Hey ,
I've been there, the hardest part, and the first step, is to get traffic to your online store.
Here are my favorite free ways to get traffic to your online store:
1. Facebook Community
According to Statista, there are 223 million Facebook users in the United States in 2020. It means business owners should make the best use of this social platform not to lose potential traffic.
If you don’t have a budget for Facebook ads, then Facebook Community will be your best free way to earn traffic here. There are two ways for this kind of approach:
Join relevant Facebook groups
You can find various groups for any niche on Facebook. If you are selling furniture, communities that are about architecture or interior design will be appropriate. Once you become part of such groups, try to be as active as possible by commenting on posts or write yours. Do remember to attach the link back to your site in any post/comment. Showing it in your account profile is also highly recommended.
If your posts are engaging and informative, lots of people will read and interact with them. From that, you drive more traffic to your website.
Create your own Facebook group
This idea requires much effort and time because it won’t take effect immediately. You will have to build a community from scratch by planning the group’s content, attracting members, and managing. Tips for creating a successful group are:
- Post highly relevant content: Homemade food sellers may like the idea of a community sharing cuisine recipes. In this case, you know what your content should be. It also helps to learn from groups with the same topic.
- Run a giveaway and competition: At the beginning, you must find it hard to get new members, so some giveaways/competitions can be a solution. As everyone loves free stuff, attractive rewards will bring you a lot of audiences.
2. Join relevant Reddit threads
As a business owner, you can’t ignore this large source of potential viewers. Reddit has about 542 million visitors per month, and here are some steps you can follow to drive more traffic to your money site.
- Involve in relevant subreddits: Basically, “subreddit” is a topic section that you can discuss anything that comes to your mind. Go to reddit.com/subreddits, and you will find lots of conversations about a variety of topics like politics, science, or psychology. If you own a clothing brand, you might want to join discussions about fashion and apparel. Just type keywords in the search bar for numerous choices!
- Know people’s interests: It’s crucial to create content on Reddit that users find valuable. As a viewer, you won’t want to read mainstream content like “How to be more organized at work.” Instead, it should be a thought-provoking matter like “Is orderliness of work important? Here are our decades-long assumptions.” To gain such insights, you must spend time skimming the most talked-about questions on this platform. Then, consider if there are aspects you can relate to your products.
3. Answer questions on Quora
Like Reddit, Quora allows users to raise matters and have them discussed by the community. It is undeniably the biggest Q&A site you can find now. A powerful way to get traffic from this site is to answer questions like an expert. So, here are tips to be pro as such.
- Use visual content: Your content stands a better chance of catching audiences’ eyes by having images, infographics, or videos included. It also shows that you have done thorough research on the topic.
- Be informative: Of course, your answer won’t get upvotes if it doesn’t help at all. Be exhaustive and study the question as much as possible. The more ground you can cover, the more unlikely users are to look for other answers.
- Use proper formatting: Don’t make light of how your content looks! Try to improve the readability of the answer by breaking it down into sections with subheadings. You can also make your arguments more convincing by inserting bullet points or a numbered list.
An example of answers that have a good readability.
- Write in natural language: You had better use simple language and be straight to the point, as audiences are eager to grab the answer they need.
- Attach links wisely: Though the ultimate goal is to drive traffic from Quora to your site, don’t do it anyway. Only insert a link to your website when it makes sense. Users don’t want to view answers crammed with promotional links for sure.
4. Leverage visual content for Pinterest (buyable Pins)
In case you don’t know, Pinterest is much more than just a source of images. It allows users to market their products by using a feature called buyable Pins. In short, Pins are bookmarks where people save ideas they love on Pinterest. Steps for beginners are as simple as what we cover below:
Step 1: Sign up for a business account
Create one at http://business.pinterest.com. Once you’ve done, go straight to review Pinterest's Buyable Pins guidelines, which provides information on sellable products, setting up your profile, and customer service.
