Thursday, January 28, 2010
Using Twitter, Forums etc In Internet Marketing
How Twitter etc can help you market your website.
It increases brand awareness and improves customer relations if customers find they can get an instant response to queries.
If you look at Google Analytics for your website a quick look at the traffic source will soon confirm to you how many visits come from Twitter, forums etc. Many people feel that forum and blog comments are of no use in promoting your website as most links are nofollow however a quick look at your analytics will soon show you that forums, Twitter and blog comments are all very valuable at driving appropriate traffic to your website with a low bounce rate. People who come to your website from forums, Twitter etc are visiting because they already know a little about you so they are much more likely to stay on your website and visit a number of pages and so you should have a low bounce rate for these types of visitors. Forum and blog comments may not provide you with an incoming link but used well they can drive good traffic to your website.
To use social media to promote your website spend a week promoting your business on Twitter and join an appropriate forum and post several times a day. Try and have a couple of days promoting your products, then a couple of days promoting, let’s say, your after sales care, then try future business developments. Watch your Analytics and monitor the following;
Traffic, has it increased? Which of your topics created the most traffic? Did any one topic cause a higher bounce rate than others? Which topic brought most unique visitors to your website?
Traffic Source - which of the websites brought you most visitors, Twitter etc or forum posts? Which other websites are picking up on your Twitters etc and driving traffic to your website? Which visitor sources are creating the lowest bounce rates?
Make sure that when you receive enquiries or make sales that you always ask how the person heard about you. This way you will know which activities produce the best conversions.
Set up analytics on your Digg, Twitter etc buttons on your website, that way you can trace just who is bookmarking you.
Loyalty and time spent on your website - which traffic source is sending visitors who spend a lot of time on your website and who return often?
One of the keys uses of social media is to increase brand awareness so check in Analytics what keywords are used in searches to find your website. I, for example have noticed that I get a lot of traffic from the search term “gill seo” which shows that my local business networking is obviously effective. When you see what keywords and phrases are bringing people to your website who hang around then focus on building those keywords and phrases into your content so that you become solidly associated with those phrases.
Check your Backlinks regularly in webmaster tools to see whether the particular page of your website that you have been promoting is being linked to and by whom. Then go to those pages that have linked to you and promote them yourself using Twitter, Digg etc.
Use social media to experiment with marketing ideas. It is fast and allows you to move quickly with any current trends. Always remember however to use analytics to see what works best for you.
