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Si vous cherchez à créer un peu de buzz autour de votre entreprise, à aider vos clients tout au long de leur parcours et à attirer naturellement un trafic intéressé vers votre site sans les dépenses associées aux annonces PPC ni recourir à des pratiques douteuses, le marketing de contenu est la solution idéale.
Nous consommons tous du contenu en ligne par téraoctets — voyant des dizaines de millions de mots en ligne chaque année et passant en moyenne 4 heures par jour à faire défiler, lire, écouter et regarder. Cela offre aux entreprises une formidable opportunité d’apporter une réelle valeur à leurs clients potentiels en leur proposant un contenu intéressant, divertissant et engageant, avec la possibilité d’y associer un peu de marketing.
Nous consommons tous du contenu en ligne par téraoctets — voyant des dizaines de millions de mots en ligne chaque année et passant en moyenne 4 heures par jour à faire défiler, lire, écouter et regarder. Cela offre aux entreprises une formidable opportunité d’apporter une réelle valeur à leurs clients potentiels en leur proposant un contenu intéressant, divertissant et engageant, avec la possibilité d’y associer un peu de marketing.
Étape 1 : Préparer votre stratégie de marketing de contenu
Pratiquement toutes les formes de marketing digital impliquent la création d’un type de contenu ou d’un autre. Les blogs, les pages web et les réseaux sociaux sont en pratique des éléments indispensables pour la plupart des entreprises, mais faire un effort conscient pour s’engager dans le marketing de contenu demande un peu plus de réflexion et d’efforts. Nous allons le décomposer en étapes :
Traffic generation Technique
Cost
Targeting Ability
Chances of Conversion
Amount of Traffic Generated
Best For
SEO
Low over the long term
Limited to targeting interests and search intent
High
Potentially Huge, depending on ranking and search volume
Attracting bulk traffic through targeting interests and search intent
Content Marketing
Low over the long term
Limited to targeting interests and search intent
Variable, depending on the type of content and its value to your customers
Reasonable through a mixture of direct and indirect traffic generation
Improving SEO and awareness of your brand
Social Media
Organic- LowPaid- varies depending on targeting
Organic- limited to influencing the algorithm to show your content to similar people.Paid- High. Incredibly granular targeting is possible
Organic- reasonable though indirect.Paid- high
Reasonable, though mostly through awareness building rather than direct traffic
Organic- improving awareness and engagementPaid- targeting traffic with granular detail
Video Content
Can be as high or low as your budget allows
Limited to influencing who sees your content
While some direct traffic is possible, video content is mostly an indirect source of visits
Reasonable, though mostly through awareness building rather than direct traffic
Building awareness of your brand and generating indirect traffic
Email Marketing
Low
Very tight targeting of people who have signed up to your mailing list.Not usable for targeting new customers
High- emails can be targeted to people you are fairly sure will be interested in a particular product or blog.
Depends on the size and quality of your mailing list.
Retargeting previous customers
Paid Ads
High
Incredibly versatile targeting is possible. Parameters can be as tight or as wide as your goals require
Medium- while people who click on your ads are likely to convert, many people who see them simply won’t follow the link.
Potentially huge, depending on your targeting parameters
Can be tuned to almost any purpose
UX Improvements
Varies depending on the scope of the improvements
N/A
High- encouraging people to stay on your site for longer will increase their chances of converting
N/A
Improving SEO and Paid advertising by improving your bounce rate
Local Search
Low
Targets local traffic very well.
High- appearing in the Map Pack can bring a lot of motivated traffic to your site and physical locations
Potentially huge, depending on your area
Targeting a particular locale and search intents
Analytics
Low
N/A
High- analytics allow you to improve the results of your other efforts
N/A
Improving your other traffic generation efforts
Affiliate Links
Varies: depending on commission rates and conversions your campaign generates
Allows you to target by interest but limited in how accurate you can be
High- people who click the link know exactly what they will see and are likely to be ready to purchase
Potentially huge, depending on the audience size and engagement of your partner.
Targeting traffic from a partners’ audience.
2. Utilisez tous les types de liens
Bien que nous ayons mentionné que les clics directs provenant des liens dans vos vidéos et descriptions sont généralement assez faibles (autour de 1 % en moyenne), si votre principal objectif marketing est de générer des visites vers votre site grâce à vos vidéos, les liens sont un élément essentiel de ce processus.
