Building a brand online is an important part of any business’ or organization’s strategy. With billions of people connected to the World Wide Web, even the smallest of businesses can suddenly connect themselves to a seemingly unthinkable number of people in the blink of an eye. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have long been the gatekeepers of this arrangement, helping people to find websites that cater to their specific interests. While these institutions can still make or break a brand’s online presence in many ways, they can no longer be relied on solely as a source of traffic. With the web becoming increasingly diverse and more competitive, it’s important to establish as many traffic pathways as possible. Below, we’ll talk about a few valuable but oft-ignored ways to begin growing traffic instantly.

The Power of Quora

Many people do not think of Quora as being a social network, but it definitely functions as one. There is still a lot of confusion behind the concept of Quora, but what is important to understand above all else is that it can be a marketing guru’s dream. Brands that interact on Quora by replying to questions with valuable information can expect to gain a lot of traffic from their efforts – unlike many other social media networks, the half-life of comments when it comes to visibility is very long. People turn to Quora for advice and insight, and brands that reliably provide that information through their offerings can expect to do well with regards to traffic (it also helps establish more authority by pinging search engines with your links).

The Power of Free

Who doesn’t love free stuff? As it turns out, free items provide incentive for users from all walks of life to engage with brands they may never would have otherwise. You can have a promotion using any number of tactics: a giveaway for a product your brand produces, a voucher for free service offered by your company, or even something unrelated to your brand, such as a vacation or a variety of coupons and deals. Local small businesses might seek donations to put together a basket of items or coupons that can be used to promote their brand online, while an internet-based business could even opt to giveaway deep discounts (as opposed to something that is outright free). You have plenty of room to get creative, but just remember that the offering(s) in question must be desirable and valuable to generate instant and ideal results!

The Power of Competition

With so many competitors across every niche out there today, competition may sometimes seem threatening. Competition can also be leveraged into increased traffic when utilized properly. Some brands have found out that by providing platforms on their own sites through which competitors can interact, promote their own products and be accessed by customers to review and rate each brand, they have been able to substantially grow traffic. In many niches, it is hard to find a reputable comparison outlet through which all products can be compared. If you can foster such an environment, other competitors will slowly but surely be forced to interact with it in order to compete for the increased traffic, creating a feedback loop that is amplifying traffic and pinging search engines simultaneously.