IMC 642 Week 2, post 1

How Neil Patel uses referral traffic to create surges in his own website traffic & build his brand

Neil Patel is a dominant leader in the entangled world of search engine optimization (SEO). He has proven strategies for every aspect involved in managing a website that achieves a business’s online goals. Through his web analytics expertise, he manages to untangle everything to produce clear, actionable strategies and tips for every way to optimize a website and reach whatever goals brands set forth.

In one of his very detailed, example-rich blog posts, Neil Patel explained how to leverage a variety of sources of referral traffic to boost one’s own website traffic, and consequently, the brand. Referral traffic is that directed to a website from another internet source. Examples of referrers are social media posts, press releases, review websites, and others. This is so valuable that there are actually companies dedicated to researching the best ways to boost referral traffic to help website owners build their brand; scoop.it and growthhackers.com are some of the most successful.  (And I’m sure you realize that my mention of those companies is an example of referral traffic to their websites if you click the links.)

Why is referral traffic important?

Referral traffic is a digital form of word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is one of the most effective ways to build a brand because of the source it comes from. Think of the people, brands, companies, or others you follow on social media. You follow them for a reason, either because you like what they have to say or sell, you trust them, or someone else you trust told you about them.  That is the basis for referral traffic’s weight: trust. For this context, let’s call it “credibility.” People choose whom to like, follow, read about, buy or learn from based on credibility. Source credibility transfers to product credibility. There are many marketing statistics to back this. Here is a nice infographic that sums up some key points about the powerful influence of WOM:

                                                     - business2community

How to achieve referral traffic

Neil Patel meticulously chooses data-based strategies to increase his own website traffic via referrals. One of his top tactics is guest-blogging.

   - Neil Patel

His top recommendations for how to guest blog the right way are sticking with your niche, writing under your own name (no ghostwriting), publishing where the public can access it, and linking to other top industry voices. He also pinpoints a strategy to find the best blogs in your niche to pitch to.

Neil’s second recommendation is seemingly a no-brainer: get involved in your industry. Meet other professionals. For established professionals, they can use their personal brand to sponsor local events. Taking it further, the more experienced professional can sign up to speak at an event or conference. Small or large, Neil advises it’s a way to establish or strengthen credibility and increase referral traffic.

Lastly, Neil says to make sure you are engaging with other bloggers.

- Neil Patel

Not only does commenting on other blogs have multiple benefits for the blog owners – like learning about and connecting with their audience and measuring engagement – but if you’re commenting on the blogs that relate to your industry, you’re building that important concept mentioned above: credibility. Keep in mind, however, that in order to sound credible, you must have a plan before posting that comment. Present an original idea. Really understand what the blog and blogger are about. Then tailor your comments to be highly relevant.

The outcome

By putting these strategies and tactics into play, Neil Patel says he managed to increase his referral traffic by 77% in 90 days. Along the way, he’s met other industry professionals, heightened the awareness and credibility surrounding his own personal brand, and everyone’s favorite: put more money in his bank account.

One thing that’s clear about these strategies to achieve referral traffic and the benefits that come with it is the necessity of a strong brand. I don’t necessarily mean time established, but know your own brand and voice inside and out so that when you guest blog, or speak, or network, you present the same identity and voice that your website presents.  Make sure people find the same version of you everywhere they look – the same insights, knowledge, messages – to build the credibility that will refer them to you, and influence them to use WOM to refer others to you.