En fait, il serait juste de dire que, en termes de résultats mesurables, ces liens sont le principal moyen par lequel une vidéo peut générer directement du trafic.
Il existe 4 principaux types de liens que vous pouvez utiliser dans vos vidéos :
What SEO Is Good For:
SEO has certain advantages over other forms of generating traffic:
- Value for money- once something is written, it can generate traffic for years to come.
- Bulk- most online traffic, especially sales-based traffic, starts with a search. SEO lets you position yourself here.
- Targeting intent- you can position your site as a source of information as well as a place to shop, allowing you to engage in a little thought leadership.
What is SEO Bad at?
Of course, nothing is perfect, and SEO does have a couple of problems as a source of traffic:
- Targeting- you’re really limited to targeting by search intent. You have no control over who actually clicks your links.
- Quick results- SEO is a long-term strategy, not a quick fix. It might take months to start showing measurable results.
3. Rédigez votre appel à l’action
C’est un peu un cliché à ce stade, mais demander aux gens de « liker et partager » fonctionne toujours. Nous appelons cela l’appel à l’action et, en réalité, c’est la partie de toute vidéo la plus directement liée au marketing. En gros, c’est la partie, généralement vers la fin de la vidéo, où vous demandez au public de faire l’action souhaitée.
Si l’objectif marketing principal est de générer des clics directs sur les liens, vous pouvez conclure avec quelque chose comme « cliquez sur le lien dans la description ci-dessous », ou, selon le ton et le style de votre vidéo, vous pourriez préférer quelque chose d’un peu plus subtil.
Quelle que soit la formulation exacte de votre appel à l’action, il y a quelques points à garder à l’esprit qui peuvent vous aider à obtenir des résultats :
- You’ll earn a certain number of direct visits from people who saw your content and want to find out more.
- It provides backlinks, offering a huge boost to your SEO efforts, signalling to Google, other search engines and AIs that you know what you’re talking about.
- It increases awareness of your brand, leading to more visits as people search for you.
Pretty much everything that we see online can legitimately be called “content”, and most of it can be used as a funnel for attracting website visits. So long as what you're producing really does provide people with some value, you should be able to see an increase in visits.
On the downside, while content marketing can potentially bring in a lot of traffic, you don’t have much control over what traffic it brings in. Of all the direct traffic generation methods, it’s probably the least precisely targeted.
On the downside, while content marketing can potentially bring in a lot of traffic, you don’t have much control over what traffic it brings in. Of all the direct traffic generation methods, it’s probably the least precisely targeted.
What Is Content Marketing Good For?
Content marketing stands out as a way of:
- Improving your SEO efforts through backlinks
- Building awareness
- Explaining your offering
What is Content Marketing Bad at?
While content marketing does have a lot to recommend it, it’s not always the right tool to use. In terms of generating traffic, it falls in the following areas:
- Targeting - you can influence who sees your content, but you can’t really target very closely at all.
- Attributing sales- it can be tricky to accurately attribute which pieces of content actually convinced someone to visit your site, especially if you’ve aimed mostly at building awareness.
- Fast results- like SEO, a content marketing strategy takes time and consistency to really start to show results.
4. Concentrez-vous sur le SEO pour que plus de personnes voient vos vidéos
Les taux de clics étant relativement faibles, les meilleurs résultats s’obtiennent en veillant à ce que vos vidéos soient vues par le plus grand nombre de personnes possible. Le principe de base est simple : plus il y a de spectateurs, plus il y aura de personnes qui verront votre CTA et vos liens.
Le SEO des vidéos suit la plupart des mêmes règles que celles que vous appliqueriez pour faire remonter vos blogs et vos pages de destination dans les résultats. Nous nous concentrons toujours sur les mots-clés que les internautes sont susceptibles de rechercher lorsque votre contenu est le plus pertinent, et nous veillons à ce que nos métadonnées, nos titres et, surtout, nos transcriptions les contiennent tous.
Comme les moteurs de recherche et les IA ne peuvent pas « regarder » votre vidéo, il est important de veiller à ce que vos transcriptions soient exactes. La génération automatique existe, mais quiconque a déjà regardé une vidéo YouTube d’une personne avec un accent écossais ou irlandais vous dira que ce n’est vraiment pas terrible. Cela vaut largement la peine d’y consacrer un peu de temps pour les parcourir et s’assurer qu’elles disent réellement ce que vous voulez qu’elles disent.
