🔥101 Easy Social Media Traffic Methods You MUST Try (2023)

CONTENT IS KING for Social Media Traffic

When you want to get more Social Media traffic - you need to make sure that your content is absolutely top-notch for your audience. Forget blatant constant promotion, you'll need to be mostly helpful and casually promotional.

Read More: WordPress.com vs WordPress.org - which one is right for me - a CollectiveRay review.

1. Be helpful – forget the sales pitch. People don't want to buy your product! People want to solve a problem that they have. Make sure you, your product, and your website are focused on solving that problem (or problems) – whatever it may be. Whether it’s “What shall I cook tonight?” or “How to increase website traffic” – your social media marketing should all be about solving “Someone Else’s Problem” (a twist on the meaning of the SEP - with apologies to Douglas Adams). At CollectiveRay, our articles do just that.
2. Publish more GREAT content, fairly regularly. But it's not about the "schedule". It's about the quality. It's better to post one amazing post every month, than 4 mediocre posts (once a week). Dedicate the time to write amazing content, stuff that will stop people in their tracks and read to the end. It's the only way to survive in today's content world - your content needs to be world-class, because it is competing with the rest of the world! This will also give you more great things to post for improving your Social Media traffic campaigns.
3. Publish ORIGINAL well-researched content - don’t just braindump. Brainstorm, think, plan, design, write, refine, proof, then publish ;) We are huge champions of this - you'll find plenty of such content here on our website.
4. Author content which is not just relevant, but cutting edge and with unique perspectives – don’t just rehash and repeat content from other sources. Make your website relevant, THE website to visit in your niche
5. Design a funny comic related to your niche – with links to your site
6. Design a regular funny comic or page – “Funny Fridays”, “Lazy Mondays”. Think along the lines of “The Borowitz Report”. The regularity will increase your repeat visitors.
7. When publishing content, stick to one rule – “How would I behave if I were the one reading it?” If you were looking for something, would the article you are about to publish help, or would you just skim it and bounce off. If it’s so and so, refer to 4 ;) If you’ve seen it before, refer to 4 ;) If you just say “meh”, refer to 4 ;)
8. Use great titles for your content, titles that tempt or create curiosity – “How I got my website to load in 1.29 seconds” vs “Decrease your website load time”. Think “How I made Google my bitch!” vs “Improve your search engine rankings”. If necessary spend a lot of time on titles – they are the portals to your website. Especially if you want great Social Media traffic, you'll need to find titles that trigger emotional responses. Curiosity. Shock. Anger. Eagerness. Empathy. Excitement.
9. Share your expertise as website content – don’t underestimate the power of social sharing. The viral effect of sharing good content is much better than trying to charge for that content through your “consultancy services”. Only if you get the traffic will you be able to monetize it.
10. Author a good eBook and embed links to your content and “sales” pages. A good eBook is not 10 pages long, it's a 100 pages of expert content.
11. Give it out for free – or at the minimal cost of joining your mailing list, liking your Facebook page, or otherwise providing you with means to keep a user coming back.
12. Give other stuff away. Free software works wonders for traffic. SWAG in response to questionnaires works very well too. FREE 30 DAY Trial is not free. Lite (free) versions of software, on the other hand, are cool and excellent sources of traffic.
13. Don’t write the content you want your visitors to read – write content your visitors want to read (huge difference).
14. Author and publish something controversial – go against established trends (with good reasons of course). Think “How I abandoned Google SEO in favour of Social Media Marketing”.
15. Think about something which is bound to go viral – informative infographics, controversial content, hilariously funny content, a brand new concept, or idea which creates a revolution. Then create a killer article(s) and publish.
16. Research the keywords you want to target (use Google Trends or Google Keyword tool) and use them within your articles. Ideally, use a paid tool to perform good keyword research. It's fundamental for bringing organic search traffic.
17. Test which content is working and which isn’t. Build upon the content which is working.
18. Stop being so serious when writing content for the web – let go, have some fun. Visitors want to be entertained as well as informed
19. Keep visitors on your site – Include a “You might also like” at the end of content and link to other related content. Do this manually, not with automated plugins
20. Do you know the 80 - 20 rule? Creating amazing content is only 20% of the work. Your bigger job (the 80%) is promoting it. You need to spend 80% of your time getting the content out there in all ways possible. Publishing the content and hoping to gets out there is a very poor strategy, which will definitely fail.

Social Media Traffic: Be Social, be heard, be everywhere

Find communities you write about, make yourself useful. People will trust you. When you link to your useful articles, please will trust you.

