5 Quick Ways to Crush Your Traffic Goals in 2020

• Contest Factory
• February 18, 2020

Getting more traffic to your website is something that all marketers have as a measurable goal.  In fact, in 2019 there was 2.6 billion spent on lead generation in total.  This means offline sources as well, but online is a pretty big piece of the pie.  And we all know there are ways to get qualified leads in addition to paying for them

Take a look at 5 growth hacks in 2020 that can help you crush it and meet your goals:

#1:  FAQ Rich Snippets: You notice how Google is now enabling searchers to get their answers without ever clicking through to the site providing the information; it’s a simple expand feature to see the answer.  You would think this would result in less traffic to these sites than their actual rank. There have been many studies that show that sites that rank here see an increase in traffic once they start ranking for the FAQ position on Google Search.  When in Rome…

The reason you want to jump on this band wagon now is because it’s new.  Less than 18% of websites are doing this.  This means there is an abundance of inventory with Google for these types of placements. This also means that there is limited time to act with such agile ability to rank as the market will eventually get saturated and as with traditional SEO, once you have a spot and continue to manage it, it’s hard to take the spot from someone.  So let’s get on with it and add rich snippets to your website.  You can get a plugin for your platform and follow the configuration instructions.  Here are a few suggestions:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/structured-content/

https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/faq-schema-content-block/

https://wordpress.org/plugins/schema/

Also note Google has guidelines for your FAQs to ensure you’re not being spammy. Follow the rules and get rewarded: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/faqpage

#2: Traffic your quality and interesting content to places where your audience is looking.  This includes submitting partial content to aggregators. Be sure to post only a portion of your article with a link to go back to your site where you can immerse them in your brand and collect the readers email on your site to keep them coming back again and again.

Specifically, LinkedIn wants your whole article yet references to visual content like an infographic or video on your site.

Make sure your content is written for humans and not SEO.  Google is becoming much more contextual and that means you can appeal to your readers, just like magazines and newspaper headlines have been doing for decades.  Not only do you stand to get in front of your target audience, you will also earn back links.  Here is a list of places you want to post your content:

https://medium.com/

https://www.quora.com/

https://mix.com/ (formerly stumbleupon)

https://www.slideshare.net/ (now owned by LinkedIn)

#3:  Produce YouTube Videos – plenty of useful and quality videos. YouTube is the 2^nd most visited site in the world.  Almost 5 billion videos are viewed a day. There are 1,300,000,000 registered YouTube viewers globally.  YouTube gets 30 million visitors a year.  YouTube overall and even YouTube on mobile alone reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.

Tips on Video Production:

1. Video scares people and it shouldn’t. Video doesn’t even necessarily need to be video.  You can assemble images, music, text overlay, and voice over to create a video using video making software. There are plenty of affordable options out there.  Google free video makers.  We like Animoto as its affordable with easy-to-use features.
2. Ask questions for comments. The more comments you have, the more YouTube algorithm love you get.  This means you will earn more exposure when folks engage with your videos. This sends signals that people enjoy your content and therefore are engaging.  Ask a question like, Are you looking for a way to save money while improving the quality of your result?  Everyone that feel this, please type yes.  Ask people to comment where they are watching from in the comment field.  Engaged audiences will happily leave these comments when engaged with your content.
3. Place your video on these content aggregators and in your blogs to drive more content format, and the format that more people are engaging with than any other platform. See #2 for some ideas on where to share.
4. Remove the, “watch next video feature” by changing the parameters on your video. This will keep your users where you want them to be, whether it be on your website or on your YouTube Channel, your other social media pages, or your app.

There are a couple ways to disable the video from showing next videos:

1. Add ?Rel=0 to the end of your video.
2. Select the proper method to post your video by selecting ‘embed’ and copying the iframe code and pasting into notepad. Find the url and add ?Rel=0.  Now paste this into your website.  This will now only refer your videos.

#4: Professional Podcast Influencer Quotes: Find Podcasters that are relevant to your subject but not competitive.  These can be inspirational quotes or specific how-to information.  Your ultimate goal is to get interviewed on the podcast, but let’s walk before we run.  Reach out to the podcasters you find valuable and ask permission to quote them.  Include other known influencer quotes.  Now email the content to your podcaster to show them they are among good company without saying it.  You may ask them to share but more often than not when you link to their podcast or website, they will share this content on their own.

#5:  Contest with Behavioral Incentives:  Don’t just ask them to share, ask them to do a series of behaviors that employs gamification.  Specifically, create a series of behaviors you want with reward baked in.  These types of promotions pour gasoline on your viral-ability by use of gamification. Tip:  Be sure to have official rules to keep you legally compliant and have your headline rules do not have a million words, asterisks, and more.  Should you need any guidance here, these are available with Contest Factory’s contest services. Also remember that everyone can be a winner; you just need to create a digital download eBook promising more tips and help surrounding your product to make your customer’s life better.  You can give digital content to anyone that does the 1^st action or challenge them more and give them something at different intervals – Once you do 3, you get a 2^nd incentive, such as 15% off your next purchase.  All contestants that take all challenges will be entered to win.  You can have 1 grand prize or 1 grand prize and differing levels of lesser prizes to incent more customers to participate.

Here’s a sample contest that would psychologically motivate your customers to play.

Goal:  Get more exposure to why your brand helps people.

Tactic:  Gather feedback from customers in a survey or existing reviews and publish a blog with an infographic as to the 25 ways your brand/product/service helps people or changes people’s lives.  Infographics are shared at stifling rates.

Challenge/Contest:  Play to Win – the More You Play, the more You can Win!

Share this article and comment with your share as to how we have changed your life.  Get our eBook on Transforming your outcomes by adding 25 mind-blowing and EASY tips to your efforts. This also gets you one entry into the grand prize.

Go to this YouTube video and watch it – tell us what you think of it in the comments.  This gets you 3 entries into the grand prize drawing.

Review us on Google and earn 500 points.  These reviews support you in organic rankings with Google and are very valuable.  This gets you 10 entries into the grand prize drawing.

Take a pic of yourself enjoying our brand, using our brand, or giving a video review of our brand.  Upload this to Instagram or Facebook and tag our brand name (include handles by platform) and #PlaytoWINwithNameBrandChallenge. This earns you 15 entrants into the grand prize contest.  Tip: Search for hashtag on both platforms to be sure this # does not exist already.  Makes administration easier.

You’re starting to get the idea.  Each challenge earns more opportunities to win and triggers that serotonin in your customers brain of opportunity and dreaming of winning the coveted prize.

So take a stab at the above 5 initiatives and watch how your traffic grows.  Be sure to track results and see what is working and try to find out why.  Is one FAQ getting pulled and not another? – challenge yourself to figure out why.  Same process with each tip as these are all a science and each brand/product/service will have their nuances.