28 Ways to Use PR to Drive Traffic to your Website
Nancy Marshall, principal of Nancy Marshall Communications
I started doing public relations in the 1980s when we used a mimeograph machine to copy our press releases then mailed them out in envelopes with postage stamps on them. Today we distribute them by email and share them on social networks. Have we come a long way since then or what?
The power of the Internet to massively increase our public relations footprint has grown exponentially since then and is still growing every day. The challenge is to leverage the power of the Internet with a well thought-out strategic plan that includes defining our messages, defining our audiences and figuring out the best methods to connect our messages with our audiences. Just because we have the ability to email a press release to thousands of journalists doesn’t mean that we should do so. That’s why it’s important to have a PR plan before you start spinning your wheels generating content and randomly disseminating it everywhere.
Today, I am going to share my 28 ideas about how to use PR to drive traffic to your website. Each and every day, the most important thing is to keep your website at the top of your own mind so you can explore new ways to share your Web address. At the same time, be sure to keep your website content up to date, because the search engines do not want to send people to a site that is outdated or irrelevant.
Always be thinking about how to improve your site by adding new content that is remarkable, and be watching your Google Analytics metrics to see how people are using your site. The bounce rate is a key indicator as to whether your site is appealing to visitors or not. If you are spending time and money to send people to your site and they are immediately clicking away, you have a serious problem that needs to be corrected before you send more visitors to the site.
There are two main ways to generate traffic to your site: attracting them by having optimized key words, and sending them there by having links from other sites or listing the URL on printed pieces. In this article, I’m going to address both: attracting visitors and driving visitors to your website.
Here are my 28 ideas, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty of your own ideas once you get the creative juices flowing! Press releases sent to business publications and shows on TV and radio, including a link to your website. Make sure you are announcing something newsworthy such as hiring a new employee, winning an award, or making a speech at a significant trade show or conference. Also, make sure you are targeting the kind of media that will be interested in your press release. Business publications will be interested in business announcements, for example.
- Press releases are great, but it’s even better if you can use a press release to get a journalist to do a feature story on you or your business. A feature story is an article in a newspaper or a magazine, or a story on radio or TV that will ideally include a link to your site—if not, people will still become more interested in you and Google search you. Either way, feature stories are a great way to tell your story in the media and raise your profile. In order to get a feature, you need to send a very good press release to the right reporter, editor or producer, pique their interest in the story you have to tell, and typically, you need to place a follow-up phone call to pitch your idea. In the tourism industry, getting a story in the Sunday Travel Section of a major newspaper is a major coup. Typically these stories include what we call a “service bar” which is a sidebar that includes all the contact info including phone number, postal address, physical address and Web address.
Our NMC services brochure and Things To Do Pads are all equipped with our web address, www.marshallpr.com.
- Your business cards, letterhead and other printed materials should always include your Web address. You might even consider having a QR code with a direct link to your site. That’s what we do on our business cards at Nancy Marshall Communications.
- Make sure your email signature includes a link to your website. You’d be amazed how many people will click through after they read your email message!
- Branded giveaways are a great way to literally put your Web address on peoples’ walls (calendars), in their hands (pens and pencils), on their desks (calculators, thumb drives and coffee mugs) or in their cars (travel mugs, ice scrapers). I have a wall calendar from my chiropractor that I look at every day, and it reminds me to contact him if my neck or back start feeling out of whack.
- Trade shows are an ideal place to promote your website. The Web address should be prominently displayed on your trade show booth and in all your promotional materials. If you are exhibiting at a trade show, there will be members of the media in attendance. Frequently there will be a media room at the show where you can leave press kits or giveaways such as pens, water bottles and coffee mugs. Make sure your Web address is on every single item that you give away at trade shows.
- Speaking engagements at Rotary, Kiwanis and Chamber meetings as well as college classes are ideal places to talk about your website and give out the Web address. If you are using a PowerPoint presentation, include the Web address on every slide. Every time I do a speaking engagement, I write a press release about my appearance and send it to the local media, which is yet another opportunity to include a link to my website.
