When it comes to building long-term traffic potential for your<br>companies online marketing strategies, SEO and content<br>marketing will typically offer you the most significant return<br>on your investment (ROI). They have virtually no risk and<br>naturally, lend themselves to compounding returns over<br>time.<br>Of course, this is as long as you can execute them correctly.<br>However, there is one major disadvantage to these<br>particular strategies: they take a long time to get set up<br>before you even start to see a positive ROI.<br>Building momentum from your SEO efforts can take months,<br>and sometimes even years before you begin to see more<br>traffic to your site, and when you are trying to boost your<br>website traffic, you want to see results fast.<br>Gaining more traffic to your website doesn't have to take<br>months and years before you see a noticeable boost in the<br>number of visitors. If you want to get traffic to your site fast,<br>many options have proven to be extremely useful.<br>While each of the following methods will have its<br>advantages and disadvantages, they work well if you are<br>looking to boost traffic fast.<br>Guest Blogging<br>Many business owners are passionate about their products<br>and services but believe that they lack the expertise in<br>online marketing to gain visibility and increase their web<br>traffic. In reality, you don't need to be an expert in SEO or<br>online marketing to succeed with your online marketing<br>strategy.<br>To increase traffic and establish your brand as a credible<br>authority in your industry, you need to participate in guest<br>blogging.<br>Providing guest posts for other websites serves multiple<br>functions when it comes to boosting web traffic. However,<br>there are two which make them a selling point for those<br>businesses that are looking for a quick boost to their website<br>traffic.<br>First, when you guest post, you get connected with Internet<br>authorities and subject matter experts who already have<br>established audiences. For example, TechCrunch's<br>readership is in the millions, so if you can find a way to get<br>your brand featured on their site, you can lean on that<br>already established visibility to gain more viewers for your<br>website.<br>Unfortunately, the more visible and popular the publisher is,<br>the harder it will be for you to get featured on their site. So,<br>when you are first starting, you want to set your sights on<br>working with smaller websites first.<br>The second selling point of participating in guest posts is the<br>possibility of gaining direct traffic. This happens when you<br>provide content that is both authoritative and valuable and<br>can provide you with a strong flow of visitors to your site.<br>Besides, as a long-term advantage, guests posts will also<br>help you to build your content marketing strategies and<br>SEO, that will bring even more visitors to your site over time.<br>For this reason, it's one of the best ways to get more traffic<br>to your site quickly.<br>Social Media<br>When it comes to building an audience on social media, it<br>can be somewhat unpredictable. However, if you can get<br>your priorities in order, social media is an effective and quick<br>way that you can scale your potential user base.<br>With social media, you can engage directly and publicly with<br>your audience. You can use your content to begin naturally<br>attracting an audience, or ads, or even to funnel traffic<br>directly to your site. More importantly, you can engage with<br>people.<br>When you engage with users on social media, by engaging<br>them in conversation, or by sharing and liking their posts,<br>you introduce them to your company.<br>While it can take a lot of upfront work to reach out to<br>viewers, it could take just a matter of weeks for you to build<br>a substantial audience of thousands of social media users to<br>serve as a platform that you can use to increase your<br>growth further. Numerous resources on the Internet can<br>show you how to build your social media platforms and get<br>more social media followers.<br>Once you put in the effort to grow your audience on social<br>media, it's essential that you continue to market yourself<br>regularly so that those followers that you do gain don't get<br>bored and move onto the next brand.<br>Now, remember, social media will only be able to drive<br>traffic to your website if you actually have the fans and<br>followers. To gain more followers, you have to be consistent<br>with your approach and with how regularly you post to the<br>various platforms.<br>Knowing what your audience wants will help you to create a<br>social media marketing campaign that will grab the attention<br>of your targeted audience and help to drive more traffic to<br>your company's site.<br>Leverage Influencers<br>Like with guest blogging, where you use high-profile<br>publishers to help you gain a wider audience, leveraging<br>influencers works in the same way, except you work with an<br>individual instead of hosting your client on an external site.<br>To find influencers in your industry, take some time to crawl<br>around in the world of social media or try to find one through<br>a web search.<br>Once you find an influencer that you feel could help you<br>build your web traffic, you will need to spend some time<br>building a relationship with them. This could involve sharing<br>their work with your audience, asking them questions about<br>their skills and expertise, or otherwise showing them that<br>you are interested in what they do and their work.<br>From there, you will want to work with them to see if they<br>will share your work with their audience, or you can ask to<br>interview them for mutual visibility. It is important to<br>remember that you want to be respectful of their time and<br>don't ask them for free publicity directly.<br>You need to make a proposition that is mutually beneficial<br>for both parties. If you are successful, you will instantly gain<br>an audience of thousands. From here, you can continue to<br>nurture the relationship, as well as looking for other<br>influencers that you can use as resources.<br>Use Paid Ads<br>Paid advertising, while it can be useful, it has the lowest<br>long-term potential. With paid ads, you pay upfront for a<br>guaranteed stream of traffic to your site.<br>However, when you withdraw your budget, the ads are<br>turned off and that once a steady stream of traffic becomes<br>defunct. To look at it another way, you can compare it to<br>building equity in a home vs. paying rent.<br>When compared to other strategies, like influencer,<br>leveraging and guest posts, which both give you new<br>relationships to draw upon in your industry, or social<br>marketing, where your audience sticks around practically<br>forever, paid ads don't have the long-term ROI.<br>If you are looking for both a fast and profitable strategy, paid<br>advertising can do the job, it just doesn't have the potential<br>for increased growth or substantial gains that you can get<br>from the other organic strategies discussed. However, with<br>that said, here are some of the best options for fast traffic<br>through paid advertising.<br> Reddit Ads<br> StumbleUpon Ads<br> Facebook Ads<br> LinkedIn Ads<br> Twitter Ads<br> Google AdWords<br> Bing Ads<br>You can find out more information on how each of these<br>paid advertising options works through each of the platforms<br>that promote them.<br>Run Promotions and Contests<br>Promotions and contests, in a way, are like paid advertising<br>in the sense that you will need to make an upfront<br>investment in the form of a hot consumer product, gift card,<br>or something similar. Then, you can ask your audience to<br>engage in some behavior to gain entry into the contest. This<br>can be either liking or sharing your post on other social<br>media sites.<br>Contests are a powerful way to gain more web traffic<br>because they naturally spread themselves. Most users like<br>to share these opportunities with their friends and social<br>media followers, making them a great way to gain<br>widespread visibility quickly.<br>They might even be able to provide you with long-term<br>benefits if the users who engage with your social media<br>contest end up following your brand. The key is to make<br>sure that you find the right contests and promotions. It<br>should be original, valuable, and interesting to your key<br>demographics and target audience.<br>Conclusion<br>Remember, that "fast" traffic may not always be good traffic<br>and it doesn't always mean that you are getting a good<br>return on your investment.<br>When it comes to getting the long-term return on the money<br>that you spend, SEO and content marketing beat spending<br>money on the paid advertising, almost every time.<br>Of course, this assumes that you have the proper strategic<br>positioning. You can think about it like buying the seeds to<br>grow your own vegetable garden versus purchasing the<br>vegetables from your local store; with the right amount of<br>time and care, your garden will return to you far more riches<br>to your initial investments, but sometimes you'll need to find<br>a shortcut to tide you over while you wait.<br>You want to try to keep the short-term methods in line with<br>your long-term strategies if you're going to reap the benefits
