You have a budget for a website, and you spent it all on coding and design. See, there's your first mistake. Two things most businesses forget in their digital marketing strategy are absolutely crucial to success. And it's amazing how many people ignore them.
The first is SEO, obviously. You need to have a monthly budget for SEO, or your website will simply end up on the data graveyard.
The second one is equally important: how to attract eyeballs to your website without breaking the bank. And let's remember: you don't want just any visitor to your website, you want the right prospects. We aren't talking about advertising here. There is, after all, a good reason why advertising may be a waste of money.
Write In-depth Content
There is far too much spam on the Internet; thousands upon thousands of worthless posts created only to show advertising around them. For your brand, focus on content that offers real value to the customer. Prospects don't follow the traditional funnel anymore, and any one follower of your blog can lead to future business. What's more, the Google algorithm favors longer-form original content that really adds value. Don't create fluff, create resources!
Build Skyscrapers
Skyscraping is the method of building on existing content. There are lots of ways to do that: expand on an existing article, criticize someone's opinion, contradict or offer a different point of view etc. This type of content works because people might have read something similar and thus react to a different point of view. Opinions create emotional bonds and emotions help your content get shared. You can build on popular articles, or you can try to identify something that really matters to your audience.
Excellent Headlines
80% of all digital content (more according to some) is only ever read as far as the headline. People share content based on headlines. You really need to use headlines to entice people to share content.
Content shared by individuals is always more authoritative than advertising. More people on Facebook will look at a post if it comes from a friend or acquaintance than from a brand. Whether that friend has actually read the article isn't important -- it's the sharing that counts.
What exactly makes a successful headline is different for every market and, naturally, every language. A lot of the advice coming out of America would be considered shallow and spammy in most markets, for example.
Graphics
It might not be your style, but infographics and illustrations are popular in many markets. If your distribution involves Twitter, infographics definitely make an impact. The most successful graphics simplify and explain complicated concepts or give inspiring or surprising insights. Visualizations of interesting data also work well.
Video and other media
Video content is gaining rapidly in popularity. While we don't suggest you turn every blog post into a video, showing your products, services, advice in video format attracts a certain segment of the audience and is more readily shared. In some markets, podcasts are very popular. In the near future, AR and VR formats will also become increasingly important. Read more about video marketing here.
In particular for B2B businesses, sharing posts on LinkedIn is a powerful way to get traction. While company pages aren't that popular, sharing content and publishing original content on LinkedIn is a sure way to get attention. You can add tags and links to your website. We at Geber Consulting get over 60% of all our leads via personal LinkedIn profiles and the content shared there. Articles also appear on your profile permanently, which makes you look like someone who actually has something to say.
Medium, Reddit & Co.
While still in its infancy, Medium is growing in popularity in certain markets and is a great way to share posts and gain exposure, in particular in the US. Reddit (or its equivalents in other markets, such as PTT, Zhihu, etc.) is a type of geeky blog where everything is being discussed. Sharing your in-depth content on platforms like that will also get you more eyeballs without the need to pay Facebook for content promotion.
Specialist forums
In many markets and industries, special forums are still popular with insider and practitioners. This is true for engineering, aerospace, automotive, banking and in particular medicine. Specialists want to be shielded from the general noise of the Internet. If you do marketing in any of these fields, sharing your valuable content on these specialist sites is a great way to get the attention of real insiders.
There are of course other inbound strategies you can employ. Have a look here.
Do you have any other tips on how to attract more website traffic? Let me know below!