How to Double Your Traffic Without Paying Google or Facebook a Cent

I had just launched my blog.

The first post was published and it was there for all the world to see. But no one knew it existed. I had no budget for marketing, no traffic and to be honest I was struggling. Sort of like a tree in a Siberian forest. A bit green, very unknown and hidden.

Sound familiar.

It was 2009 and blogging and the social web were new and just emerging from the primordial swamp on the start of the journey of digital evolution. Tools were raw or non-existent and everyone was trying to work out how to get traffic without paying for it. SEO scammers were still plying their trade and Google AdWords was getting too expensive.

Social media was free back then.

You could get traffic easily from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks without paying for it. I started to work out that Twitter was very effective for getting traffic to my blog. My email list was so small it might as well been non-existent and my SEO traffic was feeble.

So how do you get free traffic?

If you're expecting an easy answer you are in the wrong place. You are going to have to earn it!

…and that takes time and effort.

Here are the top 3 tactics to start and focus on.

1. Social media – This where I started. You need to start building a tribe on social networks (Twitter was the one that worked best for me)

2. Search engines –  Earning authority with Google takes persistence but research shows that this will produce 300% more traffic than social over time.

3. Building an email list – This is vital. It means that you can let your audience know about your latest blog post or offer when you want to. Not at the whim of a Google or Facebook algorithm. Do this from day one.

Now for a lot of you this is not big news.

But it is still surprising how many people still don't do the work to make these tactics work.

But there are some simple ways to get free traffic and here is a secret on how to double your traffic.

The real secret

The real secret is optimizing your blog and website with tools and technologies that make your site work harder. That means that your primary goal should be to take the traffic  you already have and optimize it. That means two things.

1. Making it easier to share


2. Make it compelling to subscribe to your email list

How do you do that?

The simplest way to start is to use simple to use sharing buttons. When I did this for the first time the results were incredible. Just doing that one thing increased my traffic by 200%

But I am still surprised today how hard people make it to share their content. Often they are almost impossible to find, at the bottom of the post or not even setup.

An awesome tool

Today we have so many tools and platforms that it is overwhelming. Late last year I decided to try out an app that I had heard about but hadn't the time to implement.

Sumome.

What I love about the app is that it makes it easy to optimize and test. It also focuses on the two key things that you need to make your blog and website work harder.

Optimizing your content sharing and email subscribing.

Making your blog work harder and smarter is the best place to start rather than chasing shiny new toys that offer the world, add clutter and  just plain waste your time.

Sumome is the best tool I have discovered in a long time! Here are 7 ways to use it to start on the journey to doubling your traffic.

4 ways to optimize your email list building

The best place to start is with the tools that help you grow your email list. Here are 4 cool ways to make it easy and compelling for your site visitors to do that with Sumome.

Welcome Mat

The default designs are a great place to start. But you can create your own design by using their large range of templates. The stats show that the welcome mat is one of the highest converting list building tactics you can use.

Sumome data shows that it can triple your conversion rate with its full-screen call to action.

Welcome Mat displays a full-screen call to action that shows when visitors land on your site. It encourages your visitors to join your email list and check out your latest and popular blog post!

Popular features include:

• Ability to customize the background, add gifs, videos and completely change the colors


• Mobile and web optimized


• Automatically loads when visitors arrive on your site


• Ability to use display rules to control where your popup shows


• Easy newsletter integration with Mailchimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, GetResponses, Infusionsoft, Mad Mimi, Vero and many more!

Scroll box

The scroll box is a sliding banner that pops out when people have read a certain percentage of your content or post. the default setting on this is 40%.

You could use this to also promote webinars and other landing pages.

List builder

This operates like most pop-ups but is easy to design and configure the settings.

Smart Bar

If you go the top of my blog you will see the "Smart bar" that links to Sumome and you can start setting it up today. You can also use it on your website to start building your email list.

3 ways to boost your sharing optimisation

Making it easy for sharing on a social web is critical. If you don't work on this then you are leaving a lot of traffic in the shed. Here are 3 easy to boost your sharing.

Image Sharer

People love sharing images. So make it easy for them. In a few seconds you can set up your site for sharing to Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. In just a few days I have had nearly 100 images shared which drives brand awareness and traffic.

That alone will increase your traffic!

Sharing buttons

Now there are huge selection of sharing button apps on the market but again they are easy to design, configure and setup. The sharing buttons can also be configured to float down the side as people read your post and increase your sharing rate.

Here is how Sumome looks on the Social Media Examiner blog.

Highlighter

With Highlighter, your visitors can highlight sections of your articles to share with their friends, coworkers, and more. This does two insanely valuable things:

1. Drives you social traffic

2. Highlights popular sections for you readers.

Features worth noting:

• Enable highlight of any text on your page


• Get way more shares on Facebook and Twitter


• Offer ability to share any content via Facebook or Twitter


• Ability to fully customize the color of the share box


• Works instantly

Other cool features

Along with the sharing and subscribing tools the app also provides some other cool features.

• Mobile friendly


• Measures your performance with Google analytics integration


• Perform A/B split tests.

It is so easy to add another scroll box, list builder or welcome mat to a campaign and compare the results. To put this in some perspective a welcome mat that converts at 1.9% versus 1.6% means that you will capture 300 more emails per 100,000 welcome mats shown.

That's worth testing!

You can set up another mat for testing in just a few minutes and start measuring straight away.

Let's double your traffic!

