Getting Traffic Your Blog Needs to Promote Affiliate Products is Complex

Unlike 10 years ago, getting traffic your blog needs to promote affiliate products is no longer straightforward. In fact it requires more than one traffic strategy.

I remembered when I first started my beauty blog, getting ranked on Google was so easy.

What you need to do is just to insert keywords onto your content, list your website with more online directories and comment on other people's blogs, inserting your link.

There is no need to involve any social platforms at all. And your blog can get ranked within days (sometimes hours)!

My blog constantly appeared on the top 3 rankings of Google first page. It was just so easy.

With more and more people wanting to earn money online, the web is so congested that Google has to change its algorithm so many times to ensure its search results are relevant to users.

With the need to keep up with constant changes of Google algorithm, many bloggers started to look elsewhere, exploring more ways to drive traffic without applying search method. 

If you too want to find alternative ways to drive traffic to your blog, here are 8 ways you can do so without Google.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying Google is not important. Just that with web becoming more competitive, solely relying on Google SEO to generate traffics is no longer sufficient.

1. Google+ Communities

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Update: Google announced on 8th October 2018, that its social network Google+ for Consumer will officially shut down by August 2019. 

To be very frank, you can’t fully ignore the authority of Google in search strategy. Google is just too massive.

But, if you’re trying to involve less with Google on search level, then you should take advantage of Google+, a social platform owned by Google.

For every content that you created, you should first share on Google+ before any social platforms. This can help to increase your search visibility on their search engine.

Do not just share your content link. It is important to include compelling description with at least 10 different hashtag so people who are looking for relevant topics can find your content when they type the hashtag.

In Google+, there are many communities you can hangout with. To get started, join a few communities and observe what they share. Try to avoid communities that only share product offers as most just want to promote you their products.

When you find a genuine community, do join in the conversation and engage with them. Who knows you might have solutions to their problem.

The last thing you ever want is to spam them with irrelevant content. Therefore, being tactful and genuine are the keys to add value to the community.

2. YouTube Marketing

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YouTube shouldn’t be underestimated as it processes more than 3 billion searches monthly. It is bigger than Bing, Ask, AOL and Yahoo combined!

Utilize YouTube by creating niche videos are proven to drive traffic. You’ll drive traffic to your website with quality videos that encourage people to like, comment, and share.

In fact, YouTube is the second largest search engine. Google also ranked YouTube video on their search engine.

If used correctly, your keywords can rank on Google easier than article posting. To increase the number of video views, use optimized titles, descriptions and tags.

For more details on how to get blog visitors via YouTube, click here.

3. Social Media Marketing

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Many marketers who avoid Google choose social media to drive traffic. The selection of the relevant social media sites depends on your niche audience.

For example, personal development niche can opt to drive traffic from LinkedIn.

Again, your intention must not only to drive traffic back to your site – you need to provide valuable content.

If you stop trying so hard to sell your product or service and focus on delivering what your followers want, you’ll drive more traffic to your website and improve conversion.

For more information on how to get blog visitors via Facebook, LinkedIn and Quora, click here.

4. Social Bookmarking Sites

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Building links can generate traffic very quickly.

Very few fully take advantage of social bookmarking site like SumbleUpon and Reddit.

The sites are not known to many new marketers despite it is great for link building. To achieve this, you need to post content that can add value to members.

The key to successful backlinks is to attract well established authority site to click on “do follow” links. You can set each of your links as “do follow” or “do not follow” using SEO tools.

I use “All-in-One SEO” to set all meta information to maximize my blog chances of getting found by search engines and to display strategic information on social networks.

5. Guest Blogging

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Even though Google’s Matt Cutts says “If you are using guest blogging as a way to gain links, you should probably stop”, it is still possible to capitalize on guest blogging.

Again, it is all about quality of your content.

Make sure your purpose is not to drop links but to gain authority in you niche by providing high quality and unique content to your targeted audience.

For step-by-step guide to successfully guest blog, click here.

6. Leverage on Influencer

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Look out for influencer in your niche and interview them.

For beauty influencer, I follow Huda Hattan who has millions of followers on her Instagram.

If you too want to grow your followers like here, you should check out this article on how to become Instagram influencer and earn money online. 

Leveraging on influencers can improves your credibility and you get the pot stirred to drive people to your site.

As a result, they will share your website with others, thus increasing your traffic even more.

Here are step-by-step guide on how to get noticed by influencers and make them share your post. This is one proven method even for beginners who just started online marketing.

7. Email Marketing

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Email marketing is highly relevant if you want to achieve higher conversion. When done correctly, it can produce a conversion rate of over 5%, definitely higher than general conversion rates for social media.

However many avoid email marketing with the misconception that it is cumbersome and consume more time.

To make it easier, if you are planning to promote affiliate products listed on ClickBank, ShareASale or Commission Junction, make sure you find products that come with email swipe (sales text) so you do not have to write your own email copy.

Alternatively you can engage ghost writers from Textbroker do write for you. There are writers from beginner to experienced ones to suit your budget.

If you have large fans and followers on Facebook, make sure you convert them into your email subscribers.

This can be achieved if you have good landing page builder and email marketing too. I use Profit builder to build landing page and AWeber to automate my emails.

Here are more about email marketing to get blog visitors.

8. Paid Advertisement

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If you do not want to spend too much time driving free traffic, choose paid advertisement.

You can place banner ads on some high traffic websites, run Facebook/Twitter/Instagram ads, buy solo ads from established sellers or invest in pay-per-click advertising on Google Adwords or Bing.

For me personally, I find solo ads more effective compared to other means of paid advertisement. Regardless of which type you choose, make sure you research it well before spending tons of money.

One forum that is good to start exploring paid advertisement is Stack That Money.

This is  a high quality premium forum based on subscription.

It allows you to learn strategies on paid advertisement from experienced marketers,  and explore how successful marketers design their multi-million campaign.

Google is Still My No. 1 Choice

Despite the many ways not to involve Google SEO, we still need to face the reality that Google is king and here to stay.

Since starting my blogging journey with Wealthy Affiliate, I spend most of my time apply search engine optimization method to drive free traffic to my blog.

It can take up much of your time, but I find this method more sustainable in the long run.

If you too are keen to drive more free traffic with search method, I suggest you to start with keyword research tool I use to rank my blog on Google.

You just need to key in your preferred keywords below to start research. 

First 30 keyword searches are free, thereafter just subscribe premium if you are really serious to apply search marketing to get free traffic.

Despite this tool is simple to use and has lesser features compared to big names like SEMrush (starting with $99.95 per month), but its features are good enough for new and intermediate marketers to start getting ranked on Google.

Here are some some proven techniques that can get your keywords ranked on #1 page of Google faster.

If you are interested to know more on How To Drive Traffic Without Google, or you have any ideas to share with us, do leave a comment below.

p/s: If you like this article, I hope you an share on your Facebook and Twitter too.