You know, I've already said it but I'll say it again, free, free, free, everyone loves free. And do you know what's 100% free to get?
- You know, I've said it before but I will say it again, free, free, free, everybody loves free. And do you know what is 100% free to get?
It is my eternal gratitude for taking a moment out of your very busy day, to give us a view, a like, and to subscribe, because seriously, every time you do, it genuinely helps my channel. So thank you so much for your support. But something else that you can get that I know people absolutely love is free traffic. And recently, I ran a poll asking what videos you guys wanted.
And traffic was by far the number one winner. And so I decided to make that request by making this video on different free traffic strategies that you can use, because seriously, these days, paid traffic is not my main source of traffic, it's actually three different free traffic strategies. And in fact, the customer that came into my store here, came in through free traffic. And so free traffic works absolutely great. And so in this video, we're gonna be discussing seven different free traffic strategies that you can use to advertise your new business or website whether that's an Etsy store, or an affiliate website or an online store that you've set up with Shopify.
And speaking of Shopify, this video is actually collaboration with the official Learn With Shopify YouTube channel. They're gonna be giving you their three favorite traffic sources, and I'm gonna be giving you my four favorite traffic sources. And in addition, as part of the collaboration, I've also made a video for their channel, the top 10 print on demand products. So if you wanna check that out, I'll have a link to it in the video description below.
All right, so let's get started with my first favorite traffic source. And this one is super flexible and it works with a range of different businesses. So you might remember that I said that there are three free traffic strategies that I do myself. Well, this here is one of them and it's actually one that I really love doing, not just because of the fact that it's a really great way to drive highly engaged customers, it's also because it's a lot of fun to do as people say. So the traffic strategy is to create an Instagram meme page that is related to a type of product or clothing line or service that you were selling, you've been posting funny meme pictures, and you can repost shareable memes, or you can make your own out of meme team plights, using your own niche jokes, which I personally find the most fun to do. So this is a really great example of a highly effective Instagram main page, thebig4accountant. They sell surprise, surprise, merchandise aimed at accountants that they create with print on demand services over a pretty short space of time.
That buildup big audience of accountants and people who are interested in accounting like me. Because well, as a business owner myself, I worked quite closely with a lot of accountants, and I also understand a lot of text jokes. And actually, all of my accountants and myself follow this page because it is hilarious.
Thebig4accountant was started in January, 2019. And it was grown very simply. Every day, they posted one to two funny pictures, gifts or video clips, and used hashtags so accountants would find the funny memes while browsing Instagram. And it works, over time, people would stumble onto the account organically through the hashtags and then binge through all the different memes that were posted onto the account. And then follow them so that they could see more. And in less than two years, they grew to over 400,000 followers organically for free.
And now they advertise their print on demand store that they set up with Shopify in their Instagram description box and in their Instagram stories, and they sell their own accounting match. As you can see, if you are passionate about the types of products that you are selling, then this can be a really fun way to market and advertise your store for free. And it's also super flexible.
So it works for tons of different business types as well. The caver is consistency. The reason why I followed this page was because I knew through their history that consistently, multiple times a week, they post funny pictures that I will enjoy. And so when you first start and may take a while to build followers because you weren't have a proven history for people to look back on and see that yes, you are indeed worth following. But the longer you do it and the more pictures you post, the more followers will build and build. And if you're patient, you can do this 100% for free. You don't need to try and buy followers.
I find my free meme pictures and templates to use as inspiration for my own on Reddit and Twitter. And by the way, if you're enjoying this video, and you would like to learn even more about setting up your own online store, then you should be sure to download my free ebook. "The 6 Steps that 6 Figure Online Stores Follow To Make Over $10,000 A Month." And you'll find a link to download my free ebook in the video description below.
But anyway, back to the video. And (indistinct) traffic source, I think it's gonna surprise a lot of people. - The second strategy I wanted to discuss is one that most people don't even consider, Quora. Quora is such a great way to drive traffic because the entire platform is built around niche specific communities looking to solve problems. This makes Quora users amazing prospects. To gain traffic on Quora, start by filtering out the questions that aren't popular and focus only on the questions that have the potential to drive traffic to your site.
Now, you can find these by searching through topics that are highly relevant to your niche. Next, scroll down the list of questions and look for questions that have been answered by a significant number of people. When you click on the post, you'll be able to see how many people are following that question, which means they'll be notified when your new answer is posted. To drive traffic, your job will be to craft an engaging answer that is helpful enough that it can gain up votes, but also leaves enough of a curiosity gap that gives Quora users the incentive to click through to your site.
As an example, let's say you sell standing desks. When you come across a question like what are some of the best ways to heighten productivity at work? Your answer might include an explanation of the Pomodoro technique. The detrimental effect of multitasking. The effectiveness of binaural beats and products that can help boost productivity. In this fourth section, you would list the benefits of some productivity products in LinkedIn, one of which is your standing desk. - It's true.
