5 Proven Ways to Boost Sharing on Your Site

/ / Features & Tips / 25 comments

5_tips

Over the last few months, we’ve been talking to bloggers and crunching the numbers to discover ways to increase sharing for anyone who owns a website. What we found is that there are a few simple things that you can do (now) to increase sharing on your site.

1. Step Up Your Sharing Buttons

Are you still using the standard sharing buttons provided by the social networks? If so, using AddThis buttons could boost sharing by 22%. Better yet, our Sharing Sidebar can increase performance up to 244%!

Of course, your mileage may vary, so focus on creating interesting, original content that your visitors want to share. (Hint: you’ll know this by looking at what content performed well in your analytics.)

2. Make it Personal

Your site visitors don’t all fit the same mold. So why show all of them the same sharing buttons? AddThis tools customize which sharing buttons display for your visitors to make it more relevant.

This personalization benefits you, too. Personalized sharing buttons increase sharing up to 15% over regular buttons––and every bit helps!

3. Make it Relevant

Speaking of making it personal, you want your visitors to have a relevant experience as well. That’s why we offer Recommended Content widgets that give personalized content recommendations so they’d get hooked on your content. Here’s what one of the content recommendation widgets look like:

4. Know Your Audience

A lot of people put too much effort into optimizing their website for Facebook and Twitter. However, the smart thing to do is look at where your shares are coming from and optimize for those visitors.

Some bloggers that we talked to get 5-10 times as much traffic from Pinterest as Facebook. They tend to take that into account, and make sure they have the big beautiful photos that Pinterest users love.

5. Say Hello!

Did you know that our Welcome Bar can show a custom message to visitors from any social network? That way you can ask them to share your content on the network they just came from.

It sounds so simple, but using the Welcome Bar to customize your message asking your visitors to share your content can be more effective than sharing buttons alone––approximately 147% more effective.

Bonus Tip:

To easily activate mobile-friendly sharing, following and content recommendation tools for your website (like the one in #3), start a free 14-day trial with AddThis Pro!

  • JKI

    This is overwhelming. How does the widget know what interests a client hs? Is it based on landing pages or what??

  • http://bleacherreport.com/users/4491746-meds-no-prescription braindotor

    That is what i searched for – a good way to increase sharing for anyone who owns a website.

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    Good question! Our content recommendation tools incorporate the unique anonymous browsing data we see on 14 million websites, over 1.5B unique users worldwide. That’s how we can recommend your content based on their interests.

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    Good question! Our content recommendation tools incorporate the unique anonymous browsing data we see on 14 million websites, over 1.5B unique users worldwide. That’s how we can recommend your content based on their interests.

  • http://compraryvender7.blogspot.com/ Milagros Fernandez

    Gracias por su información,

  • http://www.likeinmexico.wordpress.com/ Likeinmexico

    Excellente! Excelente! Gracias! Thanks for the info ;-) for sure I would like to try the 14 day free trial :-) find #2 the best!
    Cheers! Saludos!
    Val @likeinmexico

  • http://miketaylorphotoarts.weebly.com/ Mike Taylor

    I’ve been using addthis to boost traffic to all my sites and have been pleasantly surprised at how well it works.

  • mneeley

    I agree with all of these tips to increase traffic! Thanks for sharing!

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    Glad you found them useful!

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    That’s awesome, Mike! We’d love to hear more about your site! Send us an email: social@addthis.com

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    De nada!

  • http://www.fundfuse.co.uk FUNDFUSE

    great toolset – #loveit

  • http://compraryvender7.blogspot.com/ Milagros Fernandez

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  • http://greatemailservice.info/ Liton Ahmed

    nice tips and thank u

  • Johnny Rios

    I was using the Add this button on my websites but the honest truth is that I am using the other sharing buttons from the other company which I wont mention but I am sure some of you know … The reason is simple … They pay you to add the button on your page … Every time some one clicks on any of the share buttons you make money … In three months since I added the other companies share button I have made nearly $600 … I know it does not sound like much but it is still money I was not getting using Addthis … The only way I will come back to addthis is if they also start paying … I’m not going to name that other company but I have noticed many of the popular sites using their service … Go to one of my websites and check out their share buttons … All you have to do is google … superdoopz … and it should on the top of the search maybe the second … And anyways the share button is on the top …

  • Yaack

    Will do. Thanks!

  • Alexander

    Here is the best part: “Some bloggers that we talked to get 5-10 times as much traffic from Pinterest as Facebook. They tend to take that into account, and make sure they have the big beautiful photos that Pinterest users love.”

    Thanks a lot, this is great.

  • NTHBiz

    That’s very interesting Johnny and thanks for the heads up! I didn’t know about the revenue stream from social buttons. I’ll give it a test and see what happens.

    Des

  • http://orangorangan.com orangorangan

    Nice buttons and method!

  • Johnny Rios

    No problem … Good luck :)

  • http://www.saidinaxlcanopy.com.my/ Azhan

    Yes me too… It really helps. Thanks Dave

  • http://www.keenandijon.com Keenan Dijon

    #goodstuff Thanks for sharing! :-)

  • slayerwulfe

    your assuming that everyone want’s to promote their site. some of as busy students want to promote others. i hope you see it and understand.
    slayerwulfe

  • http://www.dumadu.com/ Free Online Games

    Very useful information!

  • http://addthis.com/ AddThis

    Thanks for your comment. Just so you know, you can promote off-domain pages with the AddThis Pro content recommendation tools. Have you checked them out?