One of the greatest perks of living in our current generation is the abundance of resources that we can use. In business and marketing, this means a ton of strategies are out there that just needs to be implemented.
That’s what I’ve been up to in the past 48 hours. Remember what I said in my compilation of 50 freelancing tips article? You have to allot blocks of time to get your big projects moving. In my case, that was two whole days.
But before telling you what I did, here’s what I was trying to accomplish:
I didn’t go reinvent something new. I’m not smart enough to do that. What I’m good at is taking other people’s strategies and implementing it properly. And that’s exactly what I did.
I took this the strategies here and implemented it on my website. Here’s what I did.
(There aren’t results yet as I have just finished everything just now. I’ll update this post again once results come in)
Upside Down Homepage
If you checked the guide, the first strategy to increase leads is to create an upside down homepage. What’s that? It’s a homepage designed to put your most-valuable call-to-action at the top.
Take a look at mine.
I followed the advice where I took my most visited blog post and turn it into an offer. My buyer utility map post has been getting consistent traffic, so what I did was compile that into an ebook and added two new examples. It’s only accessible in the PDF.
A content upgrade is a lead generation tactic that allows you to get more leads because the opt-in offer is similar to the contents of the page.
Instead of the generic “subscribe to my newsletter” that 99% of websites do, you create a specific upgrade for the content or blog post.
According to the guide, you start with your most popular posts. I took three and created a content upgrade for each of them. I cheated a bit and re-used the one on the upside-down homepage.
Here’s how the content upgrade for each of the above posts:
Buyer Utility Map —> PDF Version + 2 Buyer Utility Templates
Default Channel Groupings in Google Analytics —> How to Setup Google Analytics Properly
How to Use Ulysses —> Grow Organic Traffic Case Study
The rational behind each of those are simple:
People are searching for information about the buyer utility map and examples. So, I rack my brain and came up with two additional examples. I compiled them into a PDF then put it in my email marketing software.
Since I’m talking about the different channel groupings in Google Analytics, people are probably going to be interested in setting up their GA accounts properly. And since I already have a post about that, I compiled it into a PDF again.
Lastly, the Ulysses to WordPress problem is a technical issue. But, because writers/bloggers/content marketers are the users of Ulysses, they are probably also going to be interested in how they can increase traffic to their website.
In business and with life, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time. You can learn from other people.
I don’t know if this will result in more traffic and leads. I literally just finished implementing them a few hours ago. But I did the exact same process for one of my clients and we got some good results from it. Here’s the exact process for how I did this including the tools you need.
Most businesses often have similar goals—get more traffic, leads, and customers. The question you have to answer is what are you doing to achieve those goals?
There are thousands of approaches out there. Pick one and start implementing it.
Have you implemented a strategy you copied from someone else? How was the result? And hey, don’t forget to send them a quick thanks.
I counted my browsing history just now. Yesterday, I visited 598 pages in my Chrome browser. This includes various sites such as this one, Google Analytics, Facebook, and a whole lot more. And this one doesn’t include my browsing history in Safari and on my phone.
Why is this significant? Because despite the rise of social media and home speakers, I still visit a lot of websites. And I don’t think of myself differently. My guess is you do the same thing too. That means, we’re all relying on various websites to get through the day—whether that’s working, checking email, finding information, and doing what needs to be done.
In a business context, a website is a prerequisite.
According to Wikipedia, a website or web site is a collection of related network web resources, such as web pages, multimedia content, which are typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server.
I’m not going to discuss the technical aspects of having a website. There are already tons of resources out there explaining that. What I’ll write about is the only reason you need why you need a business website.
THE Real Reason Your Business Needs a Website
I spoke with a lot of business owners over the last 5 years. One thing they have in common is they hesitate on creating a website for their business.
They argue that they don’t need it because their business is doing okay. They have a following on social media and is continuously growing. They don’t really have customers online.
Well, that’s short-sighted thinking.