So now you have a lot of ideas to grow your traffic. You should also know what to focus on. I would recommend you implement Sumome today. If you can't set it up yourself then get your web tech partner to do it for you.

I would then implement the following as a minimum.

• Welcome mat


• Scroll box


• Image sharing

With some focus, effort and testing I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you have doubled your web traffic.

Look forward to hearing your stories about how you grew your traffic with Sumome.

The post How to Double Your Traffic Without Paying Google or Facebook a Cent appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

Facebook Audience Optimization: What Marketers Need to Know

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What Can You Learn From Chipotle About Rescuing Your Brand?

Business success relies on an innovative product or service that effectively catches the attention of your market. But it also relies upon maintaining your reputation and a bond of trust with your customers.

As long as customers have trust in your brand, they will continue to flock to your product or service. That means continued prosperity and longevity for your business.

But what if a major issue arises resulting in the bond of trust with your customers being broken? What can you do to recapture that trust and restore your brand in the eyes of your fans and followers?

For ideas, look no further than the recent efforts of Mexican food chain Chipotle as the company struggles to rebuild its image after a series of food quality and safety issues came to light.

In 2015, Chipotle was forced to report a series of food poisoning issues. Outbreaks of E. coli, Salmonella and Norovirus were reported in Oregon State, all linked to food contamination at the restaurant chain. The Mexican grill boasts using only the freshest and locally produced ingredients. The company was also among the first to reject genetically modified (GM) food.

Trust and Commitment

So Chipotle's early commitment to fresh and genetically unmodified ingredients had allowed the company to develop an incredibly strong bond of trust with its customers. In the world of business, these inter-related ideas of commitment and trust are crucial to how a brand markets itself to its target audience. And a brand's success is related to the strength of that bond.

Every business should aim to build this relationship with its customers. But in 2015, that trust was suddenly and very publicly shattered as details arose about the food contamination issue.

Chipotle’s Move

Though the chain has already officially apologized, it was felt more was needed to rebuild the company's all-important bond of trust with customers.

To this end, Chipotle announced plans to close all of its stores across the country this coming February 8 for several hours to conduct a meeting on food safety. The meeting will involve all of the company’s staff and will look not only at food quality but at other company issues too.

Chipotle has over 2,000 restaurants. All will be involved in the shutdown. According to the company’s communications director Chris Arnold, Chipotle will be taking the time to thank its employees for their hard work in these trying times.

Employees will then learn about changes in the company's enhanced food safety plan.

Bouncing Back

Responding swiftly to issues that place a company's brand at risk is the best bet when trying to minimize that risk. For example, Chipotle's swift reaction goes beyond a mere apology and demonstrates the seriousness of the company's resolve.

Counter-measures to recover a brand's reputation and reassure customers are so important. So what might you do to recover customer trust and credibility at your business in a similar situation?

Chipotle Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "What Can You Learn From Chipotle About Rescuing Your Brand?" was first published on Small Business Trends

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Use “Gift” as Keyword For Valentine’s Day Marketing

Valentine’s Day, one of the most eagerly awaited holidays of the year, is just around the corner. For many businesses, it’s also the busiest time of the year as the day of love is also the fourth-largest spending holiday.

If your business offers Valentine’s Day goodies such as chocolates, cards and flowers, make sure you use “gift” as a keyword to market your products online. That’s because 40 percent of Valentine’s searches in 2015 used "gift" as a keyword, according to data put together by the Bing Ads Insights Team in the Valentine’s Day: Insights to woo digital marketers report (PDF download).

Key Highlights

The report presents a number of interesting insights to help you attract customers this holiday season. Here are some of the key findings of the report:

• Twenty six percent of consumers plan to research products and compare prices to shop for Valentine’s Day.


• The first two weeks in February is when the bulk of Valentine’s Day searches on Bing Ads happen.


• Mobile captures roughly one-third of all Valentine’s Day searches.


• Jewelry, gift cards and flowers are the top search categories for Valentine’s Day.


• Ad copy for gifts works best when there are superlatives such as “best”, “top” and “great” in the ad title.


• There are plenty of last-minute searches, with mobile volume being greatest on Valentine’s Day between 3-10 p.m.


• Ad click-through-rate improves when ad copy contains certain words (see the top ad copy combinations below).

Woo the Lonely Hearts Club on Valentine’s Day

The report notes that 45 percent of Americans don’t plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Interestingly, though, many of them plan to get together or treat themselves to something special.

It’s interesting data because it can create new opportunities to woo singles who may not have elaborate plans for the annual celebration of love, but are still willing to spend money.

With 10 percent of happy singles planning to buy gifts like jewelry, spa, and apparel for themselves, you may want to seize this opportunity by planning a special campaign directed at this group.

Success Lies in a Great Valentine’s Day Marketing Strategy

With billions being spent on a single day to celebrate love, Valentine’s Day is a big event for businesses today. To make the most of it, you need to plan well and early.

Here are some tips that will come in handy:

• Kick off your marketing campaign in January to target the early shoppers before your competition.


• Be consistent across all devices. Offers on desktop, smartphones, and tablets should be identical.


• Offer same-day delivery on February 13 and 14 to capture last-minute shoppers.


• Make it easier for customers to connect using Call Extensions, Location Extensions and Location Targeting.


• Call-to-actions always work. Consider using compelling calls-to-action to entice your audience.

Valentine Photo via Shutterstock, Graphic via Bing

This article, "Use "Gift" as Keyword For Valentine's Day Marketing" was first published on Small Business Trends

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