Website Traffic Generator – 4 Proven Tactics For Newbies – If you ever struggled to get traffic like I once did, you will know why I selected this topic today. Traffic to your website is an ever present need. You can’t afford to neglect it, if you want your business to succeed.
Any experienced marketer will agree with the statement above. And will tell you that traffic to your web properties is crucial if you want to generate leads, get sales, and build a tribe online. There’s no point in having a website or products for sale if no one sees them.
There are generally 2 types of traffic:
Free Traffic
Free traffic is usually organic and a result of posting content/value online. It doesn’t require any financial investment/risk… but it requires considerable time and consistent effort for you to see results.
While it’s much harder to get targeted traffic, in the long run, free traffic is more sustainable. You’ll front load all your work and once your content is generating traffic on autopilot, you can relax a little because the traffic will keep coming in, for a while anyway.
Paid Traffic
Like its name suggests, paid traffic requires you to invest in advertising such as social media ads, native ads, search engine ads, solo ads and such.
While paid traffic is a lot faster and will provide you with feedback on whether your offers are converting or not, there is a learning curve here. You’ll need to spend time figuring out which ads convert and you’ll have to streamline your campaigns until they’re profitable.
Time is money here – so it’s more stressful. You want to be in the green as soon as possible. The plus points with paid traffic are that they’re far more targeted and scalable.
Why Newbies Should Focus on Free Traffic
Most beginners to online marketing tend to be on a tight budget. In situations like these, free traffic is the more logical choice. Furthermore, you’ll become much more proficient at online marketing when you’re in the trenches learning how to make free traffic work.
Let’s assume that you specialize in paid traffic such as Facebook ads.
You may be very good at it, but what if Facebook decides to shut down your business manager on a whim?
This happens all the time… and often, they don’t even bother telling the advertiser what he/she did wrong. Now the marketer is left stranded and needs to scramble.
They have no free traffic knowledge or experience – and their business will take a hit, until they sort the matter out.
As a newbie marketer who is just starting out, you don’t need these hassles. So it’s best to first learn free traffic – and when you’re doing well with it, you can start learning and profiting with paid traffic.
At least now, you’ll have a free traffic safety net to catch you should any of the paid advertising platforms ban you because you unknowingly flouted one of their ambiguous rules.
Not All Free Traffic Is Made Equal
Some free traffic methods are infinitely better and yield faster results. Below, we’ve shown you 4 methods that are proven to work. You don’t want to be wasting your time and effort on methods that are unreliable.
Let’s begin!
1. Facebook Groups
Of the 4 methods in this article, this is the easiest one and yields the fastest and most profitable results.
First, you’ll need to join Facebook groups which are in your niche.
Second, you’ll need to build a landing page with a page builder such as OptimizePress, LeadPages, etc. Then you’ll need to offer a freebie encouraging people to sign up.
Add the link (to your landing page) in your Facebook Profile.
One important point to note:
When using free traffic, most of your links should point to your landing page. You’re building a list of email subscribers. Even with free traffic, there are risks involved because you’re building your house on rented land.
Should Facebook restrict your activity or ban you, at least you’ll have your email list, which is the one asset you truly own.
Once that’s all set up, you’ll need to join a few Facebook groups that are closely related to the niche you’re in.
When choosing a group, it must have lots of active members and there should be several posts a day. You’ll want to avoid small groups or groups that are ‘dead’ and have no activity.
When you join a few of these groups, you’ll want to be active and contribute value on a regular basis. For the first month or two, do NOT make any promotional posts. Just be of service.
You reap what you sow. The more value you provide, the more the members in the group will look up to you. Several will get curious and click on your profile and check out the posts on your wall.
Create Value Driven Posts
It goes without saying that you should also be making value-driven posts on your wall (regarding your niche) too. Add your blog posts, social media posters, etc. And in each post, have a link to your landing page. These links will get clicks and subscribers.
Once you have a reputation in the group, you can slowly friend request 1 or 2 people from these groups. Don’t go beyond that. Many of these folk will accept your requests.
Now the posts on your wall will appear on their feed… and they’ll see your links and might join your email list to download the freebie.
Always Keep in Mind
When you’re engaging in other people’s Facebook groups, you never want to appear that you’re there just to sell/promote items. You’ll be shut down by the admins/moderators in no time – maybe even booted out of the group/s.
