It can be the most frustrating thing in the world when you’ve started selling a fabulous product and you’ve set up a beautiful website for the whole world to see – but nobody comes.
“Build it and they will come”, they said. Only, sadly, that’s not how it works. Bringing traffic to your website takes hard and consistent work. We’ve put together 5 actions for you to do to start building an audience for your site.
Learn Instagram (and stick to it)
Instagram is your friend and you need to learn to treat it like one. Turn up every day and show it some love, even when you feel that you have nothing to say. Instagram works especially well if you have products that look lovely or can be made to look lovely, e.g., jewellery, beauty products, clothing, etc. However, people use it for all sorts of businesses and services and it still works brilliantly.
Remember that images are meant to make people feel something, so you need to work out what you want your audience to feel and what images you have that will achieve that. Get some free tutorials on how to get the most out of Instagram – there are loads out there. Learn how to use hashtags to your advantage and how to reach out to people to get their attention.
The most important thing is to be consistent. Make time every single day to show the love and you should see the love returned.
Use SEO
When it comes to driving people to your website, SEO is not optional. For the uninitiated, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and is basically the art of enabling search engines to rank your website higher than your competition. For some, SEO can sound very scary. It can be expensive and complicated and technical, and the SEO industry has gained a bad reputation by attracting a lot of unskilled people who take your money, promise the earth and deliver nothing.
The good news is that you can employ a lot of SEO tactics yourself. The key SEO tactic you have to implement is simple. Make sure your homepage says what you do. So many people skip this step because the images can make it very obvious, for example if you sell baby clothes or sportswear. If your website doesn’t say what you do, how is Google supposed to know? If I am searching for baby clothes and your website doesn’t say that you sell baby clothes, I will never find you.
A few other SEO tactics:
- Make sure your website is quick to load. Google will penalise you if it is not. Uptrends is a great tool for checking site speed.
- Make sure your site performs as well on a mobile as it does on a desktop. Don’t ignore any issues that only show on mobile.
- Encourage other reputable sites to link to you. This is the hardest tactic and the one that people can find most discouraging. Sadly, there is no shortcut. You have to go out there and talk to people. The rewards are worth it – search engines place a lot of value on good quality links.
- Make sure you include your keywords. These are the words that people type in to search engines to find products like yours. It’s important that you use them liberally (but not too liberally). There are tools out there to help you find the right keywords. Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest is a really great free tool for keyword research.
- Make sure you put meaningful copy into your meta titles and meta descriptions. It doesn't matter if you don't know what that means right now - there is plenty of online information.
One final thing – if you have a Wordpress site, install Yoast. It’s a fantastic free SEO tool that guides you through on-page SEO.
Social media advertising
This can be another scary topic for some people. Facebook and Instagram ads can be complicated to set up and if you do your ads badly, you can lose a lot of money. However, most people that lose money are trying to do conversion (sales) ads straight away. So they set up a not very convincing ad asking people to buy their product and the ads are ignored.
Facebook and Instagram ads don’t have to be used just to sell stuff. You can also use them to get people to follow your page or to build your email list. These strategies tend to be more successful because you are not asking for money. They also can be quite cost-effective if you target the right audience. I recommend Ben Heath as a go-to for all things Facebook advertising. His how-to videos are super easy to follow.
Join networking groups
How sad it is that COVID has killed networking for the time being. It is such a great way of talking with people, rather than to them. You can really connect with people rather than just selling a product.
Facebook isn’t quite the same but it’s still good. Join plenty of groups. Don’t just join business networking groups as often, they mostly consist of people plugging their products. They can be useful, though, for advice on business-related issues.
Find and join groups relevant to what to you do, e.g., crafting groups, clothes and jewellery lovers’ groups, mum and baby groups, etc. The number one rule is to be useful. Try to avoid direct plugs but you can namedrop your products in a post as part of a conversation. Be engaged in the group so people trust you. In some groups, it’s OK to ask people to follow your Facebook or Instagram page. That will make social media algorithms like you a little bit more.
Sell your story
They say that people buy from people, rather than products. I can’t emphasise enough how important this is. There is a reason that branding companies get paid thousands, or sometimes hundreds of thousands, to create a brand. The reason is that they are creating personalities for boring old businesses. Personalities that people can relate to.
Creating a personality for your business is so important. Think about the last item you bought for yourself. What made you buy it? Or think about a brand that you are loyal to. Why do you keep going back to that brand?
Now think about your own business. What inspired you to create it? Take some time to think about that and write a story around it. If you can include how you overcame an obstacle in your story, all the better. People like stories of triumph. We all like to be inspired.
Now share your story. Share it on your website and share it on social media. Share it in your networking groups and share it in your emails. Keep coming back to your story and make it part of your business.
Go get traffic!
There is plenty here for you to be getting on with. I know that we are all short of time (even in lockdown!) but the best thing you can do for yourself and your business is to educate yourself on how to use key marketing tools like the ones I have mentioned. Being able to use them properly empowers you and makes you less likely to do a bit of this and a bit of that whenever you have time. Then the most important thing for you to grasp is consistency. Schedule time every day. Show up, share great content that shows people your business’s personality and engage with the outside world. I know how big a challenge that seems to be right now but you need to learn to love the online alternatives.
Go and show everyone how amazing you are.
Good luck!
Wanting more after this blog? Why not sign up to one of our 1-1 business or marketing consultations with Tiny Box Clinic?