- Guest posts on other peoples’ blogs are a great place to provide a link to your site.
- Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites such as reddit, StumbleUpon and Digg.
- Take advantage of local search. Google+ Local is a great way to make your site more findable by local audiences.
- Produce videos to be posted on YouTube including keyword-rich text descriptions. YouTube is a great place to include a link to your site. Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine next to Google? That’s because people love to watch videos when they want to learn how to do something or they want to know about something. As a society, we are reading less than ever, unfortunately. Your third grade teacher would be disappointed that you would prefer to watch a video to learn something new rather than going to the library to get a book about it.
- Guest opinion columns in the newspaper about relevant timely topics can include a biographical backgrounder on you as the author, including a link to your website.
- Facebook posts on your own page and on other peoples’ pages can include a link to your site, but be careful. You need to interact with others in a very human way, and not always be promoting your own site, or people will see right through what you’re doing. A mix of posts that are social and human, along with one post a week with a link to your own site will work. My strategic partner Stephen Woessner’s book, ‘Increase Online Sales through Viral Social Marketing,’ (available at www.amazon.com) lays out an exact formula for the balance between social posts and promotional posts.
- Pinterest is a fast-growing social network, particularly among women. If you pin an interesting photo on one of your Pinterest boards that links back to your site, people will click through to see where that photo came from. For example, I saw this wonderful photo on Pinterest of a breakfast at a Maine B&B, The Pomegranate Inn in Portland, Maine. I was curious about it, so I clicked through to their website, which is equally wonderful to look at, and I thought to myself that I would like to go there someday soon (especially since my PR agency handles PR for the Maine Office of Tourism!)
- Twitter is a great place to include links to your site, although you might want to use them as ow.ly links so you can reduce the number of characters. (Google the term “ow.ly links” for an explanation if you are unfamiliar.)
- Use Instagram to drive traffic from photos to your site. Be sure to completely fill out the online profile to close the loop from your photos back to your website.
Nancy Marshall Communications Twitter page. Follow us @NMCMaine!
- LinkedIn is a great place to establish yourself as an expert, and to make important professional connections. You can list your Web address right in your LinkedIn profile.
- Event sponsorship allows you to create banners and give branded giveaways promoting your business name and Web address to a targeted audience. Consider a business-to-business trade show, an arts performance, a sporting event, or even the walls at your local Major League—or even Little League—baseball stadium. Align the sponsorship with your targeted audience.
- Charitable donations position you as a responsible and philanthropic neighbor. When you make a donation, the charity will help you promote your business in their event programs, their annual giving guides or in thank-you speeches at their annual meetings. We work with the Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers in Waterville, Maine as a client, and I donate to them throughout the year. They are sure to promote my URL, www.marshallpr.com, whenever possible.
- If you are in the business of building websites for others, be sure to include a link back to your own website at the bottom of the home page. We build websites for businesses and nonprofits of all kinds, and we always embed a link on the home page of every one.
- Put your Web address on your clothing. Logoed clothing is a great way to build your wardrobe, whether it’s on the front of a golf shirt, a hoodie sweatshirt, a baseball cap or a ski hat. Give a fleece vest emblazoned with your logo and URL to all your employees. They will wear it with pride and promote your Web address everywhere they go.
- Ask the CEO of your company to write an article (or offer to ghostwrite for him or her) to post on a blog, or submit to the local newspaper or business journal. If you’re the CEO, try to make this a regular practice. Be sure to include a bio at the end of the article with a link to your website. Post the article on your own company’s blog too, because it will be rich in keywords.
- Create infographics and post them on social media sites. Infographics are all the rage right now as an easy, graphical way to explain a concept. You will need a professional graphic designer to create them, and you can either hire a designer to serve on your staff or outsource to a freelancer. There are freelancers available online through sites like 99designs.com that can create infographics cost effectively. People are more likely to share infographics than other types of content through social networks. Be sure to include your website address and company name in the infographic and post it on your website, as well as sharing it on Facebook, Pinterest and other social networks.
