If you’re anything like me, you’re always getting contacted by people via email or LinkedIn who want you to hire them to help you increase your website traffic.  These people claim to have all the secrets but then hide it behind a fee that is often exorbitant.

Never to fear, I’ve got a tried and tested formula that I want to share with you that can help you get that website traffic without paying me a dime.

The Origin Story

This all started accidentally, to be honest.  When I was running my agency we did a little thing with our clients where we took them shirts that had the words “Best Client Ever!” written across the front.  It didn’t have our branding or anything on it – it was just something we did for fun and to goof around with the clients that we were building rapport with.  These clients were super happy with this and often wanted to take a picture with us – and that’s definitely something we encouraged.

However, the real magic happened when some of these clients actually started wearing these t-shirts to work.  And then some of them would take a selfie wearing it, post that image to social media, and tagged us in it.  And what that did was get us some awesome free social media awareness and website traffic.

So, over time, we saw all of these different clients were doing this periodically.  It got me thinking about how this could be a brilliant thing.  And of course, most of these genius ideas often happen by accident, like this one did.

On the back of this, I developed what I like to call: ‘The Shoutout Formula’.

The Shoutout Formula

Here are five different ways that you can give shoutouts to get free website traffic:

1. Shout out your clients.

This is a relatively easy one but a lot of people still struggle with it.  The idea here is to give shoutouts without planning it.  For your clients that are really important and that you would actually go hang out with, try and share about why they are so special.  Go on social media and give them some love, tagging them as you do so.

Remember, this is not you shouting them out as a consumer.  It is you shouting them out as a business owner who appreciates your client.  It’s also worth being strategic here and focusing more attention on those clients with a strong social media following as that is going to help you to maximize on any attention that comes from the shoutout itself.  You can also do the same thing on your email list which can be just as impactful.

What happens when you do that is that the clients feel so great, they are going to share it with their audience and you can ride that wave, gaining extra exposure for your brand and what you do.

2. Shout out your partners or collaborators.

Think about businesses or individuals that you work alongside  and see whether you can shout them out on your various channels.  This works really well if you work with this business on a reciprocal relationship where you both get value from each other.  This is because it shows that business that you are trying to add value to this working relationship.  If you don’t show that you are trying to get them referrals, why should they do the same thing for you?  This shows that you are genuinely trying and that you want their business to succeed.

And guess what…. They are also going to share that – giving you the exposure that you’re after.

3. Shout out your employees.

Giving a shout out to your employees is a brilliant way to get exposure because of two different things.  Firstly, it makes your employees feel recognized and important – because it shows that you value their work.  This is great for company morale and it also helps to breed a culture of gratitude within your company.  Secondly, they are more likely to share that content because they feel proud to work for the company and everyone likes to receive compliments.

And who knows, you never know if a potential client is lurking in their audience without you even knowing.

4. Think about strategic people.

Another great way to leverage this shout out strategy is to think about strategic people that might be able to make a difference to your company.  This doesn’t mean you should be looking at your typical influencer who is widely known in a general sense, you want to be looking  for people in the right position for your specific business.

For example, if you own a restaurant – local exposure is going to be crucially important.  In this case, that strategic person might be an editor at a newspaper or magazine.  They are well positioned to give that restaurant the exposure that it needs if you form that relationship correctly.  So, by giving them a shoutout, you could just get your foot in the door with that person and that can lead to some really special things happening.

5. Shout out influencers.

These are the people that hold big sway across large groups of people and can give you some mass scale exposure if you get things right.  A good example of how this works is that there is a chiropracting blog that publishes an article every year of the best 30 chiropractors in the world.  And every year they will tag this high-profile chiropractors who are influencers in that particular space.  These people then tend to share that post because they are featured in it, driving lots of traffic to that blog and the company behind it.  

You could do this on anything, as long as its tangentially aligned to your business proposition, and you could see some amazing results.  Think through it creatively and come up with some ideas that work in your industry.  

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If you use these five different shout out strategies, you’ll get exposed to a range of new audiences and collect a significant increase in your website traffic which eventually leads to business growth.  It’s simple, but remarkably effective.

What are you waiting for?

Cheers,