How to get more website traffic for your social enterprise

Alaine Anderson, digital strategist and implementer, Joining Vision and Action

Blogging: It’s not only the bread and butter of driving traffic to a website, it also positions your organization as experts in your field. In particular, social enterprises have a lot to gain from blogging. Beyond just establishing expertise, it provides a platform to raise awareness for your issues and tell your unique story. These stories attract the attention from potential donors. Creating a positive brand reputation, getting people to remember a company favorably and ultimately growing revenue.

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Picking a Topic

Sure, finding a topic isn’t always the easiest thing, but it’s not always as hard as it seems either. My advice is to err on the side of relevancy to current events; otherwise, lean into your area of expertise or research you already monitor. Provide the digital world with new or interesting information that they probably couldn’t find anywhere else. With any marketing content, the purpose is finding what sets you, your team or organization apart from competitors. If it’s a challenge to find your point-of-difference, then perhaps it’s time to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to create one.

Write Quality Content

Writing isn’t everyone’s favorite hobby, but make sure that your writers are intent to create high-quality work. If your content isn’t compelling, no one will want to read it. Google will lower your search engine optimization rank if people aren’t spending time on the page. Best practice says buff up your topics, proofread proficiently and be sure it’s information people want to know. As a social enterprise, JVA blogs on the latest research and examples of effective practice on things that matter to our clients, e.g., this latest blog on “Crowdfunding” by Erin Shaver.

Try Not to Sell

It might be tempting to plug your products in every blog post, but please resist the temptation. The goal with blogging isn’t to annoy people with advertisements, but to give them valuable, interesting information that can help inform their decision to purchase.

Blogging plays the long game to educate, create a positive brand reputation and give possible, future clients a low-stress environment to learn about what you do and who you are. That being said, an effect blog should be doing internal linking to more educational materials and a product that is relevant to the information at hand. Linking helps persuade readers to go beyond the blog.

Beyond the Topic

Now that you have found your positioning, it’s time to get the word out. It will not be effective to post a blog to a website and let it sit. Unless you have outstanding SEO or website fans, that blog won’t go anywhere. Utilize your social media channels, send them out in a newsletter, and make sure there are share options on the page itself to spread the information around.