The problem with this kind of thinking is you assume that other people are different from you. Which, if you think about it, simply isn’t true. We all use the internet. We check different websites to get the information we need. We google questions to find answers.
What makes you think that your customers don’t do the same thing?
Unless you’re market is in the most remote parts of the world where there is no internet access, then sure, you don’t need one.
If You’re Not on Google, You Don’t Exist
The biggest reason why your business need a website is if you aren’t found online, then your customers can’t find you. Most business owners argue that having a social media account is enough.
But that can’t be farther than the truth.
Let me ask you a question.
When was the last time you were searching for information and did not use Google or other search engine to look for answers?
If you’re in a country with access to the internet, the answer is probably never in the last 5 years. Sure, you might have asked a question on Facebook or Twitter, but it’s mainly because you want to create some sort of engagement around your brand. Not to really find an answer.
Now, do you think your (potential) customers are that different from you?
If you answer yes, then you’re out of touch with reality.
Yeah, people browse continuously scroll through their Instagram feeds, but that’s not how people find you.
Other Reasons Come Second
I’m not going to list a bunch of other reasons and statistics why you need a website, because really, it boils down to whether or not you can be found by people.
Focusing on your customers is the best way to differentiate yourself in the market. If you don’t have a website, that means you are losing for the battle for attention.
And in case you didn’t know, attention is limited. It’s a zero-sum game. That means you don’t just compete with direct competitors in your industry. You compete for everything else —Netflix, Spotify, YouTube. Everything that competes for the attention of your potential customers are your competition.
Without a website to act as the hub of all your online activities, everything will look fragmented.
Relying on social media limits you to what you can do—from branding to reach.
That’s why the phrase “pay to play” is used to describe sites like Facebook since the algorithm limits your reach to ~5%. With a website, it’s fair game. All you need is follow these three principles to succeed in online marketing.
Over to You
Everyday, people use the internet. If you are not present in that process—by not having a website or a proper hub for your online presence—you’re already fighting a losing battle.
No matter what your business or industry is, a website helps you generate business, promote goodwill among customers and prospects, and deliver strong marketing messages.
I’m currently in the middle of my 30-day writing sprint. I created a content calendar for the first two weeks, but after week 1, I haven’t been keeping up. I am still able to publish an article a day, but it seems like after publishing this massive article of freelancing tips, I found myself struggling to focus and write the articles in my calendar.
That’s why instead of forcing myself to do so, I’m writing about this struggle instead. Here, in this sentence right now, I don’t know what the ending of this article would be. All I know is that I am committed to publishing one article a day this entire month.
If you are experiencing writer’s block or struggling to motivate yourself, know that you are not alone. It’s normal. But, as what hundreds of other articles tell you—keep writing.
“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”
― Jodi Picoult
One of the things I shared here is that a scheduling and routines work because you are giving yourself time to actually do the work. It’s the same case now. This time, I’m supposed to write content. This post may not fit in the wider topics of my website such as on digital marketing and on business, but this is part of my journey.
So, since I don’t know what to write about, I’m going to share exactly what I’m doing.
Content Distribution
Distributing content is essential if you want to see results. You can’t expect to just write and publish posts on your own website and expect people to find it. Sure, they might, but it will take probably 5 years before you see results.
And that is if you really create awesome blog posts. Remember, there are billions of content that are competing for the same limited attention out there. It’s not just your direct competitors. There’s endless YouTube videos, unlimited scrolling through Instagram, and thousands of other distractions.
Attention is a zero-sum game. It’s based on a person’s time. And we all have limited time per day. If you don’t get people’s attention, they are going to spend it elsewhere. That’s why it’s important that you distribute your content properly. Here’s what I’m doing.
1. Posting on Medium and LinkedIn Articles
I’ve had a Medium account for a long time. In the last couple of days, I’ve been cleaning it up and posting some of my articles. If you’re also on Medium, don’t forget to follow me there.
Medium has its own set of readers. It’s also a place where quality is more emphasized, especially with the way its curation work. So, in order for my posts to get in front of people who value quality and might benefit from what I write about, I share my posts there.