- Network with influencers the old-fashioned way at trade shows, chamber of commerce meetings and conferences. Meet people in person, exchange business cards, then connect with them on social media in order to maintain the relationship until you see them again. The more influential people you link with on LinkedIn, friend on Facebook, or follow on Twitter, the better. They call this practice “pressing the flesh,” and it is, in my opinion, the best possible way to create meaningful and long-lasting relationships.
- Generate links back to your site from websites that have ‘authority,’ such as college and university sites, and governmental sites by figuring out ways to post content or get articles written with links to your site. Google and other search engines consider the ‘authority’ of websites when viewing the links to your site. If a site with a great deal of authority links to your site, that’s like an endorsement of your site, so it’s a good thing.
- Create an e-newsletter and constantly build your list. We publish “The NMC Report” once a month, no matter how busy we are with other commitments. We include tips and techniques that are easily implemented by our readers who are typically small business owners or marketing officers for companies and nonprofits. We make it easy to sign up for the e-newsletter on our website and we are constantly gathering names at trade shows and conferences. This list is valuable to our business because these are people who don’t mind having us market ourselves to them. Every single time we send out an e-newsletter, we see a spike in our Web traffic because we include links throughout the e-news back to our website. We use MailChimp but we also recommend Constant Contact.
- Share your PowerPoint presentations and other slide decks to sites like Slideshare and Scribd. This is a fantastic way to position yourself or someone from your organization as an expert and to generate a quality link back to your website.
- Build a rock-solid reputation to generate word of mouth. The #1 absolute best way to drive traffic to your website is to do great work so people will refer you to others. This is, by far, the most powerful form of marketing and public relations.
NFC – Expect This to Explode In 2013
By Matthew Rideout, NMC Interactive Marketing Manager
Near Field Communications (NFC) is a technology rapidly gaining foothold in the mobile sector. In this article, I’ll discuss what NFC is, how it’s being adopted in the mobile world, and how it will come to play an important role in the marketing world.
What is NFC
NFC is a technology that allows smartphones and other devices to establish communication with each other through touching, or by getting closer than a couple of centimeters. Communication is possible between NFC devices, as well as non-powered NFC chips and stickers (think RFID tags – those metallic stickers that can set off store security alarms).
Social Media Boot Camps April 4
In this era of rapid change in the way we communicate both personally and professionally, it is important to learn new skills and techniques every day.
To encourage social media engagement, we are hosting two Social Media Boot Camps on Wednesday, April 4 at the Senator Inn & Spa in Augusta for businesses and organizations looking to increase their social media presence.
There will be two boot camps designed for different levels of expertise.
1.) The beginners’ session from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. is intended for people with a general social media understanding and who are currently using one or more social media networks.
2.) Those attending the advanced session from 1:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. must have a thorough knowledge of Facebook and have already created an active presence on one or more other social media websites.
Both sessions’ attendees are invited for a complimentary lunch from 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. at the Senator.
Pre-registration is required by Friday, March 23.
To register, visit bootcamp.marshallpr.com/register. Each session is limited to 30 attendees on a first come, first served basis.
In the spirit of capitalizing on social media as a tool to engage and share, I encourage you to use the event’s Twitter hashtag #NMCsmbc to discuss the boot camps before, during, and after April 4.
This Social Media Boot Camp will help keep you on the cutting edge!
Wednesday Witty Wisdom: Social Media Boot Camp
Happy Wednesday! Last night, NMC account executive Greg Glynn and I presented a “Social Media Boot Camp” in Carrabassett Valley to a group of diverse businesses. It was an interactive and intimate meeting of people who were both advanced social media users looking to further capitalize on their efforts and social media novices who understood the need to learn more.
