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Free traffic sounds too good to be true and the truth of the matter is, it frequently is. There are a lot of sites that offer link exchanges and “overnight backlinks” to bring your website “instant success,” but the quality of these resources is not what one could deem as business-friendly. Most businesses set aside anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars per month for SEM (paid online advertising). While SEM is a helpful way to boost traffic and gain online visibility, there are “free” ways that businesses of all size can and SHOULD use to gain traffic to their websites.
In a Web 2.0 to 3.0 world, free traffic from quality sources is not as difficult as it may seam.
 The word free should also be used loosely in the context of gaining traffic. As the world has heard mentioned time and again, “time is money,” and it takes time to use even free methods. But what if one person could spend 1 hour per day, 5 days per week interacting on forums, blogs, and social networking sites? Even a small difference can yield impressive results in as short as a month if the quality of the interaction and the places interacted with are targeted well.
First, the important question: How does one target the right places for traffic and what is the first step to getting started? In addition to checking out the IT Strategists review on social networking for businesses, this article will provide helpful tips for marketers on ways to boost traffic to your company website by targeting reliable places using backlinks and online chatter. You need to get backlinks to your site in addition to getting other users to talk about your company because:
- Backlinks create more traffic and can help improve page rank
- Creating meaningful conversation helps build trust and establish expert reputation
- Starting online conversations helps encourage user-generated content
Marketing after all is not a spectator sport!
Businesses already are experiencing the influence that social networks can have on traffic, visibility, and even recruiting. Perhaps the one aspect that businesses are not recognizing is that social networks can also work as a powerful marketing tool to promote articles or blogs on your company website. By exchanging dialogue with users, not only do you build trust, you create an opportunity to share with the online community what makes your company shine and how to find out more from a specific page on your website.
Start by targeting groups or organizations that share the interests of your company. But how do you find a group that has similar topic interests as your company with so many to search from? The answer is in the question itself believe it or not—run a search! Here is a fast and easy example for a company looking to expand their conversation about business intelligence:
Bing
search the following query:
site:Facebook.com business intelligence You will see a large number of groups and Facebook pages where you can join the discussion and interact with users. You can change the query around to search different social networks and industry topics. If you don’t find a group created for your organization, make one and start a conversation! Be sure to include links to pages on your company website that might help to further explain your ideas that you express, since not only will this help to build your traffic, it will encourage chatter about your company; user-generated chatter and content is the best way to improve your company’s online presence. Also, keep in mind that social networks rank well on search engines. If your company wants to rank well for an industry subject matter (or even your company name), it is a good idea to get your company name on as many well-targeted locations as possible.
Perhaps the more time-consuming method, but blogging can be a very rewarding method as well. The best way to start is to first target your blogging. You can target your blogging using blog finder tools such as G-Lock Blog Finder or you can search popular directories such as Technorati
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The purpose of blogging is to firstly interact with other bloggers and start a conversation (how can you talk about your company if you are not interested in talking about a common interest your company has with the blogger?). Linking your site on blogs and forums while having a meaningful conversation that is on-topic is a great way to create backlinks while facilitating conversation online that involves your company’s core specialties. |