This is also the same rationale for LinkedIn articles. I remember posting my first article there back in 2015. After publishing two articles, I never touched it again.
Back then, whenever you publish something, all your connections receive a notification about it. That’s how LinkedIn grew its user base in LinkedIn Pulse. Take note that articles are different from your regular status updates. The articles are real long-form articles that can actually rank on Google.
Nonetheless, despite LinkedIn disabling that feature, I still want to republish my articles there. It helps with branding and helps beef up my profile—so it’s really a win-win situation for me. I also get to reach new people who aren’t actively searching for the things I write about, but may be tangentially interested.
2. Email Marketing
I wrote about email marketing a lot, but for the past couple of months, I haven’t been actively working on it. If you are part of my email list, you know there are sopped automated emails getting sent out every now and then. These were setup at least 2 years ago. I checked the numbers and the key metrics are still high.
But it’s not enough.
One of the purpose of email marketing is to build a relationship with your audience. It’s the only way to build a sustainable business. I wrote about this a lot before and why you shouldn’t start selling to people who join your list.
A lot of businesses do that. And most of these websites use email marketing solely as a sales channel. Well, that’s why they aren’t getting ROI from their efforts.
In my case, I started sharing a mix of content from life updates (like me at the start of this post, struggling what to write about) and roundups of popular posts.
I personally believe that success means being different. Not better. But different. In my case, I don’t want to act like a robot and hide behind the computer. That’s why I share stories that are happening to me and what I’m doing.
If you want to join me on my journey, you can do it right here:
3. Notifications
Another distribution channel I recently started using are browser notifications.
From my experience, it’s the opt-in method with the lowest friction at the moment. You don’t have to give out your contact information. All you have to do is say yes (or no) and you can receive updates from the website.
I’m currently using Subscribers, but may switch to another provider. I’m researching on its technical setup and testing it on another site.
4. Social Media
I’m not very active on social media. The reason is that most people tend to gravitate towards accounts with great design. I don’t have the skills for it, so instead of focusing on something i’m weak at, I focus on something I’m better at—automation and scheduling.
Then, whenever I have extra time, I expand on this and create multiple social media posts for the same article. Because I rarely write about timely topics and focus on timeless ones, at least from my perspective, I can still share the same link years from now.
For example, this post on the 5 stages of awareness is one of my most-visited pages. I wrote that more than 1.5 years ago. It’s still relevant. It’s still useful. And that’s why it’s also ranking #1 on Google.
One post I recently published is about using Google Optimize just a couple of days ago. It’s getting quite some good traffic compared to other posts. One of the reasons for that is Google Analytics retweeted it and used my quote in the article.
"Optimization is an activity that allows you to test and validate with the ultimate purpose of finding which one performs better against a goal or metric."
— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) June 5, 2020
That’s a positive sign indicating it’s good.
So, I’m preparing some variations of that for sharing on social to get it to fly and get more traffic. If I hadn’t shared that on social media, I wouldn’t have gotten retweeted. I wouldn’t have received the additional traffic solely from that.
Updating Old Content
This is one of the things I do for my clients which helps a lot in getting quick wins. That’s why after doing the same thing for my own site, I noticed a big improvement. Remember, I have been neglecting my own website until recently. So, after following my own advice, look at what happened.
1. Finding Orphaned Content
One of the things I did was to find orphaned content. These are pages or posts on your website that have no incoming internal links. Meaning, people have no chance of finding them.
Links are what connect your website to one another. There’s an entire topic in SEO about this called link architecture or structure. You’ll be amazed at the number of resources on this topic alone.
But the point is you should not have any orphaned posts on your website. If you do, look for them, and fix it. You do that by linking from a related blog post TO that article. It’s as simple as that.
2. Updating Internal Links
When it comes to links, there are two general types: internal and external. As the name implies, internal links are the links that happen within your website. External links are links to websites outside your own domain.
