You Don’t Have to Pay for Traffic
There’s an old saying – when you want more traffic, you go the traffic store. And yes, you pay. Google ads, social media ads, ads, ads, ads. But there’s so much more you can do to drive traffic and get more eyes on your content without spending big bucks.
The Question Every Marketer Asks
“How do I get more people to my website?”
The simple answer, of course, is to advertise. You can run ads on Google, ads on Facebook and Instagram, retargeting ads, and so much more. There are people who have made excellent livings for themselves teaching people how to craft ads to get “sales while you sleep” – and for some people, that kind of advertising can work, at least to some degree (but never to the level that the coaches tell you THEY experienced, right?).
When Paid Ads Deliver Zero Sales
And even with the very best intentions and the very best training, some people advertise and get ZERO results. Well, let me be clear – they might get more followers, more likes, or many clicks, but when it comes to SALES, frequently those numbers are nowhere near what they need to be to justify the cost of the ads. We have one client who went through a Facebook ads training, got personal coaching in setting up ads, testing, tweaking, and publishing, and got zero sales. But she spent more than $2,500 with Facebook ads – and more than that with the training and coaching program – all for zero sales. And that’s an example where she did everything “right.”
Why Sending Ad Traffic to Your Home Page Doesn’t Work
We also see countless people / organizations that spend money in advertising and the link the ad goes to is the website home page. Err, no. That doesn’t work. When you drop people into your website home page, there is no clarity about what you want them to do. Maybe they’ll fish around and look at stuff – but, in reality, they won’t. When people click an ad, they’re looking for something specific – the fulfillment of the promise that the ad made that enticed them to click.
If You Do Run Ads, Use a Purpose-Built Landing Page
The bottom line for an ad strategy is this: if you’re going to spend money on ads, BE SURE you are sending people to a specific, purpose-build landing page, not to your home page or your blog landing page. You need to be able to know how people are coming to you, to track their sources, and, most importantly, to CAUSE people to do the ONE thing that you want them to do. This requires implementing strategic calls-to-action that guide visitors toward your desired conversion goal.
Free Traffic Strategies That Can Outperform Paid Ads
Those who talk about the traffic store don’t talk about the stuff sitting on the “free table” at the traffic store. That’s right – there are many things you can do to drive traffic that cost you no money – or very little money – and these things can sometimes perform even better for you than a paid ad strategy ever will. However, success with these free methods requires a solid content strategy framework to ensure your efforts are coordinated and effective.
You Need Content Your Perfect Customers Actually Want
But I’ve got to be blunt with you here. If you don’t have something that your perfect potential customers will want, there’s not a strategy in the world that will bring the right people to your website and into your sales funnel. That means CONTENT. And the very BEST use of content to drive traffic is to have an attractor (aka lead magnet, free gift) that entices your perfect potential customers to give their email address so they can get it. Creating effective quality lead generation content requires understanding your audience’s specific pain points and desires.
How to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic
You can leverage your social media to offer your attractor in two ways: 1) create posts that offer it directly with a lovely graphic and great call to action so people will click and opt-in. This will get you a few leads – but in reality only about 0.58% of people who see your post will actually click and opt-in; that’s just the brutal truth about social media followers. 2) post your blog posts with a link to read the entire post – which takes people back to your blog post on your website. On that blog post, be sure you offer your attractor so people can opt-in right on your website.
How to Beat the Algorithm Without Paying
Ask a trusted group to like and comment on your social media posts so that they will become elevated within the algorithms and then be shown to more people. Frankly, Facebook and others WANT you to pay for advertising, so they’re unlikely to show your posts to all of your followers unless the post gets likes, comments, and shares on its own. In fact, be sure to like and share your OWN posts – as your personal profile and not as your page. It helps.
Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator Worth $800 a Year?
