Using Social Media To Increase Blog Traffic

The majority of blog and website owners want traffic. They could pay for advertising. Or they could pay for some very fancy SEO work. But not everyone can afford those options. Using social media to increase blog traffic is a better option — it’s affordable and easy to do!

Here are some tips on getting traffic to your site:

Find Your Target Market – You can be tweeting all day, but it won’t do any good if you aren’t speaking to your target market. Use the Twitter search function to find people who are talking about the things that matter to your target market. For example, if your target market is made up of young, hip women in urban areas, do searches on who is talking about fun events in big cities. If your target market is moms of toddlers, find out who is talking about potty-training and overdosing on episodes Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Engage In Conversation -When you log onto Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or other social media sites, the point is to be social. And that means engaging in conversation. Leave comments on people’s status updates, or photos. Retweet others on Twitter and reply back to them. You don’t have to spend all day having a conversation with someone, but spending 5 minutes a few times a day will help you meet people. These people may be future customers of your’s – or they may be a great referral source!

Use Catchy Titles – When you are updating your status, sharing pictures, posting links, etc on social media sites, use catchy titles. Your tweet or update will only be shown for a few moments. Grab your reader’s attention and get them curious. For example, if you were posting a link to a blog post your wrote on no-cook summer recipes, you could tweet “read this post for some dinner ideas.” But that is pretty blah. I don’t know if I would jump over my computer to read that. However, if you tweeted this “Too hot to cook? These 5 recipes will put dinner on the table in 20 mins or less – with NO COOKING!”  Would you stop and read that?

Don’t Be An Ad Feed – No one wants to read ad after ad after ad. Like I said earlier in this post — you need to be social when using social media. If all you do is talk about what you have for sale, you are going to get un-followed, un-friended, and your items will be un-sold.

Keep Working At It – Building traffic takes time. There is no “magic number” of how time you have to spend using social media. Do the best you can with the time you have. If you have 10 minutes, use those 10 minutes wisely. Instead of talking about the best macaroni and cheese you ever ate, talk about what is relevant to your site and audience. If you have 2 hours, go ahead and talk about macaroni and cheese for a moment, and then start using the above tips to help you bring traffic to your site.

Looking for more “back to the basics” posts? Click the titles below to read more!

• What The Hell Is Blogging?
• How Can I Register A Domain Name?

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