How to leverage different traffic sources to bring you in extra traffic

by Jorens M, May 29, 2024

by Jorens M

If you want to bring traffic to your website or product, there are many opportunities that allow you to do this. They range from SEO to being active on social media to cold outreach, among many others.

In this post we will be exploring several ways how one can leverage different traffic sources to bring additional traffic to their website, blog or product.

This post is inspired by and based on a Reddit post by u/how26, in which they share a big and informative chart outlining various potential traffic sources. They run a company called Trag, if you're a developer or run a tech business, do check them out!

If you are just starting out, it is suggested that besides SEO and cold outreach, you focus just on one or a few marketing channels at first.

So let's dive in!

SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the act of making your website and content in such a way that it is optimized for search engines. Search engines prefer different types and formats of content over other types and formats, and put the best ones higher in the results, which means that if your website is Search Engine Optimized, it will rank higher and show up higher in the search results of search engines.

There are two important aspects to SEO - content and semantic and accessible HTML.

Content - Search engines will rank contentful and relevant pages

higher than those that are not so. They will prefer pages that have value and isn't just filler text or marketing hype
Semantic and accessible HTML - Search engines need the HTML that

the page is written in to be semantically correct and accessible, otherwise they might have trouble parsing the content of the page correctly and will not be able to accurately rank your page

If you are interested in learning more about how to do SEO well, you might want to check out this informative article about fundamental SEO principles by WebFX

Programmatic SEO

Programmatic SEO is the act of automatizing your content creation and publishing a lot of content that is also optimized for search engines. Personally I prefer not to use this method as it can bring a false sense of value, which can eventually actually damage SEO. So do this method with caution.

Blogs, articles

Blogs and articles are a great way to improve your search engine rankings and one of the most commonly used methods for improving SEO of small businesses. Creating articles on topics that are relevant to your target persona are a great way to gain organic traffic from your target audience. But it is important to write content that provides actual value to the reader and is not just filler text, otherwise you might actually rank worse in search engines.

Landing pages

Landing pages are great if you want your target persona to find a specific product through search engines. These are great if your product is the type of product that usually gets found through deliberate searching, as opposed to when one is just scrolling and exploring various different products in a catalogue.

In conclusion, SEO is a great method to attract a lot of organic traffic of your target audience. You can be almost certain that people who came to your website from search engines are specifically looking for your type of website or product.

Cold Outreach

Cold outreach is the act of reaching out directly to prospects and sharing with them your website or product.

Cold outreach is a tried and tested method that, when used correctly, can bring valuable traffic and leads to your website and product. But there are some rules/etiquette that should be followed in order to do effective cold outreach:

Don't spam. Don't just message prospects telling them about your

product. Start a regular conversation first, and then chime in your product nonchalantly when the opportunity arises. Ask about their problems, the solutions that they are currently using and if you think that the prospect might benefit from your product, then mention it to them casually
Keep it short. Make sure your proposition is short and straight

to the point, and outlines exactly how it will solve the problem that the prospect is having.
Provide value. Make sure that you provide some sort of value to

the prospect even if they don't go further down the funnel. This could be a small gift, a discount coupon, or a piece of informative knowledge that is relevant to the prospect.
Be humane. Probably the most important thing is to stay humane

when reaching out to prospects. Don't say anything that you think might offend them, be polite and compassionate. It is important to stay humane simply out of respect for another human being, but it also lets you emotionally connect with the prospect which can open up doors for opportunity

If you are interested to learn more about cold outreach rules, you can read this article on 10 Golden Rules of Cold Email by Woodpecker

Cold outreach can be done in many different ways, the most common one being looking for your target personas in various communities and messaging them directly. But you should be careful not to spam too many prospects as you might get reported and banned. So it's important to vet people who would almost certainly be interested in your product.

Another method is automated outreach, by which you use automated solutions to send messages and emails in buik to many prospects. This can be a viable method if you're messaging a community that almost entirely would be interested in your product. But again it is important to make sure not to blindly spam your prospects and make sure that you are providing value to them. And also be sure to read the community's rules on automated messages, as many communities don't allow them.

In conclusion, cold outreach is a good way to engage with customers and prospects on an individual and personal basis, and can be a good source of traffic if done correctly.

Social Media

Social media has huge potential for attracing visitors. It is one of the biggest sources of organic traffic. There are various popular social media platforms which you can leverage to attain traffic, some of the most notable being Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, X(Twitter), LinkedIn.

Each platform is best suited for a different kind and format of content, for example Reddit is best suited for long-form written content, Instagram is best suited for image content and short reels, TikTok is best suited for videos, and X is best suited for short-form messages/announcements.

Below I will go through each of the mentioned platforms and offer some tips on writing appropriate content and methods of marketing specific to that platform.

Reddit is a forum-styled community that consists of a multitude of different user-created sub-forums, called subreddits. Each subreddit has its own topic, for example there is are subreddits focused on discussing productivity, or ones focused on discussing and sharing art, or ones that are solely about sharing memes.