What is Social Media Good For?
Social media is a bit of a mixed bag of marketing techniques, and you could really use it in a huge number of ways to improve traffic flows. What it really stands out for is:
- Building awareness- social media has an absolutely huge audience, and the algorithms want to show your content to people who will engage with it.
- Paid advertising- while CTRs might be relatively low, social media allows even more granular targeting than most platforms.
- Low costs- you don’t pay for the traffic that you generate unless you want to, so social media can be amongst the cheapest sources of visits.
What is Social Media Bad At?
Social media, while a brilliant tool for generating indirect traffic and building awareness, has the following problems as a source of direct traffic:
- The algorithm: while this can be turned to your advantage, you’re ultimately at the mercy of the platform’s best guess at who will want to see your content.
- Low CTRs- social media platforms effectively sell attention. This means that they don’t want people navigating away, so direct links are often suppressed. This damages it as a source of direct traffic.
- Competition- social media is a crowded environment, and people’s attention spans are short.
5. Faites en sorte que les IA recommandent vos vidéos et liens
Il convient de souligner qu’à l’ère de la recherche par IA et des recommandations de ChatGPT, les vidéos peuvent générer du trafic d’une manière entièrement nouvelle. Les IA adorent orienter les gens vers du contenu vidéo et fonderont leurs réponses sur vos transcriptions, et certaines résumeront même votre contenu et dirigeront directement les internautes vers votre site pour obtenir plus d’informations.
En général, tirer parti de cette fonctionnalité des IA est assez simple : elles aiment les mêmes choses que les gens, mais cela demande tout de même un peu de réflexion.
Un aspect que beaucoup de gens négligent est que Google Summary utilise Search Generative Experience, en combinant des résultats issus de vidéos et d’autres contenus. Vous pouvez inciter Google Summary à remarquer votre contenu en publiant des blogs qui soutiennent vos vidéos (et cela ouvre aussi tout un nouveau flux de trafic issu du SEO traditionnel).
Producing video content is a fantastic way of building awareness of your brand and earning indirect traffic. While it’s possible to earn some direct visits through links embedded in your videos, it’s better to think of them as a way of building trust and engagement. In terms of targeting, you’re slightly limited, but a successful video can more than make up for this in bulk. For a more detailed action plan, our guide has you covered.
YouTube is the second most visited site on the internet, beaten only by Google itself, and some estimates say that upwards of 85% of all internet traffic is dedicated to people watching videos of some description. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to work out that this presents an opportunity to drive a little traffic towards our own sites.
While videos can be a source of direct visits, by including embedded links in both the videos themselves and their description texts, they’re often best used as an indirect awareness-building exercise and earning traffic that way. That being said, a strong Call to Action (CTA) that encourages people to visit can be a powerful tool.
There are all kinds of videos which might help drive website visits to your site. For some topics and audiences, a long-form tutorial might make sense; for others, a short, punchy, entertaining clip might be the right call. It all depends on what you’re making, what you’re selling and who you’re targeting.
It’s always worth ensuring that there is a full, accurate transcript of your videos attached to them (usually in the form of subtitles). Not only is this great for ensuring your videos are as accessible as possible, but it can also help search engines and AIs to feel confident in recommending your content to their users.
YouTube is the second most visited site on the internet, beaten only by Google itself, and some estimates say that upwards of 85% of all internet traffic is dedicated to people watching videos of some description. It doesn’t take a marketing genius to work out that this presents an opportunity to drive a little traffic towards our own sites.
While videos can be a source of direct visits, by including embedded links in both the videos themselves and their description texts, they’re often best used as an indirect awareness-building exercise and earning traffic that way. That being said, a strong Call to Action (CTA) that encourages people to visit can be a powerful tool.
There are all kinds of videos which might help drive website visits to your site. For some topics and audiences, a long-form tutorial might make sense; for others, a short, punchy, entertaining clip might be the right call. It all depends on what you’re making, what you’re selling and who you’re targeting.
It’s always worth ensuring that there is a full, accurate transcript of your videos attached to them (usually in the form of subtitles). Not only is this great for ensuring your videos are as accessible as possible, but it can also help search engines and AIs to feel confident in recommending your content to their users.
