per cent more likes than the average post.
- Find the right long-tail keyword phrase with high search volume. These are very targeted search terms, typically three words or more. The great thing about long-tail keyword phrases is that they not only help drive very targeted traffic because of their specificity, but they are also far less competitive than other, shorter search terms. If you start to create content around it, you’ll be shocked how quickly you can generate traffic from this term.
- Track and test all of your activities. If you keep a close eye on all of your landing pages, content offers, emails, web pages etc you can get a more accurate gauge of what’s working, and what’s not. Running an A/B test can yield some immediately actionable results that help improve your marketing and help you improve your website to gain more traffic.
- Improve your user experience. One of the main reasons your site may not be generating the traffic it deserves is because the UX is too difficult or complex. Offering a better UX increases the shareability of a site, since users are more likely to share great experiences, and this directly results in more referred traffic to your site.
These are just a few of the many ways inbound marketing can help your SME increase its website traffic, and even start capturing those all important leads. The beauty of inbound is that when you get it working, you not only generate much more traffic, but you also create loyal customers who are hungry for interaction with your brand.
Max Pollington is a digital account executive with Klood Digital
