You have a blog, you have great content. Now what? USE IT! In order to increase web traffic and sales, it is crucial to use content once it is living on your website. The success of your content strategy or blog is reliant upon using your resources to get great content out there for consumers to see.
Case Study
This works! Having content on your site and actively sharing it with your growing audience will yield a high reward. For example, check out these stats from one Dish Works restaurant client. Because of its ongoing social media efforts, the restaurant—which regularly shares its latest blog posts—has increased web traffic 78.8%! Here are the numbers:
- Average pageviews per month in the three months prior to working with Dish Works: 5,706
- Average pageviews per month in the four months while working with Dish Works: 10,206
- Increase: 78.8%
During one particular month, the restaurant’s traffic was up to 11,669 pageviews. This is a 104% increase from the 5,706 average in the three months prior to having great content!
4 Steps to Success
How did this client get such great results? Hint: the key is to share, share, share! If the goal of publishing fresh content on your site is to bring in traffic that you hope will lead to new customers, here are four ways to ensure that you’re using your content correctly:
1. Share through social media.
The initial share via your social channels is the strongest chance at content success for any post because a link is the most direct path from your audience to your site. For that reason, we recommend that you share your new blog content on whatever social media platform you use (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.).
2. Boost blog posts.
If you have the budget, boost your posts to increase reach to your customers. Depending on the social media platform, you’ll even be able to customize the audience of your post. A few extra dollars a week can help take that content and send it directly to a soon-to-be customer who is ready to do business with you.
3. Work your newsletter.
If you’ve added content to your website or blog, be sure to give your newsletter subscribers a chance to read it. It’s important to take the links to your fresh content and send them in your next email blast. Without that initial proactive sharing, it’s unlikely that your audience will even know you’ve put new content on your website. If you’re using a program like Constant Contact or Mailchimp, you can even track how many people clicked on your blogs and see if they shared them with anyone in their personal networks.
4. Engage.
As people follow links that live on your site, they may leave comments on your blog, click on your menu, purchase an item in your online store or make a reservation. If they engage with you, be sure to respond to their inquiries, reply to their comments and keep that conversation going. If they immediately buy something, then you win the Internet!