Driving web traffic
Driving web traffic to your site is absolutely critical to your business’ success. Being an artistic individual, it would be easy to focus on creating the most beautiful website possible and the seamless display of your best images. Providing the best example of yourself and your work is a definite priority, but if no one can find it then business, at least online, is going to be very short lived. Websites, proposals and images can always be worked on within reason. So can ways to get people to find them. But having a rock-solid strategy for driving web traffic and networking is crucial to long-term success.
The obvious way to drive web traffic is to pay for it using the main search engines like Google, Instagram and other paid options. It can be mind boggling though. If the sheer vastness of this algorithm maze is exactly that, then finding ways to circumvent the system is possible, if a little heavy on commitment and time.
Local or global
The other factor to consider in all this is: who is the core customer for your services? Are they local, regional, national or global? A mix of all or focusing specifically one group? If local, then online marketing will require a different approach than if you were going after expats based in Australia for example. Local marketing will need a vibrant mix of offline legwork amongst the immediate community and then shoring up those conversations online. Finding new partners and business locally demands face-to-face time as this form relationships that will stand you in good stead in the long run.
Local efforts will also spring up unexpected avenues of work that a purely online retail business will not. Meeting people and visiting venues that host all kinds of events will open doors and drive conversations that may not bring immediate business but establish partnerships that become mutually beneficial for a variety of reasons.
The digital maze
The paid-for structure of many of the established social and search networks can and will bring results but the pecking order is an expensive pole to climb to really drive the difference. Even paying top dollar to get results does not guarantee them because the searcher still has to make that purchase decision.
Establishing multiple streams of both traffic and revenue…is the best way to keep the pipeline active and in control.
Establishing multiple streams of both traffic and revenue, alongside working on a shortlist of close client relationships offline as much as possible, is the best way to keep the pipeline active and in control. It is a complicated and varied approach but then so is the market. Amazon and Google are driving many of the shopfront and customer interactions so playing by their rules means being creative on the platforms you can use for free.
Using hashtags on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn where there is a free model to take advantage of, will be part of your strategy to be driving web traffic. Importantly the message you put out and how this is conveyed needs to be carefully considered alongside the frequency of your communications. Consider a blog. Keeping things regular, interesting, useful, high quality and varied is the key. Capturing data and contact information is the secondary layer to establishing that community, local or global.
