Now that you have your website up and running, one down. Where is your first customer, who will come and buy? Biko. The site is there, looking fine and your products and prices shining; 3 days go by, no alert, 3 weeks no customer, oh my. What do you do? You need to “market.”
By market I mean get people to know you exist; that your shop “dey there” and you’re ready to provide what they want at a price, so how do you do this? How do you get them to notice you and come to your website? This is what driving traffic is all about.
SIDE: You can go “Hustler mode” and post, post and post everywhere, sneak into DMS, burst into peoples comments online and many more, some people get annoyed that you’re “comment crashing” and bursting into people’s parties uninvited, but it works. I see examples everywhere biko, especially on sites like Nairaland and Facebook, people see it.
It can be pretty tasking but one secret to help you achieve this is being consistent. You cannot post for one week and the next week you will go on vacation, rara o! Mba! You have to be very consistent so people know that you are serious.
With that being said, on to why we are here – how do you drive free traffic to your site? By free, I mean traffic that you are not paying to get. It only serves to make people more aware of you and your business as well on the internet.
Now the three easiest (and free) ways to do this are:
- Blogging (Writing to solve a problem or entertain)
- Sharing URLs on social media with friends
- Posting in forums
1. Blogging (writing to solve a problem or entertain)
This is one of the top methods used to get traffic to websites. It involves writing about different things in your field (or domain of expertise) either to help people solve a problem, inform or simply entertain them.
Take for example, you own a hair making website that sells hair accessories and wigs, you can decide to blog about different types of wigs, their uses, people’s experience while making their hair or even your experience while dealing with customers. Someone who does this pretty well is GNO (Glammed Naturally Oil). This way, you not only inform your potential customers, you also give them evidence of your expertise and they actually patronize you.
The great thing about blogging is that once you can create good content, people who find it useful will share on their platforms, thereby bringing even more traffic to your site.
2. Sharing URLs on social media with friends
This is another great way to spread the word. It’s quite easy and all you have to do is paste links on your Instagram bio, Whatsapp, Twitter (and other social media) or share it with friends and family.
Also, when you share these links on social media, you make people know that “Ah! This one is serious about his business o!” Having a website gives you a look of professionalism and just because of that, people will want to visit your site just to know what it is about.
3. Posting in public forums
This method is a little underrated but it works nonetheless. Sharing your links on forums or groups exposes your website to a large number of people that can potentially become customers or regular visitors.
For example, Facebook has large forums where people come to discuss different topics, you can join one that has to do with your field of interest so the people there will be more interested in it. Same goes for Whatsapp groups as well Telegram.
Aside these three free methods, there’s another one which may not be as “free” That method is “Posting links to your site in videos you create or comments of others”
This involves vlogging, putting videos online and then putting links to the more detailed blog post which will be on your site. Video content commands more attention and this will in turn increase the number of people who visit your site as they have picked up interest because of the video. This also translates to more sales, that is, if you are selling a product.
You might have noticed we said “Free” but the truth is nothing is totally Free, it will still cost you your time and attention to do these things which as a business person you might be better off paying someone to do these things for you so you don’t pay with your time.
Which one of these methods have you tried and which of them has shown the best results?