This actually makes sense. Internal linking helps the reader find relevant information about certain topics or information. If you look at the links I have on this page, instead of explaining more about a particular topic (say, email marketing), I linked to an existing page of mine that can explain that better instead of writing about it here.
During your update, you group similar topics and that’s where you use internal linking. You don’t mention and link to every piece of content you have, rather, focus only on what makes sense.
This also helps search engines understand your blog post better. The more closely-related the topics and links are, the higher chances for Google to reward your site. This is where the concept of content pillars or cornerstone content comes in.
3. Updating Copy
The last thing you want to do is make sure your copy is up-to-date. Google hates stale and outdated content. It’s irrelevant to the users. That’s why if you don’t update your content frequently, chances are, you’ll lose traffic and rankings to those pages.
Take a look at this example. I filtered the past 3 months data and compared it with the past 3 months of the previous year. It’s showing me that traffic has dropped significantly—that’s over 50%.
This is a sign that that particular page needs to be updated. Of course, it could be that the content copy is still good, but other websites have outranked it for other reasons like getting more backlinks so this page got pushed down. Regardless, it warrants an investigation.
Over to You
If you find yourself staring at a blank page, all you have to do is put some words in and things will flow. Remember, I didn’t know what I’ll be writing about when I started this post. But now, I’m at the end and wrote almost 1,800 words.
I followed other people’s advice and stuck to my schedule—which was to write. And write I did.
Writing is personal. Don’t think that what you do or what you’re doing is boring. Every one of us is unique. Your story is your story. If you don’t write about it, no one would know. In my case, I simply wrote about what I’m doing in general. And I think it turned out to be quite a nice article.
Now comes the editing part. But that’s for another time.
What about you? What do you do when your stuck and can’t find what to write about? I’d love to know.
The digital marketing landscape is very competitive. Skills are in very high demand. And that’s why there are also a lot of competition. And I’m not just talking about SEOs and marketers, I’m talking about the billions of other websites out there.
But one thing I noticed is the a lot of business owners still believe that search engine optimization is something you can do once and be done with.
Here are a few reasons why SEO is not a one-time project:
Reason #1: Adding Keywords to Your Pages Stopped Working 10 Years Ago
Keywords are important. But, adding them to your title and meta description isn’t going to help you rank for them. There are a ton of considerations you need to make if you want to rank on page one of Google.
Let’s break this down.
If you add your main keyword to your title tag, meta description and all over you page, would that make it any better?
Most likely not.
Why? Because you’re forgetting there are over 200+ ranking factors used by Google. And all of these are centered towards giving users the best experience on the web possible.
If you’re an e-commerce shop, here’s how adding irrelevant keywords can be dangerous:
We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at [email protected].
And you’ll find a lot of pages like these. They are the ones on the second page of Google and higher.
Why?
If you visited a page that has copy like that, would you continue reading the page, much more buy from it?
I wouldn’t think so.
And so does your customers.
That’s why adding keywords won’t help you rank. It can help, sure, but it’s not the only thing you should do.
Reason #2: SEO Is Constantly Changing
The SEO landscape is always evolving. There are two major reasons for this:
Search engines like Google are becoming better at understanding user intent
Marketers keep trying to game the system and is forcing search engines to change
The former is understandable. Technology that wasn’t available back then are now becoming the norm. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are now being used in the algorithms. Instead of manually making rules in the code to determine which ones to rank, AI is used instead.
On the other hand, there are marketers who try to constantly game the system so they can rank higher. The black hat tactics you know today came from these marketers:
comment linking? These came from realizing that backlinks play a big role in rankings, so, to game the system, marketers started commenting on other sites in order to increase their own backlinks.
directory listing? Several studies show the number of referring domain correlated to higher rankings. So, if you hire someone to create 100 domains and to your website, you’re going to rank higher
There are so many more examples like these. And that’s why Google keeps cracking down on these illegal tactics because it doesn’t provide the user a great experience.