If your perfect potential customers are on LinkedIn, you can get great results by purchasing Sales Navigator (seems pricey at $800/year, but can be WELL worth it!) A LinkedIn strategy is NOT an ad strategy – it’s a connection and engagement strategy, and, if that’s where your customers are, your income potential from employing a great LinkedIn strategy can far outweigh the cost of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator.
Social Media Is Rented Property—Use It Wisely
Social media is far from perfect – and it’s changing all the time. Since it’s “rented property” and not something you own, you need to do what you can to maximize it without handing over your bank account.
Speaking Opportunities: Podcasts, Summits, and More
You’re an expert in your field, right? Are you sharing your message in front of groups? On radio shows? On podcasts? In summits?
Of course there’s the obvious – tap into your local groups, like the Chamber of Commerce, business networking groups, etc. If there’s a big potential in your local area for you to get new clients, consider offering free workshops from time to time, so you can become known locally as an expert. That could lead you to local radio stations for interviews, or to TV interviews on your subject matter. All good, yes?
How to Find Speaking Opportunities
But there’s so much more. The fact is, there are podcasts, summits, and internet radio interviews going on ALL THE TIME. But how do you find out about them?
Leverage your networks – particularly LinkedIn. Look for people who have skills that complement your own (and don’t compete!). Do they have groups you could present to? Could you team up with others to offer a summit, a roundtable, or a series of webinars or podcast episodes? Connect with people who can help you find your audience. Help others find theirs – but don’t get sucked into promoting stuff that is meaningless to your ideal audience. (They’ll shut you down and stop listening to anything you say if you keep sending promo emails about stuff they don’t care about.)
There’s one key to these speaking opportunities that you MUST NOT IGNORE!
The One Thing You Must Do at Every Speaking Opportunity
To effectively utilize speaking opportunities for lead generation – for traffic, you MUST have something that your audience will want AND you must tell them how to get it. Yes, we’re back to that attractor / free gift we talked about before. Perhaps you’ve worked hard and have several from which you could choose the perfect one for each speaking opportunity. Great! Or perhaps you’re just starting out and only have one that you’ll offer everywhere for now.
Either way, you MUST offer something enticing to the audience so they’ll come to your website and opt-in to receive your gift. This approach combines traffic generation with list building fundamentals to maximize the value of every speaking opportunity.
Pro Tip: Make Your Opt-In URL Simple and Trackable
And here’s a PRO TIP: make your URL for this offer something SIMPLE and easy to remember. Have you ever heard someone give out a URL and it’s www.website.com forward slash something dash something dash something dash something? Who is going to remember that? No one – not even if you have it up on the screen for them. Make it simple, like website.com forward slash something – ONE WORD that will allow THEM to remember (and make it easy to type into their browser) and allow YOU to track the source of new leads that come in from that speaking engagement.
Giveaways: A List-Building Strategy for Coaches and Experts
For coaches, experts, authors, and solopreneurs, participating in giveaways can be a great way to grow your list. Each month, there are dozens of giveaways, each with a particular theme, or geared toward a particular audience. Some giveaways have contributor fees (usually $150 or less) while others do not.
How to Choose the Right Giveaways
Don’t participate in every giveaway under the sun! You want to carefully select the giveaways in which you’ll participate to ensure that the giveaway’s intended audience is aligned with YOUR perfect potential customer profile. And – this is very important – you want to keep in mind the requirements that go along with every giveaway. For typical giveaways, you’ll be required to email your list three times during the giveaway period AND to post to your social media channels. For that reason alone, you’ll want to stagger your giveaway participation so you are not emailing your list for a different giveaway every day. That’s not a value-adding strategy for your leads.
And of course, you’ll need that attractor / free gift as your offer for the giveaway.
