Driving traffic is the only way to make a website live and work as you want. Everything starts with visitors, and nothing else can bring sales and conversions. Depending on your business and resources, there is no one source of traffic that you can use and guarantee the best results.
Furthermore, people are talking about social media and other strategies to use, especially for established blogs. Today, I’ll show you the difference in quality, for all these sites and others. But also, you will get tips on how to use any paid way, if you want to work on PPC.
Organic traffic vs social media
We all know that optimizing a website for SEO and building good relationships with bloggers can take your business to the next level. Google organic traffic is the top quality that you can find, nothing can be better than that. However, that needs time and effort.
If you just look for instant traffic, then, this is not the right way for you. Google needs months to understand and rank your blog content well. And, you should build content regularly, and not just publish a few posts and stop here.
Fresh traffic is the only way to build natural links to your posts. Of course, your article needs to be good, and when people read it, they get tips and help to solve their problems. That’s the power of the search engine search. Just write what makes life better and think about the quality of traffic that you will receive after a few months.
On the other hand, social media sites are also a good source of traffic for many bloggers. I saw many successful blogs, especially in the food blogging and Fashion niches, getting thousands of visits from websites like Pinterest.
Using social media is not wrong for your business, but, the wrong thing is to focus on that source of traffic only and forget that you need sustainable sources like Google.
The problem with social media traffic is quality. The conversion is low, and that’s normal if you consider that people are there to be social and to connect with each other.
That’s why, you need to understand that if your website receives one thousand visits, for example, from Pinterest, then, a few dozen will be really interested in your product or service. But, that’s not a bad result; I saw many marketers who make sales from a few quality visitors.
I recommend Pinterest because of its nature. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are saturated with promotions and offers, Pinterest attracts millions of people who share content and want to learn more about the shared photos.
The final word about this type of traffic is this, you need to drive organic traffic in the long term. It’s targeted and the source that you need, but prepare yourself for hard work and patience. In the meantime, if you want to drive social traffic, then pin well-selected photos on Pinterest, add your link to every one of them, and post regularly.
3 posts per day on Pinterest can bring good results in a few weeks. Just be active there, comment on other pins, and follow people in your niche. You will get real followers who share your pins, and that’s what makes things better.
You can use this Pinterest Guide to understand the real secrets behind making money and driving traffic from that big website.
Forget Facebook and the other social sites, the conversion is near to nothing, and you need to focus on quality and not quantity.
Paid advertising
This is the only good alternative source of traffic to organic search. PPC can make your business successful instantly, without any technical skills and SEO techniques. Create your campaigns, add eye-catching titles, and make sure that you use trusted networks.
The best of the best budget advertising networks is always Yahoo Gemini, it’s easy to set up, affordable, and a trusted source of traffic from a quality business that’s well-known worldwide.
The challenge with paid advertising is the cost. If you’re willing to use Google AdWords, then, prepare yourself to spend a fortune there. Of course, they’re the best, but, when you start paying $10 to $ 30 per click for some keywords, you will find yourself in a difficult situation.
So, start small and use other networks that allow you to pay a few cents per click and not dollars. Then, optimize your campaigns and test everything like titles, call to action, and even colors.
When you want to use banner ads, make sure to test a few versions of the same campaign, and see what banners bring the best results. Then, duplicate the strategy for other products or sites.
Make sure to see the website’s actual Alexa traffic rank. You can find high-traffic sites using the statistics, but, when you see their rank, you will find a few visits, because the site is no longer updated.
Traffic methods that are a waste of time
Lots of people talk about spam ways to drive traffic that worked in the past. But they never work again. Things, like commenting or blog posts, or posting on Facebook, are a waste of time that you should never use.
Using your forum signature is also another big mistake. You need thousands, upon thousands of posts, and hope that you get a few visits every day. That’s without considering that you can be banned easily from forums. It’s just spam traffic that no one wants and that no one would accept for his website.
Submitting PDF files to directories takes lots of time and real work to find them. But, when it comes to traffic quality, it’s nothing; in the end. Then a few visitors just need to see what that website is talking about.
Conclusion
My advice for those people who need to drive real traffic to their blogs is to focus on Google and other search engines. Ask yourself what people need from your post, and help them to solve problems.
Spend a few months, at least, posting regularly, and build relationships with bloggers and marketers. You will need them later, for recommending your blog or products.
Use Pinterest as the only social network that drives good traffic, but build your platform of followers first and follow other people in your industry.
If you want instant traffic, you have to use paid advertising, it’s the only way to get targeted people who clicked on your ad because they’re interested in your offer. Everything else is not only a waste of effort and money, but, It can affect your motivation with its catastrophic results.
