Happy 2018! If you’re looking to get more traffic this year, read on:
Staples was onto something when they created their “easy” button. But for now, most things worthwhile aren’t available with a quick click. For example, how much better would your business website perform if you had a keyboard equipped with a ‘get traffic’ button? Unfortunately it isn’t that simple. Getting the website traffic you need can be hard work.
These days we build our entire marketing campaigns and activities around our websites in order to achieve the targeted traffic we need to encourage a conversion. Generally this means developing a digital marketing strategy with a mixture of inbound and outbound marketing channels. These efforts involve a considerable amount of time, money and effort from your marketing team.
But if your marketing budget is tight and your resources are scarce, it can be difficult to get the targeted traffic you need to achieve these results.
So how do you get the targeted traffic you need at a fraction of the cost?
Before I dive in, it’s important that I point out a significant difference. Please notice that I’m saying ‘targeted traffic’ here. You can get ‘cheap traffic’ or ‘junk traffic’ for very little money – but it won’t be targeted, which means it won’t be worthwhile to you or your business. After all, there’s very little value in bringing people to your pages who have no intent on buying from you.
What you want (and what I’m about to show you) is to get high quality, yet inexpensive traffic from people who want to buy. Here are four ways you can get quality targeted traffic on the cheap.
1.Content Amplification Software
You’ve likely heard the phrase ‘content is king,’ but how effective is your content at driving new visitors to your pages?
If you are producing weekly content, chances are you are already distributing it to your existing network of social media followers and opt-in subscribers. That part is easy. What isn’t quite as simple and straightforward is how to reach people outside of your existing network. This is called content amplification.
Content amplification helps you take your content to the next level by distributing it to audiences you are not currently reaching. Content amplification software is the tool that lets you do that.
Sites such as Outbrain Amplify – the behemoth of the content distribution world – will help you reach new audiences by making your content louder and easier to find. This paid site is the best known among its competitors. For a few dollars per day ($10 minimum) it will display your content as recommended reading to users browsing popular websites such as CNN, People and ESPN.
Content amplification software is an excellent way of getting your content noticed at a low cost. It will ultimately encourage traffic to visit your website.
2. Facebook PPC
The best way to buy traffic to your site is through the tried and true pay per click (PPC) model. For most of our clients, we recommend Facebook’s platform for PPC.
Facebook is one of the cheapest sources of traffic you can find online. You can target exactly who you need to reach and, done correctly, it can send a remarkable amount of traffic your way.
A Moz study found that on average you would be able to reach as many as 4,000 highly targeted viewers with just a single dollar. Let’s do the math. By spending only a $1 a day (which is the minimum spend) you could receive approximately 120,000 viewers of your ad for $30. Not a bad ratio.
In addition to this, Facebook has the lowest cost per 1,000 impressions in advertising history, averaging at around $0.25 per 1,000. This is another staggering statistic from the Moz study.
Facebook has 1.59 billion monthly active users and because of this they are able to collect an immense amount of information about a large portion of the world’s population. This is why Facebook is so successful when it comes to PPC, and why your business can be too.
3. Guest Blogging
As I mentioned earlier, content is king. Still, quality content is hard to come by these days. Many websites are eager to bring new voices to their editorial calendar and add new content without paying money. It’s called guest blogging and it’s an open door opportunity for you.
Guest blogging is one of the most effective ways of building relationships with audiences on other websites. Because those websites have already done the legwork to build up an audience, all you have to do is write a few quality posts to get that audience’s attention and bring new potential buyers to your brand.
The key here is to choose the site where you guest blog carefully. There are plenty of junk sites out there. For your guest blogging efforts to be effective, you must choose a website with a higher domain authority than yours (so you get the SEO benefit when they link back to your pages) and a reader profile that fits in with your own target audience. With these two things, you’re able to drive highly targeted, helping to your pages.
Getting started isn’t as easy as it might seem. You will need to build good relationships with the editors of the sites you would like to blog for. These people are often bombarded with guest blogging requests with junk content that’s more damaging than it is helpful to their audience. This means building a relationship with an editor can be tricky if you don’t already have some established connections.
Your marketing agency may already have some connections that they can use to get your foot in the door. For example, we regularly write for and work with websites, such as AllBusiness, Tweak Your Biz and others because of the relationships we’ve built.
4.Google Adwords
Google’s very foundation is built on getting people to organically find your site and is therefore the king of free traffic. If you have a good, solid understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) then you can do very well at increasing traffic to your site organically (or without paying your way to the top).
However, going down the organic SEO route can take some time and skill. If you’re not ranking as high in the search engine results pages (SERPs) as you’d like, Google Adwords is a great way to go.
Using Google Adwords is a great way to reach new potential buyers. All it involves is buying sponsored ads on search results pages for your keywords. This is an easy way to reach a highly targeted audience.
Of course, choosing broad keywords will end up costing you a fortune because they are more competitive for both advertisers and searchers alike. To ensure you get the most for your money choose long-tail keywords which are very specific to your business. These are keywords that are approximately five to seven words in length.
The great thing about Google Adwords is you can set your daily budget. This is where the inexpensive part comes into play.
Pick a budget that fits in with what you are able to afford to spend. You will only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad.
Takeaways
There are many ways you can drive targeted traffic to your website without hurting your wallet. These four are the best we’ve found at Marketing Samurai. Have you found other cheap forms of traffic generation, such as social media marketing or contests?
If your current marketing strategy isn’t achieving the desired results, consider some of these suggestions.
Has your web traffic taken a nosedive? Marketing Samurai can help you get back on track. We offer a free business consultation to get you started. Click the link to sign up for a half hour conversation with one of our team members.