Pro Tip: Track Every Giveaway With a Unique Landing Page
One thing we see people do ALL THE TIME is provide their generic URL to every giveaway. Guess what that means if you do that? It means you will NEVER be able to track which leads came from which giveaway (or summit, or radio show, or podcast). Imagine it’s a year down the road, and you’re asked to participate in the same giveaway again. How will you know how that giveaway performed for you? That’s right – you need to be able to track the source of the leads that come in through each source. That means a specific landing page and/or a specific opt-in form for every giveaway. So a year down the road, when you get an email from Betsy asking if you want to be in her giveaway again, you can answer based on the data from the prior year. (This just happened with one of our clients, and she saw she only got 5 new leads from last year’s giveaway, so she opted not to participate this year. Gotta love data, amiright?) PLUS – if there was a contributor fee for the giveaway, you can figure out your cost per lead so easily when you track the source.
SEO: The Long Game That Pays Off
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a long-running game. You won’t get instant results from an SEO strategy; your results will grow over time. And, like I love to say, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the 2nd best time is today. So start now with SEO. Put keywords on your posts, make sure your post snippet is correct, and do what you can to make your posts attractive to the search engine bots. Use Yoast SEO if you’re on WordPress (free version is fine for most people) for the simplest way to start.
Just Start—You Don’t Have to Be Perfect
You can start this on your own Research SEO, learn all you can about it, and just get started. You don’t want to sit down in six months and wish you had started six months ago. Just start. You won’t be perfect, I guarantee it, but you’ll have SOMETHING going – which is way better than having NOTHING going.
Strategic Partnerships and Referrals
While there are many paid programs that teach you about the world of joint venture partnerships, you can certainly network with others on your own, on LinkedIn, in Facebook groups, etc., to find people with whom you’d want to partner.
Build a Long-Term Traffic Strategy Without Big Ad Spend
The traffic store DOES have a free table. You don’t have to have a paid ad strategy to get new eyes on your content and people to your website. Simply create the content that your ideal audience – your perfect potential customers – will want, then start sharing, speaking, networking, and/or partnering to serve your audience without spending big bucks.
Plan for the long game – this isn’t a one-and-done strategy. It’s not an “instant income” strategy. It’s not a “sales while you sleep” strategy. Frankly, those strategies don’t work for most people (but they sure do increase the income of the folks you can pay to teach them to you!). Commit to a long-term, traffic-generating, lead-generating strategy. You’ll be WAYYY better off in the long term.
Get one piece of enticing, downloadable content working for you. Next week, or next month, create another one and get that out there too. Build traffic. Get leads. And… go.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why don't paid ads work for getting website traffic and sales?
Even with the very best intentions and the very best training, some people advertise and get ZERO results. They might get more followers, more likes, or many clicks, but when it comes to SALES, frequently those numbers are nowhere near what they need to be to justify the cost of the ads.
What should I send ad traffic to instead of my homepage?
If you're going to spend money on ads, BE SURE you are sending people to a specific, purpose-built landing page, not to your home page or your blog landing page. You need to be able to know how people are coming to you, to track their sources, and, most importantly, to CAUSE people to do the ONE thing that you want them to do.
How can I use speaking opportunities to drive traffic and grow my email list?
To effectively utilize speaking opportunities for lead generation - for traffic, you MUST have something that your audience will want AND you must tell them how to get it. Make your URL for this offer something SIMPLE and easy to remember... make it simple, like website.com forward slash something - ONE WORD that will allow THEM to remember and allow YOU to track the source of new leads that come in from that speaking engagement.
How do giveaways help build my email list and what should I watch out for?
Don't participate in every giveaway under the sun! You want to carefully select the giveaways in which you'll participate to ensure that the giveaway's intended audience is aligned with YOUR perfect potential customer profile. You'll need a specific landing page and/or a specific opt-in form for every giveaway so you can track which leads came from which source.
How do I get started with SEO to drive long-term website traffic?
Put keywords on your posts, make sure your post snippet is correct, and do what you can to make your posts attractive to the search engine bots. Use Yoast SEO if you're on WordPress (free version is fine for most people) for the simplest way to start. You don't want to sit down in six months and wish you had started six months ago. Just start.