What is Video Good At?
Video traffic opens up a potentially massive audience, and it’s particularly noteworthy for:
- Generating awareness and indirect visits
- Attracting AI attention
What is Video Bad At?
That being said, the downsides of focusing on video content marketing as a source of traffic are:
- Poor targeting- depending on the platform, you’re limited to influencing, rather than controlling, who sees your content.
- Low CTRs- while you might generate some direct traffic from an embedded link, it’s likely to be a fairly small amount.
- Attribution- as most traffic that’s generated through video content is likely to be indirect, it can be hard to pin down exactly what is and isn’t working.
6. Encouragez les gens à rester jusqu’à la fin pour voir votre CTA
Comme nous l’avons déjà expliqué, les meilleurs emplacements pour vos CTA et vos liens se trouvent généralement à la fin de vos vidéos. Cela signifie que si vous voulez que les gens cliquent sur vos liens ou recherchent votre site, vous allez devoir faire en sorte qu’ils restent jusqu’au bout et regardent la vidéo en entier.
Peu importe la qualité de votre produit, si la vidéo que vous utilisez pour en parler n’est pas captivante, les gens passeront à autre chose avant d’avoir la possibilité de cliquer sur votre lien ou d’entendre votre CTA. L’engagement et la valeur apportée au spectateur sont encore plus importants que le fait d’inclure un moyen direct de se rendre sur votre site.
Il existe de nombreuses choses différentes que les gens peuvent trouver captivantes, et tout commence par une compréhension de base des personnes que vous essayez d’atteindre. Vous pouvez mieux connaître votre audience en consultant les analyses de vos réseaux sociaux ou même en envoyant des questionnaires. Avec ces informations, vous pourrez vous mettre à rédiger des scripts vidéo qu’ils devraient adorer.
Bien qu’il n’existe pas de règles strictes sur ce qui va ou non générer de bons résultats (et cela n’a souvent rien à voir avec la qualité de production non plus), il y a quelques éléments que la plupart des vidéos à succès ont:
What Is Email Marketing Good For?
Email marketing is one of the most popular ways to generate traffic directly for a few reasons:
- Allows direct engagement
- Can be tailored to appeal to either larger groups or individuals, based on the data you hold.
- Potentially fantastic ROIs
- Easy to understand analytics
- Simple segmentation based on previous behaviour on your site
What Is Email Marketing Bad At?
While email is a fantastic way to retarget your previous visitors and encourage them to come back and visit again, it does have a few major flaws:
- Cannot generate new traffic- you’re limited to the people who have signed up to your mailing list.
- Limited by the data you hold: while a mature contact might have a lot of data, a newer sign-up might require some guesswork, and this carries the risk of unsubscribing.
- Cluttered inboxes- people receive a lot of emails, so you have to work hard to stand out.
- You have to encourage people to sign up for marketing emails, and you have to keep them signed up.
7. Profitez de l’audience des influenceurs
Qu’on les adore ou qu’on les déteste, les influenceurs jouent un rôle disproportionné dans le marketing vidéo. Ils disposent d’une audience captive qui prend leurs recommandations au sérieux, et beaucoup cliqueront sur les liens intégrés. En fait, le marketing d’influence affiche un CTR d’environ 2 %, mais cela varie énormément selon la niche et l’influenceur.
Le principal avantage d’un partenariat avec un influenceur est qu’il a déjà construit une audience engagée et intéressée. Cela signifie que vous pouvez être un peu plus certain que les gens verront votre contenu et, avec un peu de chance, que davantage de personnes cliqueront sur votre lien.
Travailler avec un influenceur signifie sacrifier un peu de contrôle sur des éléments comme le ton de voix et une identité de marque irréprochable, mais le ROI et l’accès à une audience déjà engagée peuvent largement compenser cela. Un lien d’affiliation dans la description d’un influenceur pertinent peut générer plus de trafic que la plupart des marques ne pourraient en obtenir seules.
Quelle que soit votre niche, il existe un influenceur adapté. Chaque secteur, de la mode aux hobbies les plus pointus, peut accroître sa portée (et donc les visites sur son site web) grâce au bon partenariat.
- Targeting by location: city, Zip/Postal Code, country or even wider.