Step 2: Add buyable Pins to your account
After you get the approval for buyable pins on Pinterest, it’s time to start adding items to the platform via pinterest.com/YourUsername/_products. This board (category) can be seen by you only.
Step 3: Market your products
Now, your goal is to get your pins found. Follow these tips to make the best use of them:
- Save Pins (your highly-purchased items) from product boards to pubic boards, so visitors to your profile can see them.
- Be devoted to the descriptive copy of your boards, pins, and bio. Optimizing them with keywords can bring more audiences through search.
- Always use high quality & attractive images as people come here to find such things. Also, appealing pictures have more chances of being saved by shoppers.
You will get more traffic when people click the website link showing next to each image.
5. Optimize for Search Engine (SEO)
Marketers must be familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is the process of increasing organic traffic to your site through search engines (e.g., Google) by optimizing the website’s content. It is a long-term strategy that most businesses leverage. SEO tactics vary, but the most significant ones are:
- Integrate keywords in your site: For example, a women’s clothing brand can insert the word “women clothes” in places like headings, meta description, title tags, and body text of your pages. However, try not to overuse them to avoid a negative impact on your ranking.
- Earn backlinks: They are links to your websites from influential sites. Backlinks help Google recognize your site is valid and trustworthy, which leads to better ranking in its search results. All you need is to create quality content (or guest posts) so that the authority site (or guest blog) will find them as valuable resources.
- Content: Apart from containing relevant keywords, your posts must be unique and solve the practical problems of customers. A cat food store can write articles about ways to deal with common health issues in felines or the pros & cons of different kinds of cat food. Also, inserting a few internal links will make your post more SEO-friendly.
6. YouTube video
One of the best ways to increase traffic for your website is through YouTube. Like any social platform, YouTube is a place for people to get to know your brand, but it offers some advantages over Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
- Optimize your Youtube video: Once you’ve got good content, you’ll have to optimize your video for search. It should start with keyword research. The easiest way is using Google and studying the top 10 websites showing up in search results. Some helpful tools for you are Google Trend, SEMRush, Keywords Everywhere, etc. Places that need optimizing include your video title and description. The description is like your landing page, so make important information up top and additional details below.
The website link shown in the description helps drive traffic to the site.
- Create a provoking call-to-action (CTA): A CTA (both verbal and text) displayed at the end of every video will encourage people to visit your website. But they need a strong driver to click the link! It could be downloadable templates, exclusive reports, e-books, free online courses, limited editions at discounted prices, etc.
- Engage with the audiences: Commenters will be happy if you appreciate their feedback/opinions. Comments, either positive or negative, also provide valuable insights that you can use to improve your next video.
7. Content Exchange/Guest Blogging
Like Earn Backlinks strategy, content exchange/guest blogging means publishing blog posts on third-party websites to earn organic traffic for your brand. Generally, we need to: 1) Define appropriate sites, and 2) Persuade them to publish your blog post. We break it into steps as below:
Step 1: Identify reputable sites
The easiest way is to search Google for keywords regarding your business field. If you own a furniture company, you can type “interior design” and pay attention to the top 10 websites that appear to be content publishers rather than money sites in search results. Besides, you can use your network to get the list of authority sites in your industry.
Step 2: Outreach
After choosing suitable publishers, now you have to email them to pitch the idea. In your email, basic things need including are:
- Introduction: Tell them about your brand and highlight the most significant traits. The goal is to show the reliability of your website.
- State your purpose: Let them know your plan for guest blogging, such as the number of articles you need them to publish, what benefits you can offer (e.g., blog post exchange). Be straight to the point and sincere!
Step 3: Write & share
Once you get your proposal accepted, start writing your blog posts and send them to your partners. A guest post that touches customers’ insights will benefit both your website and the publisher.
