You’ve already set up your branded website. You’ve started blogging (and you’re making the most of it too!). You’re even using social media to tell your story and build a community. You’re doing great! So how do you get more people to discover your business and read what you’re putting out there? A quick Google search will suggest hundreds of ways to get people to your site.
- Use your keywords. What are the search terms you want people on Google to type in to find your post? Those search terms are your strongest keywords. When you’re writing a new post or page, include those keywords in your body text, the title, your “tags”, and even the alternative text for photos on each page. Don’t be afraid to use niche terms that will capture less-searched, yet more specific Google searches (like vegan, nut-free cookies, rather than simply cookies).
- Post blog posts, product launches, and updates to your social media. Post your recent articles and updates, and what others share that you appreciate on the platform that makes sense. Facebook and twitter and instagram are all very different, so post to them using best practices for each. When you share, you are not only amplifying the content, you are giving people the opportunity to ask questions, comment and interact with your brand.
- Link to your content in your newsletter. In our we like to include a mix of updates from our UnBlog, interesting articles we’ve read, and the odd viral video that made us laugh (or cry). It gives our older content new life, and our newer content more exposure, plus we love the feedback we get after someone finds what we send them helpful in life or work.
- Write better headlines. Make your headline strong enough to pique someone’s interest. If your customer is scrolling through their Twitter feed, would the title of your latest post or tweet be enough to pull them in?
- Link-up your blog posts to your past content. Connect what you’re writing now back to your past content (whether that be recipes, interviews, articles, or opinion pieces — see what we did there?).
- Contribute to other websites. Lisa often writes about better business and better living on The Huffington Post. It increases our audience, and brings new visitors to our website every month.
- Post business-related articles to LinkedIn. Lisa frequently publishes her business-related articles directly on her personal LinkedIn profile. Keep in mind that your personal LinkedIn profile is more B2B, so posting your favourite cookie recipe is not the best idea!
- Optimize your existing posts. Every once in a while, make sure your old posts are still up-to-date and that all of your links still work. (Bonus: Set up your 404 Error page so that broken links take users to a custom page that you’ve created! Here’s ours.)
- Post consistently. Create a posting schedule and then stick to it. Not only will you be able to train your readers to know when new posts are coming up, but it will also hold you accountable to writing and delivering all of the content in your head. We love working with clients on their content and content strategy as it is foundational to online marketing strategy.
- Tag people in your social posts – When we interview or mention someone in a blog post, we make sure that their handle is included/tagged (here’s an example). There are a myriad of reasons and benefits, first and foremost it notifies them that you appreciate or are talking about them and it sets the tone for sharing – in many ways.
- Connect with others. If someone has shared content from your website, connect and thank them for their support – chances are you have something in common, or might be interested in other content they share. This is how we build tribes with and for each other and ourselves.
- Interview and feature others. Our Interviews with Mosquitos series includes conversations with those in our community that we work with, love, and respect. We do our best to develop interview questions that our interviewees do not necessarily share on their own, or are things we want people to know about them. We love creating the questions and learning the answers, as I think the process teaches us much about each other, and creates a post of value that all parties are proud to share.
- Write something that stirs you. Our goal is not to be controversial, although we do love pointing out the things that outrage us. Often, the things that stir us, stir others too – which is why some of our more heated posts (like this one about General Mills, this one about Toxic Turf, and this one about Pinkwashing) end up driving a large amount of traffic.
- Write something big. It’s not always possible to foresee which of your posts will be the most successful, but if you put time, care, and heart into your writing, you’ll sometimes end up with something others will want to share too. One of our most shared posts is Lisa’s 25 Big Thoughts For Your Small Business.
- Stay active on Twitter. Even though we share our content across all social media platforms once, since tweets only stay visible in a newsfeed for so long, we post the same links multiple times on twitter. Chances are, your followers aren’t seeing everything you post there sue to it being more of a news ticker, so it’s helpful rather than annoying. We use Hootsuite to help us schedule new posts over the course of days or months at once, and Buffer to help us keep sharing past content.
- Include your website in your social media bios. Social media has the power to connect us with so many like-minded people – make sure you use the space in your bio to tell people where to go to learn more about what you do. On that note, your entire profile should be set up on every social media platform!
- Pin good content. Whether you are using Pinterest to pin your own content (which you should) or other people’s content (which you should also do), keep your boards full of good, organized content to attract followers with the same interests as you.
- Tell your story often. Even more than you think you need to. Trust us, telling your story might feel repetitive to you, but it most haven’t heard you/of you yet!
- Plan. Every time we post something to our “UnBlog”, we run through the same checklist of actions. That way, we never forget proofread, add hyperlinks, schedule Tweets in Hootsuite and Buffer, pin each post to Pinterest, post to LinkedIn and Google Plus, add to our newsletter or email to those involved directly.
- Get Organized. When you’re organized, understand your brand, know your difference, and appreciate how your social media channels work for you, you will not only write better content, but will also be better at sharing it effectively and efficiently.
Start anywhere, but start now – with all of our tips, or just one – and keep an eye on which techniques work best for you, using a tool like Google Analytics. If you are working hard, your efforts need to be working for you.
Kindly note: We don’t like to refer to ourselves as “experts”, but we do take great pride in sharing our business advice, distilled down from our extensive research and (often) mind-blowingly frustrating experiences we’ve endured and learned from. We try our best to create a clear and humble approach to good business tactics that you and your teams can understand and turn into effective and productive revenue streams. We are actual, real people and look forward to supporting you in any way we can, whether it’s on the topic of this post, or other business development and marketing communications you may be involved in, or considering. We are proud of the services we provide; if you don’t see what you’re looking for, just ask us – we also take pride in being super responsive!