I know lots of people who've used Quora to drive free traffic to their business. I think that this is an especially great traffic source if you have your own store or an affiliate site. And actually, a big part of why this traffic source is so great is because of Google. If we come to Google and do a search for best brand of microwavable bowls, you'll see that one, the first websites that Google recommends to us is Quora. And if you open up the question there, there is a user, Nandini, who recommends a specific type of microwavable bowl, Borosil and links to it.
Because Quora questions shops are highly in Google search results, answered questions on here related to your product will surface and working into your answer, a link to your website is a great way to get free traffic. And speaking of Google, this is the second of three free traffic strategies that I personally use online. And actually, Google traffic is usually known by two other names, SEO, otherwise also known as search engine optimization. But those of you that don't know what SEO is, let me show you. If we come to Google and type in doctor mugs and do a search, Google will scour the internet, looking for websites that are related to my search phrase, doctor mugs. Well, Google has found over 20 million websites, yet, it can early show me 10 websites, as this list of favorites on the first page of search results. And sitting at number three on this list is a store set up with Shopify called mugdom.
Like me, they leverage print on demand providers to make and sell mugs for customers as they order them. And because they're sitting at the top of the search results, the keywords like doctor mugs, each month, they'll be getting free traffic from people who are coming to Google and doing a search for mugs to give as gifts to doctors.
Well, SEO is my favorite traffic source too. My product pages and category pages for the items I sell rank for lots of different keywords. Not only is this free traffic, but it's also super passive way to get customers in the door. Now that the upfront work is done and my pages are ranking in Google, Google sends me lots of traffic each month hands-off. So I can imagine a lot of you are thinking, well, okay then Sarah, why did Google choose to rank mugdom above 20 plus million other websites? Well, it's because of the fact that that made lots of tweaks and modifications to their store to make it Google friendly.
So for example, a small tweak they've done is they've used the right words in the right places, such as their title. You can see they've used the words doctor, medical, coffee and mugs in the title of the page. By it in these keywords, then here, it is signals to Google that this page is heavily related to the search phrase. And then the description of the page that they've submitted to Google, they've also made sure to use these exact same keywords as well, doctor, medical, coffee and mug, which signals again to Google that this page is heavily related to my search term.
But as I said, that's just one small tweak that they've made to their page. There are several others that have done too. And unfortunately it is too big of a topic for me to go into in this video. But that is okay, because if you want to learn SEO techniques, I have a free SEO video tutorial on my channel which teaches you lots of these different techniques that you can do for free to signal to Google that your store is related to different search phrases and that Google should recommend your site.
And if you'd like to check out this tutorial, I have a link to it in the video description below. And if you'd like an even more comprehensive set of SEO tutorials, it's something I teach inside my premium e-commerce training program, The Ecomm Clubhouse. To see if my course is right for you, I'll have a link to it in the video description below. But for now, onto the next traffic source which is actually kind of a spin on SEO.
And that is content marketing. Content marketing is another flexible traffic strategy which works with a range of different online businesses. Because you see, unlike SEO, which is usually focused on ranking your store or business website or product pages in Google, with content marketing, you still leverage search engines but in a very different way. So for example, because of COVID-19, I'm not sure when I'll get to go back to France but I'm starting to plan my next trip there just in case. So if I come into Google and I type in, how to say how are you in French? This website here, Talk In French, is the second website that Google recommends to me. It has a great educational content blog article that teaches you 15 different ways to say this phrase in French. Well, guess what else this website also has? It also sells a course on how to speak French. With content marketing, they're able to get people like me in the door.
Who (indistinct) also in blog posts and think, hey, this site is great. They offer so much great education. Do they offer more? And so then on our own, we come and we find the product or service that they are offering like this course.
So one big advantage to this is that it's often faster and easier to rank for educational content keywords like this in Google because Google loves educational content and recommends it highly. So it's a really great way to get customers in the door for free with Google. And actually, as you're gonna discover, with content marketing, you aren't just limited to Google. How we avert to do well content marketing, you need to make sure that you're doing it the right way not the wrong way.
- Since YouTube and Google are the two largest search engines in the world, creating blog posts or YouTube videos can be powerful drivers of organic traffic from SEO. How tos, learn content, best lists and ultimate guides. These are all examples of educational content that brings visitors in, in a problem solving state of mind. In line with the standing desk example we used earlier, you might create a blog article or a video on the five best productivity tips to change your life.
You can use tools like Ubersuggest to unearth keyword opportunities. For example, the term productivity tips is searched over 1000 times per month.
