- 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.
