It seems like everywhere you turn online these days, site owners are talking about giving up on organic search traffic to focus on other traffic sources.
Newsletters.
There’s others, of course, but these four seem to be where most people are focused.
As someone who has been banging this drum for years, I love to see it!
This kind of pivot makes your site more valuable if you wanna flip it. Assuming you don’t focus on just one of those.
Getting Started
I know that I literally just told you not to focus on one, but I was referring to the long term.
But in the short term, when you’re just getting started on this new journey, you need to pick one and master it (before moving onto the next one).
Which one?
Well, the answer to this question depends on your site and your audience.
Honestly, you should already know your audience pretty well.
You should know the demographic that is into your niche. And where they hang out.
If you’ve neglected this sort of analysis in the past, now is the time to do that.
If your demo is older adults, then you can bet your ass they spend waaaaay to much time on Facebook (why is my mom ALWAYS on that damn app?!).
But if your niche is fishing, are they on Facebook? Or somewhere else?
You need to know where your target audience spends their time so that you can target them there.
So, hop on Facebook or Pinterest or whatever to get a feel for if your audience spends time there.
You may even think you’ve found their spot, only to realize when you test it out that they are definitely not there.
Sometimes they’re on niche forums. Get creative and find your people!
THIS is how you select your first alternative traffic stream to start.
Some Things To Remember
Don’t spam.
No, seriously, don’t spam them in the place where they hang out.
I realize this is a dumb thing to say about Pinterest since you can hammer it with daily pins and that’s cool.
But, if your people are in Facebook Groups, Reddit, niche forums, etc. you gotta make sure that you don’t come across as a spammer.
How do you do that?
Just be useful to them. Be human. Engage in conversations without spamming links to your site.
It’s really that simple.
And don’t try to sell to them immediately.
You gotta warm them up before you start the shameless self promotions.
Know that what works for one niche may not work for another one. So, you can’t compare someone’s success on Facebook when you’re not in the same niche.
Don’t get discouraged when your traffic isn’t rocketing to the moon after a week.
Building new traffic streams takes time.
And sometimes it just doesn’t work.
When that happens, you gotta figure out if this place is just not a viable traffic source or if you donked it up and need to try again.
This will suck. Trust me.
But when you figure it all out, well, that will feel amazing.
And know in advance that you’ll need to develop more than one alternative traffic stream.
Why?
Because all these social media platforms have their own damn algorithms to fuck your shit up.
That’s why newsletters are great (and likely why they’re the current hot topic).
But newsletters often take more work than something like Pinterest.
Though maybe not as much work as YouTube?
Anyways, if you get stuck, reach out to me. I’ve probably already tested something similar and can give you some general advice.
What Else?
Well, honestly, there’s too much to put in this blog post.
That’s why this is the first in a series I’ll be doing on getting new traffic streams to your site.
I’ve tested this a LOT in a variety of niches.
And I’ll share what I know, so that hopefully you’ll be able to grow some new traffic streams as well.
Hey, I’m Shawna. I make a living working from my laptop in places like London, Sydney, Dubai, Rome, Oslo, Bangkok, Las Vegas, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. I share how I do some of that on this website.