Techniques getting traffic to your website

[jjscruff]

Just wondering if this forum has found any good ways to increase inflows to your website

My visitors has hit a ceiling and hasn't gone up in months

We sell on third party platforms and put slips in people's orders.

We do a little facebook advertising but it hasn't been wildly successful.

 

[fisicx]

Adwords. Pretty much guaranteed to get you targeted visitors if set up correctly. If the landing pages are optimised as well then conversions are yours for the taking.

 

[jjscruff]

Any good tutorials for a first timer?

My products are not easy to target with keywords though

 

[fisicx]

The Google PDF is a good place to start: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/uk/adwords/pdf/step_by_step.pdf

When a client calls you on the phone what do they call your product? Those are the keywords to use. It doesn't matter if they aren't the right names, those are the ones a potential client will be searching for.

 

[jjscruff]

ok thanks will check that out.

 

[stevebrownlie]

Hey - sorry to hear you've been struggling with Facebook advertising. Usually that's extremely powerful and delivers costs per visitor and costs per conversion cheaper than Google (although as noted Google is 'easier' to get some initial results from). If you're happy to share some more details about your campaign I'd be happy to take a quick look.

 

[HazelC]

I find it's my blog posts and social media that get the most traffic to my website, but then I would say that as that is the areas in which I work the hardest and those are the areas in which I sell, so I need to prove they work.

 

[jjscruff]

Facebook advertising is okay but the pages it allows you target is too limited, so i can't target people who like pages similar the products i am advertising

 

[moo-tique]

Facebook advertising is okay but the pages it allows you target is too limited, so i can't target people who like pages similar the products i am advertising

What are the products you are advertising?

 

[jjscruff]

clothing but not big name brands

 

[fisicx]

How are you targeted the facebook adverts? Have you got dedicated landing pages? Do you use different images for each product advert?

 

[jjscruff]

targeting by sex, age, country and people who like a related page to the product. Not sure about landing page. yes always good images

 

[moo-tique]

We do a little facebook advertising but it hasn't been wildly successful.

Can't see why this couldn't work for you? You do need to put some time and effort into creating the right sort of ad campaigns, for instance.....

Do you use different images for each product advert?

 

[fisicx]

targeting by sex, age, country and people who like a related page to the product. Not sure about landing page. yes always good images

Change things. Try different targeting, different images, different sales blurb and build dedicated landing pages. You need to keep adjusting and testing and experimenting.

The last adwords campaign I ran took about a month to get right, it very rare for a campaign to work from the off, as Dan said, you have to put in some effort to get good returns.

 

[moo-tique]

Change things. Try different targeting, different images, different sales blurb and build dedicated landing pages. You need to keep adjusting and testing and experimenting.

The last adwords campaign I ran took about a month to get right, it very rare for a campaign to work from the off, as Dan said, you have to put in some effort to get good returns.

Exactly. It's taken us quite a while to get our FB page to where it is, and even now we are still pushing ahead! Nearing 700 followers and still counting!!

 

[jjscruff]

Exactly. It's taken us quite a while to get our FB page to where it is, and even now we are still pushing ahead! Nearing 700 followers and still counting!!

Followers are garbage. i have a page that has a third of a million likes and how many people was facebook kind enough to let see the last post? 52 people.

 

[moo-tique]

Followers are garbage. i have a page that has a third of a million likes and how many people was facebook kind enough to let see the last post? 52 people.

Depends how you got those followers? All paid? - i.e. by running a Pay Per Like Campaign?

 

[jjscruff]

Depends how you got those followers? All paid? - i.e. by running a Pay Per Like Campaign?

nope they are all organic

 

[moo-tique]

Followers are garbage. i have a page that has a third of a million likes and how many people was facebook kind enough to let see the last post? 52 people.

The more interacting the post is, the more people will see it. Posts with images that are relevant and grab the audience will more often that not serve better.

 

[moo-tique]

One of our recent posts was served to 400 people.

 

[willv]

You mentioned Facebook, but what about the other social networks? Facebook may be the biggest but it's not necessarily the right platform for business Have you taken a look at Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.

If you don't feel social media is a good fit for your business then just stick it on auto-pilot and automate the process. Spend an hour one afternoon lining up 100 future posts and use a tool to post 1 per day on your behalf. You can also get tools to auto-follow people who follow you, to automatically "like/favourite" posts by other companies etc.

