It is all too easy to get wrapped up in the headlines about the latest Google update, the next "big thing" or some exotic software that you shouldn't have survived until now without. This epidemic is not just in online marketing but across society as a whole. Magic weight loss pills, instant six-pack abs, easy college degree programs, the list goes on and on because people love easy and new. Where there is a buck to be made, there is someone willing to make it, even if it is at your expense.
That's not to say there aren't a lot of great innovations that can make your life simpler. The problem, however, is that for many, you try to solve problems you don't quite understand with solutions that you don't quite understand. Nowhere is this more evident than in internet marketing.
I just checked my inbox and there are no less than 50 emails currently offering me a "quick and fast," "safe and easy" or "push button" solution to some pretty complex problems. The only issue is, they either don't work or won't work for long before big G - aka Google - comes knocking.
Neither are good outcomes for the average business owner, so today, we are going to look at four simple things you could be doing to get more organic traffic and conversions in 2017.
First things first, guest posting will ALWAYS work when used correctly. Forget about the SEO benefits for a minute and think about the traffic generating powers of guest posting. If you are selective about the sites that you post on, you can write content that positions you favorably while promoting your business to the already established audience of the host site. If I had to start from scratch, guest posting would be the first step in my journey.
Ok, no reduction here but you can recycle and re-use existing content. You have likely heard of re-purposing content to use on multiple platforms but, that is not what we are talking about here. Back in 2015 HubSpot released a great post discussing how they republished old content to gain new traffic. HubSpot states in that post that they were able to double leads generated by updating old posts, not bad for content you already have on your site.
Along the lines of guest posting, engaging with others on niche sites can quickly drive traffic back to your site. The downside of this is that is can be time consuming but the upside is how quickly you can start generating more traffic. While many are quick to tell you forums and blog commenting are dead, they can work extremely well as a quick traffic source if you leave valuable information. In addition, look for niche sites that allow user interaction. For example, if you are in the automotive marketing niche, for example, you could get involved on sites like Automotive Digital Marketing.
This one is pretty simple and hands free once you set it up. In a recent public OMG webinar, they shared an interesting tactic for capturing social media traffic. Here is how to set up the strategy:
a. Set up a Buffer account and link it to your social profiles. This allows automated posting based on "optimal" times to post.
b. Head over to Quuu and sign up for an account. Quuu is hand-picked content for you to share on your social profiles.
c. Head over to Snip.ly and sign up for an account with them. This will let you make a custom link for each item you want to share on social media and when clicked, your popup will appear on any site.
Once you have all three set up simply take the relevant, hand curated content from Quuu, create a Snip.ly custom link for the content and schedule it to post with Buffer (some sites are able to block use of this, however). You can then share already great content with groups or your followers and display your CTA to them. Just think strategically about what you share and you can start advertising to a tightly targeted audience pretty quickly.
All four of the tactics outlined above are pretty simple and can be a goldmine for quality, organic traffic. I challenge you to implement one (or all) of these and watch your traffic grow.
What is one great tactic you use to capture organic traffic quickly?