Chapter 8
Paying for traffic, visitors and sales.
OK so you have launched your SEO friendly new site and you are rolling out a comprehensive search engine optimisation programme while uploading videos, hammering your Facebook business page, while tweeting and instagraming with the best of them! What else can you do?
You can of course start paying per click, floating adverts all over the internet using things like adwords, shopping feeds and paid social media campaigns. None of these are free which is why I emphasise the joy to be found in building a site that gets loads of free visitors by being search engine friendly, but nonetheless well run paid advertising campaigns can be very successful and add great value.
Adwords
Google adwords and other CPC (cost per click) platforms are now so involved it is almost a skill set in itself, however it is a skill set worth having as your ads can be set up very specifically on brands, keywords, negative keywords that filter out broader definitions, dynamic re-advertising which are the adverts that chase you round the internet after you have visited a site and your merchant centre feed that allows your products to show up in the google shopping results. Adwords are easy to set up but harder to master, you may want to approach an adwords professional who can help you fine tune your effort BUT proceed with caution, some charge a percentage of monthly spend so there is a conflict of interests there. Others charge a fixed fee which may be more transparent. Nothing is as good or as cost effective as mastering the skills yourself.
Facebook and other social media adverts
Facebook offers an amazing platform to reach people with offers, deals or just plain subscriber-ship, again if you are a talented writer, marketer and film maker Facebook and other social media outlets will work for you organically. However you can hit a fast forward button and pay for attention. Facebook in particular allow you to hit very specific demographics including obvious ones like age and location and more powerful ones like matching up their listed interests with your products, services or offer.
The mistake I see regularly on Facebook is a business page set up as a person. This limits the subscriber base to 5000 which is surprisingly easy to reach with some work. You must set your business or group up on Facebook properly or you’ll get to a few thousand subscribers hit the limit then have to start again. Not good. The internet is full of easy to make errors that take a lot of undoing when it’s arguably too late. Be careful!
You can use Facebook and similar platforms in several ways, you can dish out your knowledge through links to your article, blog posts and videos which keeps people in touch with what you’re doing.
Then you can make enticing offers for people to take advantage of once they have got to know your business. This is an incredibly effective selling tool as you can either set your offers to reach the audience you have built who already know you (this is free) OR you can target new people guided by the likes and interests they have put into Facebook already. It is this level of targeting that makes Facebook such a success as it puts businesses in control of who they advertise to. Gone are the days when you advertised by reaching out to the public through a magazine or newspaper hoping to reach the percentage who are interested in what you do.
The hard part with social media is momentum, in the early days you’ll be pumping out your best content, trying to find traction and your readers, but keep quality levels high and keep going, social media works like a huge concrete ball, it is hard to get going and everyone is pumping out content continuously so you can feel drowned out. BUT if you keep going, your audience will find you and the likes and shares will start happening, then your efforts will take on a life of their own. With global reach there really is an audience for anyone who cares to share.
If you are not a talented graphic designer, make your social media output professional by tapping into freelancers sites like People Per Hour, Fiver, upwork and freelancer. Or of course just pop “hire a freelancer” into a search engine. Find someone you like and build a relationship with them. Whatever your perceived weak spots or strengths are, you can plug the gap with a freelancer and enjoy the benefits of top presentation, this is very important when you consider paid advertising campaigns, if you are paying for clicks, make sure your presentation is top notch.
Twitter now allows you to pay for advertising too, though I would advise being original and inventive with your social media output to try and get social media to work for you for free. If you have a special offer or some stock you need to sell quickly though an enticing offer boosted out to a paid audience is a great way to get things done.
There are great phone apps to jazz up your social media output too like phoster, a simple app that makes it easy to turn an image into an attractive poster or meme. Just search on meme generator and loads of easy to use apps come up and who knows you could have a viral hit meme on your hands with all the free exposure that comes with it!
My favourite social media marketing tool is video, nothing has more power than a video so with a little effort and a facebook “boost” you can reach a whole new audience with some really compelling content and a link back to your site of course!