 

[Topkwak]

Interested to hear from those who've use LinkedIn advertising? I've heard its not as easy to use as FB, Twitter, Google etc. and its more expensive (guess this depends on ROI)

Obviously its a good place for getting in front of businesses, how granular can you get with targeting? location? Role? Activeness on site? etc.

Easy to insert images with ads?

Thanks in advance

 

[fisicx]

If you don't feel social media is a good fit for your business then just stick it on auto-pilot and automate the process. Spend an hour one afternoon lining up 100 future posts and use a tool to post 1 per day on your behalf. You can also get tools to auto-follow people who follow you, to automatically "like/favourite" posts by other companies etc.

Worst advice ever. Automating anything to do with SM is the road to ruin.

 

[willv]

Worst advice ever. Automating anything to do with SM is the road to ruin.

I'd love to know why you think it's the worst advice ever? Do you have any facts to back up your claims, or are you regurgitating advice you've read elsewhere on the web and taken as gospel?

The fact is 6000 tweets are posted per second. A small business will struggle to ever get noticed by their potential customers if they are manually posting everything. Within seconds of posting the content it has already been pushed down the page by other peoples stuff. It makes business sense to automate just so you're not wasting your time.

Companies automate tweets all the time, just make sure you don't mess it up like the Daily Mirror whose automated tweet was in bad taste about the Boston marathon bombing

 

[fisicx]

Yes I have loads of evidence. A small business tweeting anything at any time is going to struggle to get noticed. Any small business self promoting isn't going to get any traction. The Daily Mirror has a huge following but event they struggle to make their tweets work. If you want to see the evidence pay for it like I do. And no, I don't just regurgitate, I test theories and practices to see if it supports the evidence others have gathered.

 

[willv]

Yes I have loads of evidence. A small business tweeting anything at any time is going to struggle to get noticed. Any small business self promoting isn't going to get any traction. The Daily Mirror has a huge following but event they struggle to make their tweets work. If you want to see the evidence pay for it like I do. And no, I don't just regurgitate, I test theories and practices to see if it supports the evidence others have gathered.

Who am I supposed to pay for the evidence? I've been a self employed web developer for 10 years so I know how social media works.

We can agree to disagree. I'd just rather pay to automate areas of social media and get on with work that gives me a much higher ROI. Your own article on your site "Why Social Media is Bad for Business" sums it up for me: "If you want to make money then Social Media is not the way to go about it." - I 100% agree, so I've automated it to save time and guess you've just taken a different approach Good article btw.

 

[Matt Thorpe]

OK, getting traffic to a website is a multi-pronged approach and does take quite a lot of thought and some planning.

I come across many companies that have lots of social marketing activity going on with very little response. The truth is that social media will only work if off some sort of value to the recipient and not bombard it with sales messages. If you keep sending 'buy,buy' messages then people will switch off and ignore you. It's all about the quality and not the quantity.

My advice is as follows:

• Only use social media to tell your story, build your brand and interact. Don't worry about getting people to your site first off. Get people engaged in your brand first. Visits will follow once people start to notice you.

• Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest should be used to engage potential customers visually. You need to inspire and make people think - that's quite cool.

• Twitter should be used as a conversational tool. Successful twitter campaigns are as much about commenting and talking to others as they are sending out your own tweets. People react to you when you show interest in what they are doing. Be unselfish.

• Capture email addresses on your site. Many site owners forget to capture data. When you work hard to get people to your site you have to make the most of it when they get there. The chances of people buying first time around are slim so you need to make contact, continue the conversation and build your relationship.

• Communicate by email every 2-3 weeks. Don't try to over do it with pointless weekly messages. If you have nothing to say then don't send anything. Sending thoughtless messages will damage your reputation and people will switch off.

• Keep it simple. Invest in creating great photography that will invoke positive thoughts about your brand and your products. Don't write pages and pages of content that people won't read. Make it quick and simple (like Instagram).

• Use your blog to deliver style tips and new ways to wear your products. Tell people about your story and the reasons behind your styling tips. Try to use video where possible such as 'how to's' and 'style guides'. People love this type of stuff and it's very viral.

• Use Adwords strategically. Adwords is no longer the cheap and quick way to get sales. It may work very well if you have household brand names with a huge demand but, if you haven't, it can be a very expensive acquisition tool. You need to take a longer term view of acquiring customers through adwords. If it costs you £20 to get a sale then think about how you can maximise more value from those customers. That £20 acquisition cost could turn into a £1000 customer if treated correctly. Also make sure you use landing pages that are awesome and don't just send people to your homepage or a sub-standard product page.