8. Build An Email List and Send Out an Email Marketing
Email marketing is a way of driving traffic to your website that marketers can't miss. According to Statista, there are 254 million email users in the United States in 2020. Although the game is now relatively competitive, not many people are doing it well. Here are five tips for you to get started:
- Build your email list: Without the target audience to see your emails, it makes no sense. There are numerous tactics to get shoppers' email addresses, but the easiest way is adding the Subscribe box on your website. Moreover, tools like hunter.io and skrapp.io can help you crawl emails from almost any website on the net.
- Segment your list: Mailchimp’s data indicated that segmented email campaigns get 14.37% more opens and 64.78% more clicks than non-segmented ones. In short, segmentation allows you to send a message to people who have just visited your site and another one to those who used to buy your products. You can categorize collected emails according to age, gender, geography, website behaviors, etc.
- Write an email copy: A promotional email may seem to be short and freestyle, but content marketing does require time and dedication. To convince a recipient to open your email, you need an engaging subject line, preview text, and "from" name. Once they click to open, the next things they see are your headline, body text, and call to action (CTA). Make sure those pieces of content are natural and concise. Putting yourself in customers' shoes might give you an idea of what to write.
- Design your email: No one spends time reading a text-only promotional email, no matter how perfect your content is. Email marketing services like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or SendinBlue provide a range of templates that might work for you.
- Review your campaign: When measuring the results, the most important metrics to look at are: open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, unsubscribe rate, and spam complaints. By knowing your campaign’s performance, you can improve further plans to increase traffic to your website.
9. Instagram marketing
One of the best ways to drive website traffic is through social media. Statista’s research shows that the United States ranked first for the number of Instagram users (130 million) as of July 2020. To utilize this social network’s traffic potential, here are what you need to do:
- Include the website’s link in your bio: This is the first place users look at when visiting your Instagram profile. A short description with outstanding traits of your brand might urge them to click the link.
- Be creative with Insta stories: This feature has lots of traffic potential as users can proceed to your website by swiping up the story. For better chances of them taking such action, you must deliver great content. It can be your most-wanted products, discount offers, giveaways, etc.
(Photo: plannthat.com)
- Collaboration: Another earning traffic tactic is to get relevant brands to share your content. Of course, they receive benefits (it’s up to you) in return. For example, a shoe store can collaborate with a clothing brand; a shop selling utensils can invite a food store to repost their story.
- Follow users: This way of gaining traffic seems to be quite disturbing, but it works. People tend to check the new follower’s account, so there are many possibilities they will become your future customers.
As a beginner, you may have no idea what to post on social media. In this case, the best practice is learning from successful brands in the field!
10. Publish regularly on Medium
Unlike social media networks, where people hardly invest time in writing, Medium is a publishing platform where you find great content delivered by dynamic thinkers and experts. If you want to drive traffic from this site, make sure you will be devoted to every piece of content. Below are tips to get started with Medium.
- Republish your content: Medium has a feature that allows you to import content on your site into the platform. The next time when you create a blog post on your website, do import it to Medium. Google won’t count it as duplicate content as Medium will automatically add a canonical tag to your post.
- Post your write-ups to Medium Publications: If you have an insightful blog post, you can submit it to a publication. Useful content probably brings you a lot of traffic without having any followers. Don’t forget to include a link back to your website!
- Comment on articles: Another way to generate traffic from this platform is by responding to relevant articles. Percipient answers will make audiences curious about your profile, from that gains traffic for your business site.
11. Reach out to your prospect on Linkedin
Marketers often flock to Linkedin when it comes to hiring someone. But trust me, with 170 million users in the U.S, Linkedin is a powerful social networking platform for driving traffic to your site. You must be interested in the tips I cover below.
- Have a professional profile: As Linkedin is a place for business connections, you will lose the game without a good look. After creating an account (personal/page), what you need to do straight away are: complete your summary/company’s history and contact, upload a quality image for the headshot/banner, and add a link to your website in your personal/business profile.
- Build your connections: Traffic comes from this source. To widen your Linkedin network, think about people who are your friends, (old) colleagues, students, customers, business partners, etc. The more connections you have, the more audiences will see your content on Linkedin.
