How many leads do you generate every month with social media? If you’re not getting enough leads, today is your lucky day.
After reading this article, you’ll have 10 ideas you can use to increase your website traffic and leads. You may already know some of the ideas but trust me; there will be some you don’t know. So make sure to read through all the ideas and let me know if you’re already using any.
Let’s begin.
1. Create a digital product, write guest posts and offer your product for free in your byline. The product could be an eBook, infographic, themes or any other digital product. Make sure you have your website links in the document. You can also encourage people to share it and put a link back to your site. Tip: A little bird told me that Infographics spread like wildfire 
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2. Search Twitter for discussions related to your niche. If there are any questions, answer them with an @ reply and provide a link back to your blog post or any relevant page on your site. This tip doesn’t necessarily grow your traffic but it sure will give you quality leads if done right.
3. Turn your blog posts into slide presentations and upload them to slideshare and scribd. Put your website and social media profile URLs in there so people who view your slides can pay you a visit. This is a cool way of repurposing your blog posts and regaining some value back.
4. Plan a series of Videos and use Tubemogul to post them to the various video sites. Make the videos as interesting as possible. By interesting, I mean enlightening, funny, … something people will remember. At the end of each video, ask people to go to your site and sign up for your newsletter in order to receive new video alerts and other updates from you.
5. Answer relevant questions on Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, Yedda and Answers.com. Ask people to Google “your business name or any keyword you rank #1 for” and click on the first result. You can post your website URL straight away but do that less often so you’re not seen as a spammy contributor to these sites. One more thing, answer the latest, freshest questions if you want to see any relevant increase in traffic.
6. Post short useful articles on forum sites relevant to your niche and leave a link back to your site.
7. Create an eBook. Take a sample out and make a PDF out of it. Share it on Lulu and Docstoc. At the beginning and end of the sample, provide a link to a page where people can put in their email addresses to receive the full book/report. Encourage people to share it with their friends and colleagues.
8. If you want to rank high for any keyword or phrase, make that phrase your anchor text in your guest post bylines. For example, say you want to rank high for the key phrase, “brand communication”, you use that as your anchor text and put your website link there. The higher the PR of the blog you are posting on, the better your chances of ranking higher. Do this consistently for all guest posts you write and use the same key phrase until you are on page 1 of Google’s search. I am on page 2 of Google right now for the key phrase, “brand communication” and I only used that as my anchor text in just one guest post. When I use it again on a top PR (page rank) blog, I will rank even higher. Try it for yourself. By the way, this is a neat trick I learnt from Brian Clark’s “How to Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines”. Download a copy on this page: SEO Copywriting Made Simple.
9. Answer Questions on LinkedIn. Connect with other professionals. Ask your past customers for recommendations. Jason Falls wrote an article on how to make LinkedIn answers part of your routine so head towards his blog to read about it.
10. Run a survey on your blog, Twitter and Facebook and share the results with other people. Explain the methodology and findings of your survey and publish the results in PDF format and share it on your site and other sites. Send a message @ everybody who participated in the survey on Twitter with a link to the results. You can also contact bloggers in your niche and ask them to share your findings. Tamar Weinberg shows you how to pitch superstar bloggers here: How to Get an Influencer’s Attention.
Phew! That was a short ride . Okay, seriously, you should apply these tips. You don’t have to implement all at once. Bookmark this page, start with 2 or 3 strategies and come back later to try out the other ones. Some may work for you and some may not.
Remember, social media is a lead generation tool and newsletters are your lead collection and sales tools so have your newsletter signup boxes ready to collect email addresses. Prepare some bait for the stubborn ones .
What strategy do you use to build more leads, links and traffic?
Warren Knight thanks Kwame