Besides paid ads, there are two main ways how you can market your website/product to the Reddit audience-

Posting posts in relevant subreddits. You can post posts about

your product in subreddits whose members you think would benefit from your product. Before posting, be sure to read the rules of the subreddit, as many subreddits have specific rules that should be followed, otherwise you may get your post removed by moderators. Also it's worth keeping in mind that many subreddits don't allow self-promotion
Replying to relevant posts and comments. Reddit is a very

engagement-based community - a lot of members actively engage in conversations, so a good and often used method to market your product is to engage in conversations on posts that are relevant to your product. It is important and is general consensus amongst Reddit's marketers to not just plainly advertise your product, but rather mention it when someone is asking for a solution to a problem that your product solves. This will reduce your chances of getting banned for advertising your product.

In conclusion, Reddit is a great place to really engage with your customers and prospects.

LinkednIn and Twitter

LinkedIn and Twitter/X are two different platforms although the nature of their content is largely the same. On both platforms, businesses typically post updates about their company and products. This type of content is more for people who are deeply interested in the company and product and are actively following it's progress. Additionally it's a platform where entrepreneurs typically network with each other.

Since the type of content that you typically post on LinkeIn and Twitter are more or less the same (and also because the chart that I linked at the beginning of the article puts them together), I have put the two platforms under a single section.

Here are some methods of marketing that you can apply to Twitter and LinkedIn:

Replying to relevant/trending posts and comments. Just like with

Reddit, you can engage directly with the community by replying to posts that are trending and relevant to your product. As before, make sure that you are not spamming and providing value to the community even if you don't generate any leads.
New feature posts/product updates. As mentioned before, Twitter

is a good platform for short announcements, and both Twitter and LinkedIn are good places to let your customers follow the insider details of your company and product. As such they are good places to post updates about your product and new releases.
Devlogs. If all or a large portion of your target audience are

developers, then it might benefit to also post about your development work.
Statistics posts. People who follow other businesses on LinkedIn

and Twitter are mostly other business owners, as such you might want to post some statistics about your business which might benefit other business owners.

In conclusion, LinkedIn and Twitter are good for sharing insider information regarding your product and company.

Instagram

Instagram is a platform that is mainly focused on image-based content. This is a great platform to utilize if your product is a product that is best presented visually.

Some ways how you can leverage Instagram to market your product are:

Weekly posts. You can create weekly content to keep your

followers up to date with the development work of your website or product, new features, announcements, milestones.
Reels. Besides images, In the last few years Instagram has

started being a popular platform for sharing short videos, called reels. You can apply the same ideas as in the previous point to your reels. But it is worth noting that typically Instagram users have a short attention span, so it is advised to keep your reels short and to the point.

TikTok

TikTok is a platform that has gained popularity in the recent years, and it's main content format is videos. There is a popular trend on TikTok to post educational videos, so you can use it to post how-to's and tutorials related to your product.

In conclusion, social media can be very effective in attaining additional traffic to your website or product. It lets you really engage with your audience.

YouTube

YouTube is an online video sharing platform that has been around for almost two decades now. It has a very big audience so if you create videos that bring value to the viewer you can attain a significant amount of extra traffic.

Below are some ways how you can use YouTube to market your product or website:

Creating shorts. It is no secret that nowadays the average

person has a fairly short attention span. Which is why it might be a good idea to create videos that are short.
Creating educational videos. Educational videos are a big market

on YouTube, so if you create educational videos related to your product, there will likely be interest from viewers and prospects.
Getting mentioned on podcasts. If you don't have a big public

reach yet then you could reach out to podcasters and ask to be interviewed or mentioned on their podcasts.

Listing Websites

Another underrated way of attaining attention and traffic is to post your product/business on 'listing websites', which are websites specifically made to allow businesses to share their products. The most notable two of such websites are Product Hunt and HackerNews. Besides these two websites there are many other, lesser known ones. Here is lists of such websites: https://nerdrobot-e478a6c767cb0f0ba0a89ac5e0990.webflow.io/traffic-list

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing can be a very effective strategy to attain customers. Affiliate marketing is when you offer a commission to someone for every customer that has bought your product that they referred. Affiliate marketing is best done with people who have some sort of an audience already. These can be bloggers, influencers, etc. Typically you would offer affiliate partnerships only to those who have an audience that would be interested in your product.

Partnership with other companies

This is probably a lesser used tactic. Basically the idea is to partner with other companies who offer services/products similar to yours and promote each other's products. This can be an effective tactic if your audiences don't have a big overlap and can also pave a way for new business relationships and opportunities.

Influencer marketing

If your product is in a niche that has a lot of influencers, it might be worth reaching out to some of them and asking them to share and review your product in their videos/posts. They might ask something in return, such as a payment, your product or an affiliate partnership, so be prepared for that.

Open source communities

If your product or service is a software, then it might be worth participating and sharing it in open source communities. This might help you get additional traffic, and if your software solves an important problem particularly well, you might even get promoted by other open source advocates, and possibly even receive a sponsorship.

Conclusion

In this post we have explored various different ways how one can leverage traffic sources to attain some extra traffic. I hope this article was useful and informative to you and inspired you to utilize some of the methods listed here to reach your customers.

Have a blessed day, peace!

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