21. Embed Social sharing buttons on your website – Facebook, Twitter as a minimum, LinkedIn should also work. You may choose to add other social networks that are relevant to your specific website niche. Avoid using a 100,000 social share buttons because that just increases page load time, makes for a horrible user experience, and will decrease instead of increase your traffic including your social media traffic. 
    While you're at it, if your company page gets good reviews, embed them onto your website, to gain good social proof and convert better. You might want to use a plugin such as this one from SlickRemix: Facebook Reviews and Recommendations.
22. Find relevant communities in your niche and join. Whether they are on Facebook, independent forums, Reddit, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Spiceworks, or wherever else they might be – join. Most importantly, participate. Be useful and helpful.
23. If they allow signatures, ensure that you have a compelling one with a link to your website or your social media presence.
24. Become an authority in the community – one of the people who people are bound to follow not ignore. Think of the communities you visit, who are the people you respect? Why do you respect them? Become that person.
25. Become a volunteer – help out in the above communities and in your niche when and where help is required. Ensure that people know you and trust you.
26. Create a compelling, attractive profile of yourself or your website. Make it attractive to your target audience by helping – solve SEPs.
27. Follow people who know their stuff too. You want to know the latest trends and follow their recommendations where applicable. Share their content when relevant, they will reciprocate. Networking with these people opens huge opportunities for increasing your website's traffic. You just need to get linked by a few influencers or large sites.
28. Build a personal relationship / strong network of people who would be willing to share your content. Thinks newsletter roundups, or content curators. They are eager for great content and actively looking for it, so get yourself in front of them. 

Increase website traffic with Facebook

29. Create a Facebook page for your website – whether it’s a business or a blog, make sure you are on Facebook. Link to your Facebook page from your website – duh! 
30. If funds permit, create a mobile app for your website. Something which provides a useful feature rather than a mindless dump of your content.
31. Use the “Tag” competition cliché - “Tag a friend and share this photo to enter our fantastically rewarding competition” – it works, free stuff work.
32. Showcase the results of the competition. This is especially useful if it is a web-related content and you will provide linkbacks (everybody loves free website traffic ;)).

Twitter – Make your Tweets count

33. Set up a Twitter account for your business separately from your personal accounts.
34. Use that account to follow ALL the relevant people in your niche.
35. Retweet the content they post which is important for your audience.
36. Tweet interesting content for your target audience, don’t just tweet each new article you publish.
37. Tweet snippets of information relevant to your community.
38. Tweet your content – research and add popular #hashtags if and when relevant.
39. Tweet content multiple (at least 4) times when you publish. Then tweet it again several times over a longer period of time. Twitter is ephemeral and gets updated very often and posts are likely to be missed. Use different titles and descriptions to see which works best to increase social media traffic - and if you find something is working really well, you should consider changing the headline of the article too.

Google / Google My Business

40. Claim your Google My Business listing. It gives you access to the map pack organic listings that are very prominent when a user searches for a product or service on their phone and even desktops.
41. Use structured data or schema data to give your content more meaning. This gives you more visibility in search engine ranking pages.
42. Strive to get backlinks to your website through networking and otherwise. Backlinks are the engine of the search engine optimization "vehicle" while content is the body. One doesn't work without the other.
43. You still need amazing content to rank, so you can't skimp on content.

YouTube and Podcasts

44. Set up a YouTube channel.
45. Link to your other social media, Facebook, Twitter, and your website from the channel.
46. Post regular informative videos, treat your video as an extension of your amazing content.
47. Optimize your videos for YouTube SEO.
48. Make sure you are using a transcript with relevant keywords.
49. Follow relevant people/channels in your niche.
50. Record the video as a podcast where necessary and submit to relevant directories.

Other Social Media Marketing

51. Link to your website on the about me of social networks  That's a simple but effective way of getting free social media traffic.
52. Create and upload relevant presentations to SlideShare and Scribd – ensure that you embed links to your website!
53. Convert good popular content to link-friendly PDFs and upload to Slideshare and Scribd.
54. Try to get some content posted in a Reddit community with a discussion around your content. If you SPAM in Reddit you will get torn to pieces and thrown to the wolves. Tread carefully.
55. Link to your website using your profile anywhere which will take a URL link. But do NOT SPAM.
56. Encourage your visitors to engage. Enable comments on your website – but monitor them for SPAM. Reply to emails, comments, queries and any other form of engagement. Keep the conversation flowing.
57. Ask pertinent questions on Social media, and reply with useful advice after reading others’ replies.

Directories can still increase website traffic

58. Advertise your website in the appropriate categories at Craigslist. Try posting your ads in the most populated cities in the world.
59. Local Craigslist submissions work just as well as international – people talk and recommend.
60. Submit to the local popular web directories that are relevant to your niche.
61. Create a Google My Business listing.
62. Submit to Bing Places for Business.
63. Submit to Yahoo! Local Busines Listing.
64. If you are a local business or have an actual physical presence, make sure you are present on Google Maps by having a verified location on Google My Business.
65. Find other directories relevant to your niche and submit to them (if they are popular so much the better – pay to enter if they are proven to work (check them with Alexa.com). 
66. Specific vertical industries are a great idea – if you see a trend in a specific vertical focus extreme effort in that area.
67. Piggyback on the success of others. Create a presence on websites that are highly trafficked. This is beside the Facebooks, the Twitters, and the YouTubes. Figure out the relevant sites in your niche and get yourself linked in there. If you are a music producer, it’s Soundcloud. If you are a Joomla developer, it’s the JED. If you focus on WordPress, it’s the Plugins directory. Find the behemoth in your niche, and piggyback a ride on their success. It's also good to find a niche in your niche. Riding on somebody's success is a guaranteed way of increasing website traffic. Hence the reason people guest post. More on that later.
68. Submit to relevant, niche-specific, nation-wide directories that do not feel spammy. Ask around and see which ones send actual, relevant traffic.