- Targeting by interest: If they like something related to your site, they might well like your site.
- Targeting by age: aiming your ads directly at your core demographics can help avoid wasted spend.
- Targeting by gender: some sites might get significantly more traffic from men than women, or vice versa.
- Targeting search intent: having your ads pop up at the very moment someone is looking for a solution that you can offer.
When it comes to targeting new traffic, it’s hard to beat the granular nature of paid advertising.
What Are Paid Ads Good For?
As a tool for generating traffic, paid advertising stands out in quite a few ways:
- Granular Targeting: target by location, age range, gender, interests or cast your net as widely as you like.
- Reach: much of the internet funds itself by hosting ads, meaning that you can appear in all kinds of places and generate traffic through exposure.
- Building awareness: even if they don’t directly click your ad, they might still take it in and visit later.
What Are Paid Ads Bad At?
While paid ads are only really challenged by SEO as a source of traffic when it comes to the potential number of visitors, they do suffer from a few problems:
- Costs- paying per click means that a successful campaign can get expensive quickly.
- Time - to get the most traffic out of your campaigns, they need constant refinement, sucking up time that could be used elsewhere.
- Ad blindness- we’re all so bombarded with ads online that we’ve developed the ability to mentally filter a lot of them out, limiting their effectiveness.
- VPNs and Adblockers- these technologies are becoming more popular and can play havoc with your reach and analytics.
8. Créez des Shorts pour attirer l’attention
Bien qu’il y ait bien sûr une place pour les vidéos plus longues, surtout si vous voulez que les internautes cliquent sur votre lien, la vidéo courte a tendance à être le meilleur format pour s’assurer que les spectateurs restent jusqu’à la fin et voient votre CTA. En fait, environ 50 % des spectateurs regardent une vidéo de 90 secondes du début à la fin, ce qui vous donne les meilleures chances d’y glisser votre appel à l’action.
Bien que le CTR de tous les liens soit probablement faible, le trafic que vous pouvez générer indirectement en développant la notoriété de votre marque peut largement compenser cela. Les plateformes de réseaux sociaux comme Facebook et Instagram, ainsi que les sites dédiés au partage de vidéos comme YouTube et TikTok, adorent montrer aux utilisateurs ces vidéos courtes et faciles à faire défiler.
Les plateformes de format court comme TikTok, Snapchat et même les Reels et Stories de Facebook et Instagram de Meta vous offrent aussi la possibilité d’obtenir un retour instantané, en permettant à vos spectateurs d’interagir directement, de créer une relation avec votre marque et en vous permettant de les diriger vers votre site.
Elles sont aussi idéales pour mettre en valeur votre créativité, construire la voix de votre marque et tirer parti de la gratification instantanée qu’apporte le contenu percutant et rapide. Cela est particulièrement vrai si votre public principal est la génération Z, mais pratiquement tout le monde consomme des formats courts à un degré ou à un autre.
Vous pouvez aussi réutiliser votre contenu long format et le découper en formats courts captivants, en créant un entonnoir qui attire les internautes vers votre contenu intégral, puis de là vers votre site.
Le CTA principal pour ce style de vidéo est généralement quelque chose du type « lien dans la bio » ou une formule similaire.
What is Improving Your UX Good For?
While your UX won’t attract any visits by itself, it can help you make the most of your other traffic-generating efforts:
- Improving SEO: Engagement metrics play a decent-sized role in how AIs and search engines rank content, so a better UX can lead to better rankings and more traffic, though it’s fairly indirect.
- Retaining traffic: making navigation easy can help to spread traffic that does find your site around, potentially improving the value of each visit.
- Improving advertiser scores: most ad networks consider bounce rate when deciding which ad to serve, so the more engaging your site, the more effective your paid ads.
What Will Improving Your UX Not Help?
As we’ve said, UX improvements are very much a supplementary activity. You should absolutely ensure that your site is as pleasant to navigate and easy to parse as possible, but you should also be aware that it is not a source of traffic in and of itself.
