There are a number of ways that Happy French Gang drives traffic to our website and blog. There is direct access, referrals to the sites, social media (Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.), and organic web searches. We use these to drive traffic...but how exactly are we managing to do that?
OVERALL TRAFFIC SOURCES
Notice on the above graphic (thank you Google analytics) that our social media brings much less traffic than the others. Because social media is a very effective way to drive traffic to our site, we could definitely utilize it more. A good way to do that would be to post frequently and at multiple times a day. The more you post to social media, the more likely someone is to see it at any time of day. Along with posting more frequently, it has also been proven that more people are willing to click on your tweets if there is a photo or video attached, so it would be helpful to include lots of photos!
DIRECT ACCESS
Direct access is pretty straight forward. People hear about the product and they go directly to the site to order or read the blog. Most of direct access comes from word of mouth, or from other websites or advertisements, and people write down the website to visit at a later date.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is one of the most important ways to drive traffic. There are a number of social media outlets that we use:
- Twitter is used to post product photos, exciting things happening with the company, and general life events happening. Whenever we post a new blog, we link to it via Twitter that way our followers are always up to date.
- Pinterest is something that we are focusing a lot on. Anytime we post a blog, there are always photos on the blog, which we then pin to our Pinterest page. That way if people see a photo they like and they go to the site, they are directed to our blog. It is also good to pin a lot, and to pin often. The more one pins, the more likely they are to gain followers, and thus, the more likely they are to gain traffic to their website.
Organic web searches are search results listed on a search engine results page that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being advertisements. This may seem like something we can have no control over, but that's not true. With every post that we make, we give them keyword tags. This helps improve our SEO. The more keywords we have, the more likely our website is to show up on Google. For instance, this post has the tags 'small business,' 'social media,' and 'analytics.' If someone were to Google "small business analytics" there is a greater chance that this blog will be on the Google results listing page because of the tags. Another way to increase SEO is to post a lot. The more content you have on your site, the better your SEO and the greater your chances of showing up in web searches. We also make sure that our posts are tagged with similar keywords, and then use those keywords throughout our other social updates. This consistency helps to build up brand image and tie all of our social media outlets together - after all, we do have two Etsy stores, this blog, and the Happy French Gang website, so it is important to keep things consistent through each.
REFERRALS
Referral traffic is used to describe visitors to your site that come from direct links on other websites rather than directly or from search engines. Referrals are great, because it means that other websites have mentioned us. Whether it be a stockist, a blogger friend, or just someone that likes our products, we get mentioned by them and that draws people to our site. It is essentially free publicity, which you really can't beat. However, our referrals also come from advertisements that we place on Sunday in color, Chloe Fleury and Body Chemistry (click the links and check them out!). Happy French Gang is also always on the lookout for events to participate in in order to meet new people and spread the word about our product. More referrals come from:
- Instagram is great for posting photos of products and every day life. Our Instagram is linked to our Twitter account, so every time a photo is posted, it is also tweeted - again, just another good way to catch people's attention and bring them to our site.
- Happy Morning Blog is used to draw web traffic in a number of different ways. First, we post plenty of blog posts and give each post photos and labels. This will help to increase search engine optimization (SEO), and allow our site to show up in more organic web searches. We also feature local artists and store owners on the blog - interviewing them and showcasing their products. We also have a product video for the Zipillow. All of those things add content to the site and allow for greater search ability, therefore increasing the amount of hits the website will generate.
Over the last six months, our referrals primarily came from our blog and events that we participated in. Very few referrals came from other blogs, Instagram or advertising.
Over the past three months, our referrals primarily came from Happy Morning Blog. Unlike over the past six months, where the majority of referrals came from events.
In the past month we haven't participated in many events, so our blog has been getting us the most referrals, however, we are also seeing a boost in referrals from other blogs.
PINTEREST / INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / BLOGLOVIN'
First and foremost, it is important to make sure that you fully fill out your profile. There are three sections you should make sure are filled out completely.
By linking your Twitter to your blog or website, you’ve already taken a step in the right direction. To drive more traffic to your website, you can create a tweet around a link, writing a message that compels people to click to learn more. Because you only get 160 characters in a tweet, you can use a URL shortener, such as TinyURL, to shorten the link to just 20 characters.
Keyword targeting in the timeline lets you reach Twitter users based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged. By searching keywords, you can show users the right message, at the right moment, in the right context.
When you see a tweet with a hashtag, click on the hashtag to see a list of all tweets that include the same hashtag. You will see tweets from people you do not follow, and it is a good way to follow more people. You can also create a hashtag unique for your business and use it in your marketing to help people find your company and the conversations around it.