• Following on from the last point, nurture your existing customers. Many companies I meet are always chasing the next new customer which is always more expensive. Existing customers are cheaper to convert because they know who you are, what you sell and have already overcome the trust barrier. Communicate regularly with these people and treat them like royalty to get them back to the site and to get them to engage with you socially.

I hope some of this helps. To deliver your Facebook and Twitter campaigns you can schedule content use Hootsuite. It's free, easy to use and there's a mobile app.

Good luck.

 

[MilesWeb]

Social media is one of the most effective ways to get traffic to your website. You can create your own company page and feature discounts and offers on a regular basis. Join groups where you think you will find people interested in your products and services. You can also promote your store through coupon code websites.

 

[fisicx]

Social media is one of the most effective ways to get traffic to your website.

Says who?

It is one method that may work for certain websites but it's certianly not the most effective way for all websites. If you sell rebar to construction companies I suspect posting on FB won't get you a single useful visitor. If you offer carpet cleaning in Perth then Instagram isn't going to do you any favours.

 

[NickGrogan]

@willv

Are you regurgitating advice you've read elsewhere on the web and taken as gospel?

The fact is 6000 tweets are posted per second.

True, but completely irrelevant, unless you are following every single account on twitter, which no-one is. The number of tweets you see per second depends on the number of people you follow.

A small business will struggle to ever get noticed by their potential customers if they are manually posting everything.

Most tweets are irrelevant rubbish, and will be ignored however they are posted.

Within seconds of posting the content it has already been pushed down the page by other peoples stuff.

See above, depends on number of followers you target has

It makes business sense to automate just so you're not wasting your time.

Automating something doesn't make it better, if you're wasting your time manually, you're wasting you time when you automate too.

 

[boring-friday]

Get all the buyers emails from ebay out your paypal and email them.

try facebook ads but make them targeted, scrape all the users from a competitors page and send a ad at them.

sign up for the free aherfs trial and write all your competitors ones down, pick out the best ones you can get for yourself for free or cheap

make a list of the bloggers in your niche, sign up to their newsletters and suck up to them, e.g 'oh i have a small website, hope you don't mind me messaging but I thought X you just wrote about was really good, I've got a similar article on my site here', make friends with them first.

set up google alerts for the products you sell and when a news story or whatever comes up make a comment in there, don't just spam them to come and buy from you, try and add some value or suck up again and a lot will approve it.

infographics work well for me, find one thats been popular before and get it improved on, people love the pretty pictures.

 

[Peanut Butter Man]

All interesting and food for thought. I have a site and the sales are sporadic as iam looking after 4 sales chanels. I want to give focus to my site and begin to see what can be done. I see people mention landing pages. My site links to the home page or shop. What would make a good landing page for a site selling products?

Also, I use Twitter mostly and engage with people. I also use FB, Instagram, Vine and Pinterest. I have recipes and plan to have youtube videos. I think I need to ddvelop an overall stratgey but oh where to start ;-)

Thanks

 

[Room4 Media]

We drive a lot of traffic by sharing our knowledge. Recently we created a series of video tips which you should find useful. Look at our website in the video tips section. I cannot share the link since I'm a newbie

 

[Chinavasion]

Since you're selling on third party platforms, the most important things to consider is to do keyword research for your product understand the ranking factors that apply to those platforms.

Google adwords can be helpful, but only if there aren't many competing sellers. Otherwise, you're paying for ads that benefit them as well.

 

[Steve Alphabet]

I echo the comments regarding emailing your existing customers... they've already bought from you so they're the easiest to convert again. Consider a simple email newsletter, maybe with a discount code to boost email open rates, with links to different parts of your website. Then use Google Analytics to see which offer got the most clicks, and adjust your sales strategy accordingly.

The big risk with social media is it's not your platform, it's not your rules, and you have no comeback if Facebook (for example) decide to close your carefully-created business page, or just decide to say "if you want people to see your posts, then pay us more money".

Another option is finding influential bloggers and seeing if they would review your products.

All the best with it!

 

[antropy]

Just wondering if this forum has found any good ways to increase inflows to your website

Run it through here, it should offer some suggestions:
http://www.antropy.co.uk/ecommerce-website-grader/