Consider using the content pyramid strategy. At the top of the pyramid, you have longer form content that is high effort. Below this, you have content formats that are lower efforts. So at the top of a content pyramid, you might have a 10 minute YouTube video tutorial. In this video, you can include reference to a free checklist only available on your website. In the middle of the content pyramid, you can cut down the most important points from your long form video into a TikTok and Instagram reels post. Mentioning that same CTA about the checklist that you mentioned in the YouTube video. Finally, at the bottom of the content pyramid, you can take those points from a short-term video and put them in a simple carousel presentation which you can release on Instagram and LinkedIn with the same CTA as above. - Absolutely. Re-purposing content for different platforms is a great way to take advantage of both free Google traffic and free social media traffic. But for now, it's time to focus on a very different free traffic strategy that works great for e-commerce businesses especially print on demand businesses. And it is this, Etsy. Etsy is a great way to drive free traffic. And while Etsy is very well-known in the USA, it's a little less known outside of America. So for those of you that don't know what Etsy is, it's an online marketplace similar to eBay where anyone can list products for sale. The only requirement is that the products be either vintage or handmade or designed by you. And because of that, print on demand stores are allowed on Etsy. So most of these t-shirts listed on Etsy were actually made with print on demand apps like Printful and Printify. Same with most of their mugs too. Etsy is a great place to open a print on demand store for free. Every month, 100s of millions of people visit Etsy to buy items. So if your items are listed on here, you don't need to run any advertising for it for them to be seen because 100s of millions of people are coming here already. I've had lots of subscribers step print on demand stores on Etsy and seeing lots of success. Congratulations, everybody. Previously,
it used to cost 20 cents to list an item on Etsy. But now, if you do a quick Google search, you'll find that you can get 40 free item listings using people's referral pages. Yep, I did a quick Google search and discovered that this Etsy seller here, Nancy, has a referral link which I will link to in the video description. If you register for Etsy with her referral link, you will get 40 free item listings and she will get 40 free item listings. So it is a win, win. And Etsy collects fees only after a customer has bought an item from you and they remove it from the money that the customer has paid. So what these 40 free item listings, there are zero startup costs to this traffic source at all.
And so if you were selling print on demand products online right now, why not also set up a free store on Etsy and get greater brand awareness and more sales? And if you're selling on Etsy right now, do what a lot of successful Etsy source do, which is set up your own store on your own domain using a platform like Shopify and redirect existing customers to your private stores instead, so that you can stop paying Etsy fees on every sale. And using this app here which has a free plan, you can integrate your Shopify store with your Etsy store, running them to get super easy.
All right, so back to Shopify (indistinct) free traffic source that their top stores use to sell products online. And as you will see, this has to be one of the most underrated traffic sources in the USA and in Europe - The final strategy I wanted to talk about has already taken a foothold in China, but hasn't quite reached tipping point in Western markets. Of course, I'm talking about social commerce. Social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram have integrated shopping features directly into their platforms, enabling their users to finalize purchases in app or move to retailers official sites. In China, social commerce accounts for 11.6% of all e-commerce sales. That is approximately 10 times the number of social commerce sales in the us. The point that these statistics so overwhelmingly hammer home is that social commerce has a ton of room to grow in North America and Europe. I really have to thank Wholesale Ted so, so much for having me. If you want more simple, actionable content for growing your online business, make sure to subscribe to learn with Shopify. We're a channel for small business owners with big plans. Giving you the knowledge you need to start and grow a successful online business. - Thank you so much for coming on the channel. It was great to have you on. And as I said, I'll have a link to Learn With Shopify in the video description below. But yes, social commerce is one of the most underutilized traffic sources right now in the USA and Europe.
So let me show you one brand that is taking advantage of it. And that is TheBig4Accountant. As you can see, if you come to their Facebook page, you can buy their print on demand merchandise directly within Facebook.
This is exactly what free social commerce traffic is. It's when you get traffic from people buying products within the social media websites themselves. And actually, this leads me onto my next source of free traffic because if you've been paying close attention, you remember that at the start of the video, I see that I use three free traffic sources. And yet, so far I have only revealed two out of three of them. So let me tell you the third source of traffic that I use and this one is super flexible and works with lots of different online businesses. And that is Facebook meme pages.
Yes, this is very similar to Instagram meme pages, except, instead of posting them onto Instagram, you post them into a Facebook page. And as you can probably figure out, if you have an Instagram meme page, then it's also a really good idea to come and post those same pictures onto Facebook as well. And unlike with Instagram, with Facebook, you can do what TheBig4Accountant has done and link to your website directly in the description of each image,
which again, you can't do on Instagram. And just like with Instagram, if you consistently post, people will naturally find your page and start following it for free and just like corners content pyramid, this is another awesome way to repurpose content to get even more free traffic by combining Instagram meme pages,
Facebook meme pages and social commerce together. So once again, I'd like to thank Shopify for their video collaboration. I'll have a link to them in the video description below. And in the video description, I will also have a link to my free SEO tutorials. So if you would like to get free SEO traffic to your store like I do, be sure to check out that video and I will see you on the next one.
