How to invest money (not time) to increase traffic to your site

Okay, so last week I shared one strategic way to invest time (not money) to increase traffic to your website.

Some organizations have more time than cash as a resource, so time is a solution that makes sense in their worlds. But what if you have the opposite situation?

What if you have very little time to invest in your online marketing, but you could put some money toward getting more people to your site? After all, the end goal is helping more people become aware of your organization so they can get to know, like, trust, and value you—and choose to do business with you!

There are a couple main ways you can invest money, not time, to increase your website traffic: paid ads, and paying someone else to do the time-consuming work.

Paid ads

For paid ads, the two main contenders for most organizations are Google AdWords and paid ads on Facebook. Google AdWords can be a bit technical, but we’ve found that AdWords Express is more approachable. So you can either test out AdWords Express on your own, dig into regular AdWords, or even simply pay someone to do either for you. Here’s a quick introduction to Adwords if you’re curious.

You can advertise on Facebook with Facebook Ads (unique ads you create), or you can simply boost a post you’ve already created. If that’s what you choose to do, make sure to boost a post that’s doing well so you can build on the momentum—even a five or ten dollar boost on a popular post will go a long way. You can even retarget to people who have already visited your site!

Depending on your audience, paid ads on Instagram or paid, promoted Pins on Pinterest could also be a good option. This tends to work especially well for businesses in the retail and restaurant space.

Pay someone else

You can also pay someone, either to create paid ads for you, or to do some of the other more time-consuming aspects of online marketing (blogging, social media, videos, you name it).

To decide what, how, and where you choose to outsource these online marketing tasks, it’s helpful to weigh a few different variables:

• Your budget
• The complexity and quality of your desired end result
• How much control you want in the process

You can pay either an online marketer or agency, or outsource to people on freelance websites like Fiverr or UpWork once you know what you’re looking for.

Your online marketing should always further your actual business goals, and it should fit within the scope of your actual business plan. It’s okay to be skeptical of people who suggest otherwise.

And if running your nonprofit or business means that you’re short on time, but could invest in your online marketing financially, you’re not alone. You have some good options.

If you’d like to talk more in-depth about what those options are, let’s have a conversation. I’m happy to help you consider your options, even if you don’t decide to work with us. (Really!)