The obvious one would be paid advertising.
Where most businesses will attack advertising is the bottom of the funnel:
Buy our product.
Read about our service.
That kind of thing. And that’s a good place to begin. You want to get people when they’re willing to buy.
But the game of life is about attention.
Some estimates say that we’re in “buying mode” for any particular product or service only about 3% of the time.
Advertising in sales mode for your new website and business only take on 3% of the attention of your target customer.
What about the other 97%?
Here are some ways to start getting visitors to your new site…
1. Social Media Engagement Blitz
This will take time, but it’s easier to do than ever.
When you’re sitting in bed at night watching TV, take out your phone. You probably have it on your nightstand or in your hand already.
In fact, you’re probably already on social media. The last study found that we spend 2.5 hours a day on social media. And that number is going up more and more everyday.
But instead of just scrolling through photos on Facebook and Instagram, start looking at the things your audience is following.
Identify hashtags that relate to your business.
If you’re a local business look for hashtags relative to your city. Follow them. Check in on them and see what posts are getting engagement. Then leave a comment, like them, and all that kind of engagement.
Also look for posts that maybe aren’t the most popular, but that get pretty good engagement.
Leave your comments. You can leave things like, “Great post. Thanks for sharing.” That will work okay. But try to add something to the post.
If you see a great photo of your city, really dive into why you love the photo. Maybe it’s a photo of a particular part of town. Share a story that you experienced in that part of town.
Do this everyday. Let’s say you leave 20 comments a day.
Make sure your profiles have a link to your new website. You’ll start seeing that people will see your comments, get curious and check out your profile and visit your website.
2. Social Media Influencers
A big underpriced form of marketing right now is social media influencers. It’s been around for about 10 years. I remember companies doing this before 2010, but it’s been picking up steam the last 24 months.
And it will only get more expensive.
Find the influencers in your industry. If you’re a local business you can bet that there are local influencers.
Find them. Start following people in your industry. See who they’re following and mentioning. You’ll start seeing the influencers.
Reach out to these influencers and see if there is a way you can work with them. Giveaways are one option. More on that later.
3. Guesting
Guesting is when you’re a guest on another program. Could be a guest post or you could be a guest on a podcast or on a video series.
Podcasting is the big one right now and I see that being the case for at least the next five years.
Go on your podcasting app of choice. My is the Podcasting app on Apple.
Go to your industry and look at New & Noteworthy. Most of these will have a website. Search for it. Then start making your pitch.
What they want is free content and good content for their users. They don’t want a lot of promotion. You have to be willing to give.
Let’s say your new website is for organic dog food. You can be there are hundreds of podcasts for dog lovers.
Make a list of about 20 of your best dog-related tips. Some obviously about dog diets and food.
Make your pitch on how you’ll come on the podcast to talk all things dog and especially your top tips.
You won’t book all the podcasts, but you’ll book some and you’ll see the traffic come in.
4. Social Media Hashtags
This is kind of an old school one, but it’s overlooked and still very useful.
Every time you post on social media you want to use lots of hashtags. On Instagram, use about 15 hashtags. Same on LinkedIn. Even Twitter allows for twice as many characters now and I’ve been using that space for more hashtags.
The more hashtags you use the more people will see your content.
But that brings us to a big point…you need content to share.
That means you need to create content on your website and natively on social media.
You pretty much have three choices: Text, Audio and Video.
Choose the one you’re most comfortable and start creating content as much as you can. Everyday if possible. Weekly in the least.
A good type of content to create would be Q&A. Find the questions your audience is asking and answer as many as you can. And do it routinely.
5. Giveaways
To influencers, on social media, in partnership with other businesses.
One of the best ways to use your advertising budget is to giveaway your product or service. Whatever you’re selling on your website.
We mentioned influencers above. Let’s say you’re a photographer. You find five influencers in your area. Offer to give them a free 2 hour photoshoot. They will likely love it.
Also start doing giveaways on your own social channels. Start by having your family and friends like your Facebook page or follow you on Instagram. Then start the giveaways and they’ll have a reason to share it with folks they know.
Then start looking for businesses you can partner with to do giveaways. This is a way for you to tap into other audiences when you’re just starting out.
For example, you’re selling accounting services. Just launched your site. Partner with the local car dealer. You give discount tax services and your customers get a deal at the car dealer once they get their tax credit.
What About SEO?
SEO is a long-term game. Creating content on your site, like a blog, will be a great way to boost SEO. Not just for blog posts, but for your site overall.
And all the other items above will help in the long-term too.
SEO is becoming more about brand reputation. The more you grow your brand the better your rankings will be.
Conclusion
Get to work on these right away. They do require a lot of work and time, but they’re ways that you can go from no traffic to a good amount of traffic for your new site. There are no shortcuts. You just have to put in the time.
