Each time that Google changes its search algorithms, website traffic is directly impacted and altered. Increasingly, sites are finding that previously dependable search engine optimization (SEO) techniques don’t always deliver the anticipated results. This is particularly evident on smaller blogs where every view can count.
The alternative to this traditional method of delivering content to an audience is to leverage the power of social media, aggressively promoting and marketing articles directly to readers.
First Site Guide provides a concise and yet comprehensive guide on how this is a vital resource which should be utilised by any site. Traffic from social media is free and effective as it allows site owners to build up effective communication channels with their audience, encouraging dialogue and allowing readers to feel closer to writers.
Trends can be created, followed and analysed. The success of hashtags indicates how important this is: humans work in groups and are more likely to follow topics that others have clearly found interesting.
By promoting a site’s content on social media, people are free to publicly like and share it. This leads to increased views which in turn influences others to come to the site.
Of course, social media campaigns can be very time consuming, especially in the early stages. Once an audience is created, it grows exponentially though so subsequent followers will be easier to acquire. By continuing to aggressively publicise a site’s best content on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, people who may not otherwise have known of the site’s existence may be exposed to it.
As long as they can be retained, a large audience can be built up in this way. Once the site becomes popular and has large follow counts, the visibility of this also becomes apparent to people. The next person to visit the site will see this popularity and be more inclined to follow too.
By contrast, the traditional way of promoting a site with SEO is a decidedly more linear approach. Having a high rank in Google is undoubtedly going to make the probability of large traffic volumes more likely but it relies on people actively searching for published content.
Twitter is a passive experience. People are exposed to your content on their computer, phone and tablet as they scroll through the app and they haven’t had to do any work to find it. It is simple to click through to the site to read the full article.
Having a strong social media following can be crucial to a site’s success. Google’s 2012 “Penguin” update dramatically lowered traffic to many sites. This effect can be avoided if many people follow a site on social media as they will still be exposed to published content even if algorithm changes cause search engines to hide it away.
In conclusion, an effective social media presence can be the most effective way to promote content from smaller sites on the modern internet. With search engine algorithms increasingly unpredictable, an audience can be established with relative speed on platforms like Facebook and Twitter and is unlikely to be lost once built up. It also provides a way for readers to share what they like with others which is a vital part of human interaction that can only benefit content creators on websites.