Reason #3: Competition Is Tougher Than Ever
I remember back in 2010 when I first made a website. It’s in the events industry. After writing 3 blog posts about the different types of events, I started to rank and show up on search after 2 months.
This was how I got started in digital marketing.
Back then, I didn’t even know about SEO or researching keywords or anything about links.
All I know is that people are starting to use the internet more and more. So, instead of trying to spend tons of money on flyers, I decided to use a website.
But now, 10 years later, posting 3x won’t get you on the first page of Google. You have to do a whole lot more than that—both in quantity and quality.
Then again, that only gets you in the starting line. But at least, you now have a chance.
Also, because of this, your competitors won’t stay still as well. If you are currently in #1, rest assured that the sites in positions 2 and lower are constantly working their way to beat you.
If you become complacent and stay still, you’ll soon find that another website is now ranking on the first place.
Reason #4: SEO and Content Go Hand-in-Hand
While SEO and content creation are different, they do work together. You can’t expect to perform well without the other.
They’re like yin-yang. They balance each other out.
SEO is more on the technical aspect while content is the creative. But, you need both to be great if you want to see results from your digital marketing efforts.
For example, if you have great content but your on-page SEO is terrible—navigation, internal links, full of error pages, some pages aren’t even crawlable—that’s wasting opportunity.
Personally, I find a lot of older sites fall under here. They have great content written by experts but the website isn’t mobile-friendly, its largest font size is 12px, and it loads super slow.
Or on the other hand, you’ve got all the technical aspects covered, but all content is like the example I shared earlier. All its blog posts are 300 words that, if you read it, are nothing but reusing the keywords again and again. That’s over-optimization at its best.
Over to You
If you want to see results from your SEO efforts, you’ve got to stop thinking that once you do something, it’s over and done with.
SEO is an iterative process. The goal is to constantly improve. The moment you stand still, you’ll get left behind.
Have you ever ranked for a keyword only to find yourself get knocked out of first place later? Or have you worked with other people who insists that SEO is a set-it-and-forget-it activity?
I’ve recently been active on Quora. One of the things I often get asked to answer is about growing their website traffic. Or more specifically, how long does it take to do so.
The answer, as always, is it depends.
It depends on your industry and niche
It depends if you’re writing with SEO in mind
It depends on the quality of your content
It depends on how much effort you put into distribution
It also depends on your purpose
It depends, largely, on what you define as a lot of traffic
It depends on a lot of things.
Beginning: Excitement
I started this site back in 2014.
At that time, I thought having a website was really cool. I have a lot of things I want to say (or write), so, I decided to get a domain, a web host, and install WordPress.
I was pretty active during the beginning so you’d see a bump at the beginning. I published several posts about what I’m interested in at that time: digital marketing and management.
That bump isn’t big. If I was monetizing my website with ads, then that wouldn’t sustain me at all. I’ll probably earn less than $1 a month during that time and with that level of traffic.
In fact, this just proves the fact that there were little competition even just 5 years ago. I didn’t bother with keyword research nor building links. By simply publishing blog posts and not even think about SEO, you’ll get traffic to your website.
Remember, I started this as a way of sharing what’s on my mind. I didn’t care about how ranking on search engines then. Plus, I was working in corporate. This was just a side project.
Middle: A Lot of Excuses
But work and life happened, so I focused on other things and neglected my website for a long time.
I published a new post every now and then. Take a look at the number of posts I published per year over the last 7 years.
It’s no wonder that I didn’t see much growth in the early days.
I was busy making excuses.
I was working in a corporate, steady job until 2016
Then, I focused on my clients’ businesses
I got married
All these excuses prevented me from growing my own business.
Now: Growth
So, I made a decision to change.
I didn’t take much action about this for a few months, but during that time, I was actively thinking about what I want to accomplish.
Of course, this isn’t attributed to a single thing I did; rather, it’s a combination of everything.
The point is that I put in the work and got rewarded for it. So, if you are planning on doing something, don’t spend all your time planning. Rather, focus more on implantation.