Greg and I discussed everything from Facebook business pages and advertising, who to follow on Twitter, advancements in location-based applications, and more. While lots of material was covered, each participant set a goal at the beginning of the workshop that they strove and met throughout the three hour meeting.
Some key takeaways from the boot camp:
- Social media is not a trend– it isn’t going anywhere; it isn’t a question of whether or not to get involved with it but when…and the time is now.
- Be strategic when posting– don’t be thoughtless with your posts; know your audience and work to engage them.
- Set goals– think about what you are looking to accomplish by engaging with social media.
There are lots of social media networks out there for you to join. Take the time to look at your goals and be realistic about your capacity. Pick the networks that are right for you and your business, and do those well.
Greg and I had a great time sharing our expertise about social media and helping fellow business owners learn more. Thank you to the Greater Franklin Development Corporation for organizing the workshop. Stay tuned for information about future boot camps!
Download our presentation by clicking here: Social Media Boot Camp.
NMC Presents: Social Media Boot Camp, Tuesday, Oct. 25!
In my line of work, my colleagues and I have to stay on top of the latest trends in marketing and PR. One tool that is proving increasingly more important is social media. While I make sure that my employees and I are up to date on the latest technologies, I run into far too many other business owners who aren’t sure how to use social media or don’t use it to its full capacity.
For this reason, I am very excited to share that the Greater Franklin Development Corporation and NMC have decided to partner up and show other Maine businesses and organizations that not only is social media multi-faceted, but that anyone can and should use it!
Tuesday, Oct. 25, several of my staff members and I will be presenting a social media boot camp at the Carrabassett Valley Public Library from 5:30-8:30 p.m.
This interactive workshop will focus on techniques to increase engagement and the use of paid online advertising to promote products and services through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. We will also be discussing the rise of mobile marketing and location-based media. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop, but laptops can be provided (please specify if you need one when you register).
To qualify for this workshop, we ask that participants are able to answer yes to the following questions:
- Do you have a personal Facebook profile already set up?
- Do you have a LinkedIn profile set up?
- Do you have a Twitter account set up?
- Are you familiar with Facebook advertising?
- Are you familiar with Cost per Click advertising?
Cost to participate is $150.00 (includes materials and computer use).
For more information and to register, please contact Shelby Childs at schilds@greaterfranklin.com or call (207) 778-5887.
I hope to see you there!
Wednesday Witty Wisdom: The Mobile Marketing Movement
Happy Wednesday! Today’s piece of wisdom is written by Renée Black. Renée has been working in the marketing and advertising industry since 2006. The majority of her career was spent as the marketing director for a well-known jewelry retailer that has been repeatedly and nationally recognized within its industry as being on the cutting-edge of marketing and technology. Renée has recently joined the team at Nancy Marshall Communications as an account coordinator.
People of all ages use their phones to stay connected to their friends, family, business, news, stocks – you name it. The evolution of cell phones and social media has made it more important than ever for marketers to be up-to-date on the latest technology.
Traditional advertising (print, radio, television, direct mail, etc.) is not nearly as effective today as it was ten years ago or even five years ago. The truth is that traditional media is no longer sufficient on its own and to be most effective, it should be supplemented by mobile marketing.
The Internet was the first step in the evolution from traditional media to the new age of “real time” marketing. The catch, however, was that your viewer had to be sitting in front of a computer in order to receive your message. Now with smart phones and the new “super phones,” like the iPhone and Andriod, businesses can reach out to their intended audience in fractions of seconds. With social media applications like Facebook and Twitter (which come pre-installed on many mobile devices), text messages, and even e-mail, mobile users are “plugged in” 24/7.
A New Way to Visit Central Park
A friend of mine sent me the link below to a video about an amazing way to use QR Codes for tourism. This tour of Central Park engaged visitors by providing context to the sites in Central Park. It accomplished its goals of engaging younger visitors to the park in a new and interactive way. I encourage you to watch this video, then let me know what you think. I am excited about the possibilities available to us as marketers with QR Code technology.
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