The Best Free Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing in 2023
The very sense of affiliate marketing lies in traffic generating. This is what the whole buzz is about, and we know that sometimes it isn’t easy to get this precious traffic.
That’s why we’ve prepared some of the best free traffic sources which you can try out right now.
1. SEO
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a great free traffic source because it helps your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases. When your website appears higher in the SERPs, it is more likely to receive clicks and visitors from users searching for information or solutions related to your business or industry.
Google processes over 99,000 searches every single second (Source: Internet Live Stats, 2022).
Users are constantly searching for the information: 51% of global shoppers say they use Search to research a purchase they plan to make online. (Source: Think with Google)
And what’s even more impressive is that a properly optimized piece of content can generate traffic for years after being published, which truly reflects the dream of all affiliate marketers – passive income.
However, only 25% of users make it past the first page of Google, which means you have to optimize your content. Also, getting to the first page won’t happen right off the bat, it takes time.
Here is what you should do: use the keywords tools (free or paid ones), analyze the keywords and searches and create the content people are looking for right now.
2. Your own website/blog
With the abundance of social media platforms, you might think that managing a website is a waste of time. Not true. SEO we’ve mentioned above is very much applicable to any sort of platform where you post your text. Developing and optimizing your own website can lead to compounding traffic and revenue growth.
Leverage SEO, post unique and useful content, and you can turn your website into one of your main traffic sources. Creating a high converting website seems intimidating for many beginners, but actually following basic rules can bring you some incredible results.
Don’t forget about choosing a right hosting provider, because if your website is slow – no matter how perfect it looks, your users will say ‘bye’ before they have a chance to actually see it.
3. Email marketing
This one never gets old. Seriously. Not even once in all these years. Growing an email list makes a great part of your inbound marketing strategy. In 2020, email marketing revenue constituted an impressive US$7.5bn, and by 2023, this figure is set to cross the 10-billion-dollar threshold.
Collect the emails of your audience using other platforms even if you’re not going to use them right away. There are tons of ways to monetize an email list, and you will be grateful for your decision to do so in the near future.
4. Instagram
Instagram is a powerful visual media platform which can bring you monthly over 2.35bn active users. Yes, you’ve heard it right, this is exactly how many people use this app on a monthly basis. (Source: Demandsage)
You can create a public page on Instagram and grow your audience here. The most tantalizing is that Instagram algorithm is amazingly precise and will show the users the content they’re interested in. The con however is that it’s overcrowded and highly competitive, so you have to stand out. At the moment there are no spaces for adding affiliate links in the post, except for one single link you can add in the bio, so promotional codes are used instead. Also, Instagram makes a perfect traffic generator for your website or a Linktree social media reference landing page.
5. Facebook
According to SproutSocial, 1.62bn users on average visit Facebook every day.
Build a Facebook Business Page or a group and grow your audience. Establish a brand name on Facebook, and then your brand will work for your affiliate marketing purposes.
It takes time, as you should provide useful information in your posts. And in this regard 80/20 rule can be very useful: 80% of your posts should contain some valuable information or be entertaining aka shareable, and the remaining 20% of the posts can contain affiliate links.
6. Pinterest
Pinterest performs like a search engine for visual content. The platform has about 450m monthly active users worldwide (Source: Statista), which makes it another great source of traffic.
The platform’s “buying power” is something worth your attention: 31% of millennials in the UK with a household income of over £100K are on Pinterest.
However, don’t forget that the Pinterest audience is here for inspiration, not for straight buying. So that’s what you need to do: use Pinterest as an attention trap – create pins which correspond to your niche and raise interest/provide a solution to the audience’s pain points or just inspire.
Remember, your goal isn’t only to get more pinners, but redirect them to your website. That’s why you should incentivize your pins – show the users that there’s much more valuable content on your website/blog.
7. Youtube
YouTube has around 2.6bn monthly active users in over 100 countries. (Source: Wyzowl)
It’s basically the 2nd biggest search engine, and you don’t have to have a glamorous life to make money on it. Quite on the contrary – straightforward and useful videos are going to bring you many more views and subscribers rather than just web glow.
Youtubers make money with affiliate links in video descriptions as on regular websites or just indicate their personal promocodes, quite similar to Instagram. Reviews, tutorials and roundups are the most popular types of videos and the most “earning” ones.
8. TikTok
Well, it started out as a fun app for teens, and this year its monthly number of users is most likely to hit 834.3m (Source: Insider Intelligence) making it the third-largest social network.
And it’s not just for teens anymore! It’s for everyone, which means the opportunities are endless.
However, let’s not forget that some types of products and services are promoted better here than others. Fashion and style related products are on fire. Courses are sold pretty well too, considering the fact that TikTok is used for learning something new, e.g. foreign languages. Software, financial products – might not lead you to immediate success though.
There is no space for adding affiliate links in video descriptions here, but you can add a link in your bio and motivate your audience to click on it.
9. Linkedin
Roughly speaking, LinkedIn is an Instagram, but for job successes and networking. According to Linkedin data in 2021, 180 million of its users (almost 25% of the total userbase) are senior-level influencers.
According to Kinsta in 2022, 44% of LinkedIn users have an annual salary of $75,000, which is more than the median in the U.S.
Considering the focus on the professional connections, Linkedin isn’t the platform for just any affiliate product or service. However, you can have success with affiliate courses or some sort of software products which can boost people’s skills, or help with work duties, e.g. design software.
In terms of marketing, Linkedin works the same as other platforms: you should establish your authority, elaborate a posting strategy. And make sure to use affiliate links judiciously – do not overdo it.
With that being said, Linkedin can make a perfect part of your inbound marketing strategy.
10. Q&A Websites and Forums
Quora is the most popular Q&A category resource. Here anyone can raise a question on almost all topics and get an answer from anyone. You can build your authority here by providing useful and informative answers.
Thousands of people started out from Quora and then turned their followers into customers or active users on other platforms.
Keep in mind that the competition is high, and any type of overpromoting or obvious marketing isn’t appreciated. You need to be useful first – focus on providing the answers people are looking for.
Also, the fact that you can add links, doesn’t mean you should do that from the very beginning. Take time to build your online presence as an expert, and then leverage all the opportunities it will bring to you.
The same rule applies to forums – be useful! It’s the only way to grow your audience these days, because overpromoting will lead you to being banned or overlooked.
11. Twitter
Elon Musk hyped up Twitter last year, but also brought a bit of confusion into the real amount of its audience. According to Business of Apps, Twitter had 368m monthly active users in 2022, which is still quite impressive right?
Twitter is a sharing platform, so you will have to create tweets which will spread the word by being actually spread aka retweeted and liked. The king of your strategy should be an intersection of usefulness and spur of the moment, because Twitter is all about sparking interest at this very moment. Individual tweets are limited to 280 characters, but threads (a series of connected tweets) give much more space to leverage your affiliate marketing strategy.
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Takeaway
We’ve covered up some of the most popular and efficient free traffic sources. However, it’s important to note that while these traffic sources are free, they do require time and effort to implement effectively. Be sure to create valuable content and engage with your audience to build trust and establish yourself as an authority in your niche. These days overpromoting without providing valuable content is a path to nowhere. The content and usefulness is king, especially in terms of free traffic sources. That’s why, take your time, start building your expert profile in order to capitalize on your audience’s interests.
Stay tuned for the next post on the best paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing purposes!
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