When you share a link on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, and someone clicks on it, that is reported as social traffic in your Google Analytics account.
Sounds complicated? A little bit. But you don’t have to worry about it. Google does everything automatically for you.
Importance and Use of Social Traffic
Growing the traffic coming from social media is important because of three things:
Reach more people
Sign of engagement
By posting on social media, you get to reach more people than you would normally have. Unless you have built up your SEO, or have an engaged email list, or budget for ads, the quickest way for you to get traffic to your website is through social media.
If you constantly get social traffic, it’s a great sign of brand affinity. Take a look at this Google Analytics account. Social media traffic accounts for the majority of the traffic to the site at the beginning.
People keep coming back to the site. The brand posts primarily on Twitter and Facebook. It’s fans and followers then spread it further. People who see it click through and read the posts.
That’s the power of social media. You can use it to generate traffic and business to your site while you build your other channels. For example, SEO and organic traffic takes a while to build up.
While organic traffic ramps up, the traffic from social helps bring in leads and customers now.
How to Increase Social Traffic
There are various ways to increase your social traffic. Here are a few of them:
Post Links
Be Funny, Entertaining, Educational, or Controversial
Use Rich Media
Post Multiple Times
Tip #1: Post Links
The only way people can visit your website is if you post links on your social media accounts.
Sure, if you keep posting images, they might visit your profile and find your website. But seriously, do you even do that yourself?
And why make it harder for your audience? Why not post a link directly so they can read your post?
It’s the reason why Facebook Instant Articles and why AMP exist—to make pages load faster so people can read the content faster without all the ads and messy code that slows down websites.
Tip #2: Be Funny, Entertaining, Educational, or Controversial
Remember that on social media, you have a ton of competition as well. The algorithm isn’t your friend. At least, until you’ve proven that people keep engaging with you.
Have you noticed that the people and brands you often comment on, like the photo, share, or read are the ones that keep showing up on your feed?
It works the same way on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and every other social media sites.
Why??
Because their goal is to keep you in their platform. That’s why if they keep showing you posts that will give you a reason to get hooked.
It’s also why sharing native content is better than links. Native content simply means content directly posted from the platform itself.
A video posted on Facebook gets more views and engagements than a link to YouTube with the same video.
That’s why your posts have to elicit emotions so you get your target market to engage with you.
Tip #3: Use Rich Media
Another tip you can use to increase your social traffic is to use other types of media. That includes:
Images
Gifs
Videos
Or any combination of those. For example, you can use a video but it’s composed only an audio file and a photo.
There are a lot of ways you can apply this. The idea is to take a single piece of content then repurpose it.
Tip #4: Post Multiple Times
The final tip that you can use to increase social media traffic is to post multiple times. No, it’s not spamming if you’re not constantly selling.
If you’re posting funny, educational, or entertaining content, people will enjoy it.
So if you only post once, there’s a very high chance that people won’t see it. That’s why there is nothing wrong with posting multiple times.
If you follow too #3, then you should worry about duplicates or annoying your audience. There’ll be variety in your posts.
That’s why new software tools like Meet Edgar or RecurPost are gaining momentum in the last few years. They make “reposting” your content easy by automating it.
You create a library, set a schedule, then it goes through it and cycles through your post until it runs out. Only then will it go back to the start. So, if you prepared 50 posts and decide to post only once a week, it will take a year before you post the same thing again.
Over to You
Social traffic is an important traffic source you shouldn’t neglect. It helps build your brand and reach new audiences.
By engaging with them, you learn more about their likes and dislikes. You find out what makes them tick.
You can use these insights to better serve them. You can create content that’s more catered to their needs; or launch new products or services based on you audience’s feedback.
But the biggest benefit you can get from social traffic is you can still get leads and customers and revenues from the get-go. It’s the fastest way to build your business as you grow more sustainable and higher ROI channels.
How are you using social traffic in your business? Are you putting all your eggs in one basket? Or are you using social as part of a more holistic strategy?
