Free traffic affiliate marketing is one route many affiliates take. It takes considerably longer than with using paid marketing strategies however. But there’s downsides to paid marketing too. You’ll need a good product range and high value recurring income products to be able to use the paid platforms; particularly the most expensive ones like YouTube and Facebook.
So free traffic affiliate marketing strategies ticks a lot of boxes for many affiliates. For me, it was the only option when I started out. I didn’t have a large value sales funnel, nor could I afford one. Neither could I afford to lose money on testing out paid marketing strategies.
There’s a downside of free traffic affiliate marketing too though. You can spend a lot of time and still get nowhere. Here’s a few of the strategies which have worked the best for me over the years.
Free Traffic Affiliate Marketing – Niche Websites
A niche website is a website which is specifically built around your major keywords. I started out with this strategy and had a lot of problems. But it is a strategy which can work if you go about it right.
The main concept is to find a good keyword which offers enough monthly traffic but less competition than most. Once you have found a low competition long tail keyword, or even a shorter phrase, you can build your site around it.
Although keyword targeted domain names aren’t as helpful as they used to be, you can still gain some advantage by using them.
Here’s an example of a site I built using this strategy and this article explains how it’s done.
Free Traffic Affiliate Marketing – Micro Niche Blogging
You can find micro niche blogging topics by using Google’s free keyword planner. You can also blog around a specific topic and use this idea with your niche website.
With a micro niche, you have less competition than with a larger niche. So you’ve more chance of getting free traffic from Google.
Starting with your main keyword domain, create content around this topic. Keep writing blogs using longer tail keywords which relate to your main “seed” keyword. Over time and with effort you can build up a resource which should get found for some of your content through a Google, Yahoo, Bing or DuckDuckGo.
It’s a long slow process this but worth it if you want a free traffic affiliate marketing income.
Free Traffic Affiliate Marketing – To Your Blog
Once you have set in motion activities on your blog to create content you’ll also need to share it. All the blogging in the world isn’t going to necessarily get eyes on your content. You also need to share it as much as possible. Don’t just sit back and rely on Google to rank your content as it may not do so!
To help you share content it’s worth getting some plugins on your site. Not only should you get a good SEO plugin to help you rank your content, but also get:
- A social media autopost plugin – this automatically shares your content when you publish it.
- Social media share icons – you can get a free plugin to do this.
- Use postplanner.com too which will help you methodically post your older posts throughout your social media platforms
Back-linking To Your Content
There’s various methods to help you get eyes on your content:
- Guest posting – on other blogs similar to your own
- Writing on article marketing sites like Ezinearticles.com and Hubpages.com
- Uploading videos to YouTube and linking back to your content
- Dropping your article links on social media
- Blog commenting
- Taking part in discussion on forums and Social media groups and leading people back to your content
- Inter-linking back to content in your newer posts
- Deep link using the keyword/s you are targeting in your content
- Q and A Websites such as Quora.com let you answer questions and post relevant content – while these are “no-follow” links they still help you get people to your content. “No-follow” means Google doesn’t count them as a ranking factor.
All these will help you get more people to your content and help you boost your SEO (search engine optimisation) score too.
Traffic Into Sales
While traffic is vital for an online business to operate, without sales it’s still going to be dead in the water! You need traffic first, leads second and sales third! Make sure your content is well targeted to attract the right buyers. All the traffic in the world is no use unless it’s well targeted traffic.
As an example, review websites are well targeted traffic. This is because when someone looks for a review, they usually already have a product in mind that they want to purchase. So a review is just a last step before someone makes a buying decision. So ask whether your content is bringing the right kind of visitors to your site before you start creating it.
Once on your site, a person will usually only have around 10 minutes before they are gone forever. If you can get them to subscribe to your email list, this time period can be dramatically extended. Also too, some “colder” traffic (as opposed to “hot” buyer traffic) can be “warmed up” and turned into customers.
So make sure you have the option to collect your visitors emails, and optimise your opt-in magnet to get the most from your traffic. See increase conversion rate on your e-commerce website.
Once on your list, your traffic is much more valuable to you. As a lead, you can deliver emails to your subscribers over months and even years. Once they leave your website without signing up to your offer, they are gone for good!
Retargeting
Retargeting is another way to get people who have already seen your website to come back for another look. This isn’t free but is a cheap strategy to help with your marketing campaign.
With a retargeting campaign, you can advertise to people who have already landing on your site. It’s worth learning about this once you have built up some free traffic over time through your content marketing efforts.
Free Traffic YouTube
YouTube can be used in a similar way to Google. Create videos and upload them to YouTube on a regular basis.
Target long tail keywords which are suitable for your target audience and products. One strategy to do this is to start writing your keywords into YouTube’s search bar. You should see other longer tail keywords appear beneath. These are the searches which are already being looked for.
By creating content around the less competitive keywords, you can gain some traction and get free visitors to your videos over the longer term. Again this is a long term strategy and takes some time and work.
Facebook For Free Traffic
You can also use Facebook for free traffic too. Make your profile picture showcase your main lead magnet. This is your “giveaway” product which you offer your website visitors in exchange for their email.
Here’s an example of what I’ve used on my Facebook page:
Once you’ve set up your profile to offer your giveaway “hook”, join some groups which are suitable places where your target audience might be hanging out.
You can join a number of groups and chat with other members. Don’t spam the groups with your affiliate links, just interact and offer value and connect. People will visit your profile and click on your link, bringing them to your opt-in offer or your website content. In some groups too you can even drop a link and share your content. Just make sure you abide by the rules or you can easily get kicked out!