Increase website traffic with Search Engine Optimization

69. Visit the SEO Periodic table and take the time to understand it and apply fixes where necessary. It is often updated and even though it was first launched in 2011, it is still relevant today. .
70. Make you have an easy domain name – something which can be remembered easily. Single words are ideal. Short words or phrases are great.
71. Make sure your website loads really quickly. Use Pagespeed Insights to get tips. 
72. Create an XML sitemap using an SEO plugin or otherwise.
73. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
74. Submit your sitemap to Bing WebMasters Tools.
75. Use Google Search Console tools to monitor and fix problems with your site.
76. Link to your own content. Cross-reference pages and point to the ones which are most popular and successful. Or point to the ones you want to make successful.
77. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly or responsive – some niches are particularly sensitive to mobile traffic. Facebook gets most visits via smartphones, visitors referred via Facebook are likely to see your site on a phone. Test and ensure they get a good experience. And monitor your Core Web Vitals and ensure they are healthy.
78. Make sure your content is available for non-English speakers. Enable a one-click translation plugin if you don't have translated content.

Surveys – Publish interesting analytics

79. Run surveys/questionnaires with interesting questions e.g. “What is your PPC Budget for the next year?” vs “Do you like our new website?” - offer gifts or SWAG for replies.
80. Analyse the data and publish results - if you get the right traction, it's a guarantee that you will increase website traffic.
81. Make a press releases with your survey results, but only use branded links in there.
82. Create and publish an interesting Infographic with the result of your survey.

Email – reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

83. Compel your visitors to join your mailing list. A large email list will give you a steady source of returning traffic. If you are looking for a single tip to focus on to increase website traffic - this is it. Grow your list.
84. Strategically place and advertise your mailing list. The end of a great article would be ideal. Ensure you make it useful: “Want more byte-sized tricks to increase website traffic delivered to your inbox?” vs “Subscribe to our mailing list”.
85. Post regular useful content – not just links to your latest articles.
86. By regular we mean keep a steady schedule – daily will need a lot of effort to maintain interest. Fortnightly works well both for you and your visitor, weekly is quite good because it gives a good regularity and expectation.
87. Give your newsletter a cool name: Tempting Thursdays, Freaky Fridays, Bluesy Mondays, Soothing Sundays – whatever works for your niche.
88. Embed links to your website in your newsletter - yes yes it sounds quite obvious.
89. For the love of your favourite god / deity (or lack thereof) - don’t SPAM. By SPAM we mean, don’t send contents which are irrelevant. If you don’t have any relevant content, it would be better to send a joke to keep your audience amused rather than irritated with your spammy content ;)
90. Embed a link to a compelling article on your website in your corporate email signature. Remember to link to relevant newsworthy content.

Buy targeted traffic and get linked

91. Buy traffic through keyword targeting and advertise on Google Ads.
92. Buy advertising space on websites that are in your niche or are relevant to your website.
93. If you are paying for links, it is advisable to use rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored links. Sponsored listings without rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored are likely to penalize both the linker and the one linking.
94. Guest blog on websites that are relevant to your niche. Link to your website via your profile. If you are able to get links to your website via blogger outreach emails, this is a sure way to increase website traffic.
95. Sponsor adverts in newsletters on websites that your target demographic visits.
96. Create a rewarding affiliate program and focus on growing it…rather than thinking of the margin you are giving away (-ve), think of it this way (+ve): 1) Free backlinks, 2) leads which you otherwise would have lost.

Just a few left - we're soon done

97. Post a detailed review of a great product you’ve used and then offer to be an official testimonial – you might get used and linked to on the product’s pages. Here's an example of how your review page could look like.
98. Place your website images in a Google indexable folder. Correctly name your images and include keywords where relevant. Google Images will likely send you traffic.
99. Create a presence on TripAdvisor and make sure your service is excellent to ensure you get great ratings :)
100. Write a 101 things to do for your favourite topic and social share it :)
101. Write for online magazines and get linked.

Now that you know how to build social media traffic, how many of these do you plan to implement? We've done many of these and you know what, over the months, we have seen a steady increase in website traffic as you can see below.

About the Author

Author: David AttardWebsite: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dattard/Email: david@collectiveray.com

David has been working in or around the online / digital industry for the last 18 years. He has vast experience in the software and web design industries using WordPress, Joomla and niches surrounding them. As a digital consultant, his focus is on helping businesses get a competitive advantage using a combination of their website and digital platforms available today.