Proceed with caution. Once you have enough Facebook friends on your list (who are interested in your niche), you may create your own group and invite them to join it. Keep providing value and you’ll have loyal members for a long time to come.
2. YouTube
This is another fantastic free traffic generation method.
The reason we placed it in the number #2 spot is because it requires a lot more work from you.
The earlier tip about creating a landing page applies here too. The difference here is that you’ll add the link to your landing page in the video descriptions and in your channel profile.
YouTube doesn’t really frown upon promotional links. So you have a lot more leeway, but you don’t want to go overboard.
Now let’s talk about the best way to generate traffic with YouTube videos…
The answer is simple – video tutorials.
Most niches have people who have problems. If you’re in the online marketing space, people may have tech issues such as setting up a blog, etc.
By creating tutorial videos showing them how to do it, you’ll build a loyal following and get tons of views. You’ll want to use a tool like VidIQ to help you target the right keywords, tags and so on.
But the most important point – you must produce good videos that help your viewers.
Even if you’re in the puppy niche, a video sharing tips on how to potty train a puppy will be very helpful to millions of viewers.
If you’re in the fitness niche, showing people how to curl a dumbbell so that they can build a peak in their biceps will get tons of views too.
People come on YouTube for information and entertainment. Make sure your videos do both.
Some people may be hesitant to show their face in their videos. This is mostly a mental hurdle – and you’ll be surprised that once you get past it, you’ll do it with ease.
People just want information. They’re not looking for someone with movie star good looks…
And here’s the best part, even movie stars do live videos every now and then to engage with their fans, and a lot of the times, they have no make up on and look like average people. If they can do it, so can you.
The world is a better place with you in it – and if you have value to share, you should do it with pride.
But if you’re still hesitant, you can use tools like Camtasia to create these videos without showing your face. Faceless videos can get millions of views too.
Do a search for “nature scenery” and you’ll see videos that have 21 million views.
So, you don’t really need to show your face to get traffic with YouTube. – though it does help to build a connection with your audience. You definitely want to use this powerful video platform to drive traffic to your landing pages, offers, etc.
3. Quora Marketing
Quora is one of the hottest question-and-answer sites on the planet. Using this platform is really simple. All you need to do is sign up and start answering people’s questions – but even here, there are a few pointers you should be aware of.
- Never use affiliate links on Quora
- Do not add any links for your first 50 posts (minimum)
- From your 51st post, you may add one link for every 5 posts
- From your 70th post, you may add one link for every 3 posts
- Once you’ve hit 90 posts, you may add a link in every post. Then go back to all your earlier posts which had no links, and add 1 link to each post. Only edit one post a day.
You’ll want to answer both new questions and older questions which have a high follower count. Aim to answer 3-5 questions a day. Don’t overdo it.
When you’re on Quora, your goal should be to stick with it for 6-12 months. Go slow but be consistent. Over time, the traffic will snowball.
As always, link to your landing page whenever possible. But you can link to blog posts, Facebook groups, your YouTube channel and so on too.
4. Affiliates
Using affiliates to drive traffic to your offers might seem like a free way to generate traffic.
But if you stopped to think about it, considering the fact that you may be paying 50% to 75% of your sales (digital products) to affiliates – that actually makes it the most expensive form of traffic generation.
The difference here is that you’re not paying them with cash up front, but letting them take a cut from each sale they generate. If you’re a beginner with no email list, you might have no choice but to convince reputable affiliates to support you.
Using good affiliates to promote your offers is one of the fastest ways to make money online and build an email list of buyers at the same time.
You’ll need to network with these affiliates by promoting them or buying their products first. Reach out to them on social media and get to know them. Don’t be a pest – but just be in the paces they frequent.
When you’ve spent time building a friendship with them, they’ll be more likely to support your product launches.
Using affiliates is a ‘free’ way to generate traffic to your sales pages – but it’s not ideal for landing pages and so on.
Nevertheless, with the first 3 methods above, you’ll be more than capable of building a tribe of followers.
Eventually you’ll want create your own products and use affiliates in your promotions.
Creating and selling your own products is an extremely profitable option.
While free methods take time and effort, they will pay dividends many times over in future. So invest some time daily to drive free traffic to your business.
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