- Post regularly: You need to be active so that your site has more chances of being reached. Updating your status/new article a few times per week is perfect!
- Join targeted groups: Like Facebook groups, Linkedin groups are where you can meet like-minded people in your field. To find your niche networks, click on the “Interests” tab, followed by “Groups” in the drop-down menu. Once you get a few options, check out its traffic potential first. Groups with content that fits your market are ideal ones. When you’re in, it’s necessary to scan articles with high engagement for lessons.
12. Get listed on free marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon Handmade - for handmade products.
Here is good news for handmade businesses: You have to pay a zero listing fee on Amazon and Etsy, which are the largest marketplaces for handcrafted items in the U.S!
When you get your products listed on these platforms, your store will have more chances of appearing in the search results. Visitors to your product page might then be the traffic to your website.
To get started on selling Amazon Handmade, you have to follow a simple process:
- You (and your team) must handcraft every item you sell in this category.
- Fill out your application and answer some questions to confirm you are a qualified seller.
- Decide your selling method on Amazon: If you opt for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you will have Amazon packed and shipped your orders by sending products directly to Amazon’s warehouse. If you go for Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), you will manage storage, packaging, shipping, and customer service yourself.
- Enjoy your business growth and an increase in website traffic!
13. Get listed on popular platforms like G2, ProductHunt - for software, service, Saas.
For tech businesses, sites like G2 and Product Hunt are thrilling platforms to get featured. Without saying, they can be stunning ways to get more traffic for your website because G2 and Product Hunt are favorite places for tech enthusiasts. If you own cutting-edge software or services, you’ll want to know the perks of each site below.
G2
Generally, G2 offers fair opportunities to get well-known for all businesses. If you come here with passion and honesty, you will achieve what you deserve.
- Authentic ratings: On G2, sellers cannot pay to influence their ratings, placement, or sort order.
- Strict review moderation: To ensure the credibility of information, G2 has a team checking if each review complies with its minimum submission requirements. For instance, they will remove comments that are: biased, defamatory, unrelated to the questions, or counted as a duplicate.
- Encourage sellers’ transparency: To build a trusted community, G2 asks their players to use the real identity, respect others’ backgrounds and opinions, and be honest.
For detailed guidelines, here you go. To join the community, you only need a Facebook/Linkedin account or business email.
Product Hunt
The first thing you should know is Product Hunt focuses mainly on new tech. So yes, if you are a newcomer, you are fit. Then, you need to understand how the platform works by skimming its Terms of Service and FAQ. Once you’re all set, you can head to tips to drive traffic from this site.
- Register: To post your product on Product Hunt, you need to sign up for a personal account. After you’re in, click the “+” button on the top right to submit your product’s URL. If your software/service meets the community guidelines, it will get launched.
- Pick your launch time wisely: Many growth hackers suggest that products posted on Wednesday or Thursday drive more traffic. But they are competitive days also and might not work best for startups with few connections. The weekend is when both traffic and competition are low. Besides, lots of sources say the best time to submit a product is 12:01 am PST.
- Prepare all your materials: To get people’s attention, you need nice visuals and quality content. To be specific, it includes a thumbnail (GIF is better), a screenshot from your software/app, an introductory video, a catchy headline, and a short description.
- Contribute to the Product Hunt’s community: Before launching a product, you better reach out to other influencers on Product Hunt, which is a supportive community. Start upvoting products that win your heart, leave comments, and even join a meeting. If possible, you’ll find someone to hunt the product for you, but be sincere and eager to learn first.
14. Start a podcast
Podcasting is an online marketing tool that marketers utilize to promote a new product/service and increase website traffic. The content of a podcast can be about entertainment, education, or news. Hence, no matter what your industry is, there are endless stories you can tell to capture audiences’ interest. Here are fundamental steps to succeed with podcasting.
Step 1: Develop an insightful topic to attract subscribers to your channel.
Step 2: Produce your podcast.
Step 3: Use email marketing to inform people about your new product.