Défis courants pour les spécialistes du marketing vidéo
Bien que la vidéo représente désormais la majorité du trafic web, cela ne veut pas dire qu’il s’agit d’un outil sans faille lorsqu’il est utilisé pour générer du trafic vers votre site web. De nombreuses personnes rencontrent quelques problèmes courants :
Premièrement, comme les CTR sont généralement faibles, il peut être difficile d’attribuer directement une visite à une vidéo spécifique. Il est tout à fait possible que les gens voient votre vidéo puis recherchent votre marque, ou qu’un résumé généré par une IA reprenne votre transcription et la présente dans ses réponses. Cela peut compliquer le calcul d’un ROI exact, mais en recoupant vos données, vous pouvez généralement obtenir un ordre de grandeur.
Deuxièmement, votre capacité à influencer les actions de vos spectateurs reste limitée. Même si votre CTA est parfait et que la notoriété de votre marque augmente à chaque publication, vous ne pouvez pas contrôler ce que les gens font après avoir regardé vos vidéos. La meilleure façon de contourner ce problème consiste à inclure des liens et à encourager les gens à les suivre du mieux possible, sans pour autant noyer votre contenu sous des CTA maladroits.
Un autre point clé à prendre en compte est que vous êtes souvent à la merci des algorithmes qui régissent vos spectateurs. C’est particulièrement vrai sur YouTube et les plateformes de vidéos courtes. Chacune a son propre ensemble de critères qu’elle récompense, mais en fin de compte, ce qui est montré à qui dépend du type de contenu qu’ils ont déjà regardé. Si cela peut être un avantage, cela peut aussi être une faiblesse : la plupart des gens ne regardent probablement plus de tutoriels expliquant comment réaliser le même projet de bricolage une fois celui-ci terminé.
What Is Local Search Good For?
Local search stands out as a way of generating a very specific type of traffic: locally targeted visitors. It does this in a few ways:
- Maps searches: catching people as they are literally about to head out the door and make a purchase.
- Targeting tourists: visitors to an area will appreciate the information you can offer.
- Targeting local residents: if your business serves a certain area, local search is probably the most useful source of traffic in terms of conversions and sales.
What Is Local Search Good For?
While local searches should be the bread and butter for many sites, for others who cast their nets wider, it’s of limited use. If your market isn’t confined to a certain physical location, your efforts are better spent on other techniques.
9. Make Use of Analytics To Refine Your Traffic Generation
Analytics aren’t a source of traffic by themselves, but they do allow you to refine your other efforts and get more out of them. By looking at what is and isn’t working in your efforts to generate traffic, you can ensure that you’re spending your time and effort where it will have the biggest impact. If you want more information about what data you can gather and how to start turning it into visits, our guide can get you started.
The real key to getting the most traffic possible from any source is understanding what is and what isn’t working, then using this data to refine your efforts. While even the best analytics tool won’t generate a single visit by itself, the impact of understanding your data on all your other efforts can’t be overstated.
With a tool like Google Analytics 4, you can:
The real key to getting the most traffic possible from any source is understanding what is and what isn’t working, then using this data to refine your efforts. While even the best analytics tool won’t generate a single visit by itself, the impact of understanding your data on all your other efforts can’t be overstated.
With a tool like Google Analytics 4, you can:
- Understand where your current traffic is coming from: social media, search results, paid ads, etc.
- Discover where your visitors are: you can get detailed estimates about where people are when they find you, allowing you to either double down or expand your efforts.
- Audit your site: working out which pieces of content are doing numbers and which need further refinement allows you to focus your efforts more efficiently.
- Understand who is visiting your site: analytics tools often offer demographic insights, including things like age, gender and interests. This allows you to target your other efforts much more closely.
- Monitor your search results: knowing which search results you rank for allows you to refine your SEO efforts.
Other analytics tools can help you with generating ideas for new content based on keywords and search volumes, or even let you judge how well your competitors are doing in their own traffic-acquisition efforts.
What are Analytics Good For?
While they won’t generate a single visit by themselves, analytics are a vital part of any traffic generation exercise. They allow you to weigh up what is and isn’t working, allowing you to put your time and effort into the activities which will generate the most traffic.
What are Analytics Bad At?
Analytics are simply not a source of traffic for anyone; they’re included in this list because they allow you to refine and improve all your other efforts. One area where they might cause problems is in judging what is and is not a vanity metric. Without careful consideration of the data they present, it’s very easy to get caught up chasing the wrong statistics.
