5 Things Your Competitors Probably Aren't Doing to Attract Traffic
One of the best elements about the web is that people who might be your competitors in an offline environment frequently are your collaborators in an online environment. Still, it's okay to try to do things better than your competitor/collaborators.
Here are five things you can do with your website and social media sites to attract traffic:
1. Post new material to your website frequently and tweet about this new material (and include links). Fortunately for you, many expensively designed websites are updated very infrequently, which is not good for SEO or for tweeting about new material.
2. Upload videos to YouTube and other video-sharing sites and then use the embed code in various places. You can create a shortened URL for an embed code and even use that shortened URL as your one hot link on Twitter.
3. Put your Twitter link, your LinkedIn link, and your Facebook link in prominent locations on your website. Putting these links at the very bottom of your site is not what you should be doing if you want your website visitors to connect with you on these popular social media sites.
4. Use the same photo for your website and for social media sites so that you facilitate an "instant recognition" factor wherever people come across you on the web. And make sure that this photo is how you look now. You certainly don't want to meet someone who says to you, "You look 15 years younger in your Twitter photo." (Of course you do if you're using a photo on Twitter from 15 years ago.) Use a current photo for both your website and your social media profiles so that people can easily recognize you when you attend in-person networking events.
5. Make your contact information on your website very easy to find. This is particularly important because a site such as Twitter only has one hot link and you are unlikely to use that link for your own email. Thus when people click through from your Twitter profile, for example, to your website or blog, you want people to be able to find your contact info instantly - before they get distracted and forget they planned on emailing you to offer you a guest spot on a radio show or something else equally beneficial.
Keep you eyes open all the time for "best practices" that you can incorporate into your online activities. The best game of follow the leader is when you are the leader.
Phyllis Zimbler Miller
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you'll love her FREE report on "Power Marketing's Top 3 Internet Marketing Tips" - download the report now from www.CalltoActionWebsites.com