Step 4: Create an RSS (Rich Summary Text) Feed on your website to distribute your podcasts.
Step 5: Optimize your podcast so that interested listeners find it easily.
Step 6: Post a new podcast regularly to form customer habits.
15. Optimize your content for Voice Search
As people have increasingly used voice search (e.g., Siri) via smartphones and tablets, we need to learn its impact on SEO. Undoubtedly, optimizing your content for voice search is another way to drive traffic to the website.
But first, you must understand how it works. Because how we speak is different from how we type, voice search is more natural in tone and tends to be longer than text queries. So, the SEO of verbal content is not the same as that of written content. Now, let’s get started with tips!
- Make your content scannable: Make sure your content is easy to read and doesn’t contain any pop-ups or ads, which can hinder users from getting the information they seek. You had better use simple languages with uncomplicated sentences, short paragraphs, and bold headers to improve your content’s readability.
- Focus on long-tail keywords: As people speak naturally while using voice search, you must target long-tail keywords by thinking about how they ask particular questions. There is no fixed way of saying in any situation, so cover as many variations as you can.
- Create a FAQ page: A great way to use SEO data is by creating a Frequently Asked Questions page to insert long-tail phrases. It’s better to group your questions on the same page and write in a conversational tone. If you want to increase the chances of a search engine getting information from your site, do include long-tail questions.
16. Get listed on CrateJoy marketplace
An old-but-gold way to promote your site is through subscription boxes. Most of you might have heard about this term, but for those who haven’t, they are boxes of random gifts that are delivered to your house monthly in exchange for a subscription fee. In other words, it’s like giving yourself a present by being charged a fixed amount of money every month.
So, CrateJoy is a marketplace where your products go as gifts for such boxes. The eligible categories range from clothing, food & drink, home accessories to spiritual items. If the nature of your industry fits the platform, get started with no hesitation!
Though the exact process differs from person-to-person, the basics are:
Step 1: Sign up
CrateJoy offers a 14-day free trial, so try out to see if you like it. Once you decide to join, go ahead and start selling.
Step 2: Create your listing
To drive traffic to your CrateJoy’s store (and later your website), you must prepare a great listing that contains everything customers need to know. The must-haves are 1) clear and short box name, 2) High-quality photos of products and your branded box, 3) A concise, impressive description (link to website included), and 4) Shipping information (when their item will ship).
Step 3: Optimize your content
You must find SEO not strange anymore cause I’ve mentioned it several times in previous sections. Yes, you need to optimize every piece of content the way you do it for a blog post or a YouTube video.
17. Be different and create a viral marketing campaign that people have to talk about you
We nearly come to an end! In marketing life, all marketers dream of an overnight success campaign, which spreads like a virus. Businesses will earn a large amount of traffic to the website thanks to a viral video or story.
So, how can you be successful like that? The answer is there are no principles. Creativity has no boundaries, and the taste of people changes every day. But what I’m sure is, you need to be different.
Here are some examples of a viral marketing campaign.
This video of a Thailand insurance brand is a hit as it caught great attention from the public. The Silence of Love tells the story of a school girl bullied because her father is deaf-mute. She takes the ‘silent love’ for granted and regrets it in the end when her father died. Without saying, such touching TVC drives a lot of traffic for the brand because it gets people to share voluntarily.
This video touches people’s hearts due to its feel-good message: There are always loved ones waiting for you at home, so don’t drink and drive. The ads brought about 10.8 million views in just four days and generated high traffic for Budweiser.
18. Leverage Google Maps
Lastly, you can use Google Maps to make customers find you easily. When people search for a particular demand, relevant local businesses will appear on the results page. The link to these businesses’ website and address will show up next to the map. That’s how it works.
So, the first step is to claim your free listing in Google Places by going to https://www.google.com/business/. Once your listing is active there, you now have your business location marked on Google Maps.
Your business will appear like this.
Let's me know if my answer is of any help, with a thumb up or like 😄
Have a good one.
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