Using Facebook Effectively to Grow Traffic

Facebook is a huge source of traffic for local publishers, so it’s really important to maximize its benefits. This post will explore some of the best ways to drive traffic to your site from Facebook. Most of the techniques in this post can be boiled down to this: if you can put it on your website first, do that, then share it to Facebook.

Correctly Posting Events

Part of your job as a publisher is helping readers know about the best events going on around town. However, there is a right and wrong way to do it.

When you see a Facebook event you want to share with your audience, your first instinct might be to just share the event on your page. You might also hear about something happening in real life and be tempted to just share a quick Facebook update with all the details.

And while staying on Facebook is the quickest way to share it, you won’t get you any real benefit outside of likes and comments on the post. You need to first create an event on your own website calendar, then share that page on Facebook. You will send Facebook users to your site, grow traffic, and increase the value of your calendar because people will learn to go there to find good events.

Tagging Other Pages

Tagging is one of the most effective ways to get social shares on your posts. Whether it’s sharing an article, offer, or contest including a business or organization, it’s critical to tag that Facebook page in your update to get more pageviews. The business or organization you tag will be much more likely to share the post with their fans.

We explain more on how to do this here: http://www.locable.com/posts/37-get-your-posts-recognized-clicked-and-viewed-without-paying

Here is a recent post from Georgia Mountain Laurel that combines tagging businesses and posting an article about an event:

So far it has received 78 shares and reached over 7,700 people while driving more traffic to the site.

Sharing Shorter Updates, Pictures and Videos

There are also a few other ways for publishers to score quick wins on Facebook. When you see or hear a great little local news story or share something important happening in the community, you don’t always need an in-depth piece. A few short paragraphs can do quite well on Facebook and help that post go viral locally(link). Check out a few of the different sources of content from Facebook that can provide quick wins.

Pictures and Videos are in a similar category. Rather than simply sharing a YouTube video, think about creating a short (it can be as little as a few sentences) article around the content on your site then share it to Facebook. For a group of photos, post a gallery on your site rather than a Facebook album.

Conclusion

You should always look at your Facebook audience as a vehicle to drive traffic to your site. Although you want them to like and comment on your posts by creating engaging content, it’s way more important to get them to actually click through to your site.  You don’t have to link everything you share on Facebook back to your site, but you should be linking a majority of your posts in some way. Also, make sure to effectively use tags, to give other pages a reason to share your posts as well. So the next time you are about to post something that doesn’t link back ask yourself: “Can I put this on my site first?”