10. Borrow traffic through Affiliate Links
Affiliate links allow you to partner with content creators who might be willing to send some of their followers to your website. You pay a commission on any sales from people who visit your page via the affiliate link. If your target traffic matches your affiliate partner’s audience well, this can be a great source of traffic and save you a lot of time and effort in terms of building engagement and awareness. If you want to get started with affiliate link marketing, our guide has you covered.
It’s a truism of the modern internet that for every industry, there’s an influencer with an audience. There are a few different ways that you can take advantage of this to generate traffic, but by far the most direct is through affiliate links.
They basically work by attaching a short code to your website’s URL, assigning the visits from anyone who clicks it to a specific affiliate. Your partner promotes the link in their content, and for every sale they push your way, you pay a small commission. They can be time-limited, allowing you to build and promote offers, or they can be longer-lasting, allowing you to take advantage of a single piece of content for longer.
The key to success here is finding the right affiliates to partner with. A creator who already covers your niche will almost certainly be able to attract more traffic to your site than someone who is more general. There are exceptions to this, however, when it comes to lifestyle brands and certain consumer goods that most people are likely to be interested in.
Alternatively, you could partner with other local businesses and offer their customers a special offer- think restaurants offering theatre visitors a discount, or bus companies partnering with local attractions.
It’s a truism of the modern internet that for every industry, there’s an influencer with an audience. There are a few different ways that you can take advantage of this to generate traffic, but by far the most direct is through affiliate links.
They basically work by attaching a short code to your website’s URL, assigning the visits from anyone who clicks it to a specific affiliate. Your partner promotes the link in their content, and for every sale they push your way, you pay a small commission. They can be time-limited, allowing you to build and promote offers, or they can be longer-lasting, allowing you to take advantage of a single piece of content for longer.
The key to success here is finding the right affiliates to partner with. A creator who already covers your niche will almost certainly be able to attract more traffic to your site than someone who is more general. There are exceptions to this, however, when it comes to lifestyle brands and certain consumer goods that most people are likely to be interested in.
Alternatively, you could partner with other local businesses and offer their customers a special offer- think restaurants offering theatre visitors a discount, or bus companies partnering with local attractions.
What Are Affiliate Links Good For?
Affiliate links stand out as a source of traffic for a few reasons:
- Easy access to an existing audience- turn your affiliates’ followers into traffic for your own site.
- Suitable partners for any site- whatever the purpose of your site, there’s bound to be an affiliate whose followers would love to see it.
- Pay per sale- you only pay for visits which actually lead to a conversion, rather than paying per visit.
- Advertise offers quickly- time-limited links allow you to offer certain audiences customized offers, creating a large influx of reasonably well-targeted traffic.
What Are Affiliate Links Bad At?
Of course, affiliate links do have certain drawbacks:
- Paying commission: an unexpectedly successful campaign can get expensive quickly, blowing through your budget.
- Limited targeting: while you can choose your partner carefully, you’re limited to vaguely targeting interests rather than more detailed segmentation.
Increasing Your Web Traffic
Getting more people to visit your site means that you’ll generate more leads, earn more referrals and generally make more sales. The number of visitors that you receive is often (but not always) proportionate to all your other important metrics.
Attracting traffic usually comes from a marketing mix that includes a variety of techniques, each bringing something slightly different to the table:
Attracting traffic usually comes from a marketing mix that includes a variety of techniques, each bringing something slightly different to the table:
- Focusing on SEO: Search engines and AIs offer access to a potentially huge number of visitors. SEO is relatively cheap, and the effects can last for years.
- Content marketing attracts people to your site, either through offering entertainment, information or education.
- Social media can turn your followers into visitors and, with luck, customers.
- Creating and sharing videos can boost your profile and even attract some traffic directly.
- Email can help you keep hold of the attention of people who have already visited you, keeping their traffic coming back time and again.
- Paid ads let you target new traffic on an incredibly granular level.
- Ensuring your site has a clean, effective UX can provide a noticeable boost to your SEO and paid ads, as well as helping retain visitors for longer.
- Local Search and Maps allow you to target traffic from people who live, work or are visiting your area.
- Analytics allow you to examine and refine all your other efforts, helping you to generate more traffic from them.
- Affiliate Links allow you to turn a partner’s following into traffic for your site.
What makes most sense as your main focus for directing traffic towards your site will vary from website to website, but a good rule of thumb is that you should be trying at least most of these techniques to some degree or another.
