Do you know why some drop shippers tell you it’s the best business while others say it’s the worst?

The dropshipping business is not only restricted to creating a store but is all about what brings you, customers. Today, the dropshipping market is saturated, and more people are moving toward this business model.

Marketing and advertisement are the most critical elements of increasing the visibility of your online store. Social media is the primary mean of bringing customers to dropshipping business. But, there are multiple other sources to increase traffic to your store.

Let’s tell you about all the best free traffic sources.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization has become essential to every business and blog. You cannot achieve high sales until your store is optimized.

Here’s a simple explanation for you.

If you want to buy something, you go to Google and search for that particular product. Many links pop up within a second. So, how does Google know which links are relevant to your query?

Search engine optimization means using the right words to inform google that you have what the user is looking for. Eventually, your website, blog, or store shows in the top links.

Kristopher Jones, Founder of LSEO, says, “No matter how niche or mainstream your market is, great content remains a significant focus for SEO.”

Thus, it is essential to focus on search engine optimization for your business to bring it to the top. It increases the number of visitors to your store and the chances of generating leads.

You can learn the basic concepts of on-page and off-page SEO or take help from experts.

Proper Marketing Strategy

While SEO is among the most fundamental elements of free traffic to your store, there is much more. Yet, you cannot try them all at once. It is important to create a proper marketing strategy for your business.

It is simple, and you can easily create a strategy for your store. Start with understanding your goal and conducting marketing research. The next step is to define your objectives and techniques for the process. If you want to opt for paid marketing, set up a budget and divide where you will be spending the money.

When you are clear about the goals and techniques you want to opt for, you are ready to create an effective marketing strategy.

Post on Social Media

As we mentioned, social media is the trending platform for engaging more consumers and driving traffic.

4.7 million people worldwide use social media, which is around half of the global population.

But social media is flooded with businesses of all sorts. So, you can only succeed when you follow the golden rules of social media marketing.

• Create attractive content
• Be consistent
• Keep up with trends
• Engage with the audience

All these strategies help you reach more people and keep the users connected to your store. The first step is to identify the consumers looking for dropshipping sources. You can opt for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.

But, you cannot achieve success on social media within a few days. As you are competing with numerous other online stores, it will take some time to surpass them. Social media engagement may take time, yet they prove fruitful in the long run.

Influencer collaborations

Influencer marketing has secured its place in the top marketing ideas for small businesses and huge names. Everyone wants to make the best use of influencer collaborations on different platforms.

The main reason behind this increased demand is the massive reach the influencers offer. Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing. Yet, it is not restricted to Instagram only. You can make use of successful accounts on all social media platforms.

Influencer collaborations are simple and let you connect to thousands and millions of people simultaneously. You can opt for targeted marketing or general advertisement.

Many influencers on social media work in particular niches. For example, some have travel vlogs, while others post styling or food videos. You can choose one of them according to your niche or product.

However, if you want to target a wider audience, you can always opt for people with lifestyle blogs. They typically post all kinds of content and cater to a broad audience.

Create a YouTube Channel

YouTube has been used as a video entertainment platform in the past. But, now, it has become one of the free traffic sources to attract buyers.

Over 60% of all global consumers use YouTube, making it an ideal choice for marketing your products.

Many brands and small businesses advertise their business through YouTube advertisements. But there’s more to YouTube advertisements than display or video ads.

You can promote your dropshipping business by creating a YouTube channel. Many eCommerce businesspersons use this approach to interest buyers in their products.

YouTube allows you to create collage videos exhibiting your products. Or you may post video reviews of the customers. Another effective approach is to share hacks and instructional videos about your products.

As you add more products to your store, you will have more content to post. Eventually, the engagement will increase, and you might not have to spend on ads.

Also, don’t forget to collaborate with fellow content creators to increase visibility.

Email Marketing

If you think email marketing is outdated, you are in for a surprise!

Email marketing is as successful as it always has been. Additionally, it provides an impressive ROI of around $36 for every $1 spent.

Reports show that 81% of small and medium-sized businesses use email as their primary customer acquisition channel and 80% for retention.

Contrary to popular opinion, strong email copies can engage and encourage readers to purchase your products. People now find it easy to check their emails on their phones anytime. Thus, there are higher chances that your potential buyer may become a buyer.

Yet, the main element in email marketing is a compelling headline and engaging email. When the customers see that they are getting a good deal, you are more likely to generate leads. So, send emails that look less like promotions and more like solutions.

Be Active on Reddit and Quora

Do you know the best feature of an impactful salesman?

They know everything about the product.

When a person goes to a store to buy something, they ask different questions. When customers survey various stores, they prefer buying from a place that explains everything about the product. It shows their credibility and knowledge. Similarly, when you show that you know all about your products, it makes you reliable and credible.

Quora and Reddit are the best free traffic sources to exhibit your expertise.

Many people choose Reddit and Quora to post their queries and find suitable answers. Start by offering solutions to their questions, especially mentioning your products. You may also add links to your blogs. It is suggested to avoid linking the products directly before you seem reliable. The best way is to find a subreddit that suits your niche. Ensure to provide value to the reader instead of directly advertising your dropshipping business.

Update Old Blog Posts

We usually add posts to our blog and forget about them. It is good to create new content. But, it is equally important to update old content.

You can make numerous improvements to your previous posts and drive more free traffic to your dropshipping store. Some of the possible changes include the following:

• Adding statistics about your sales (where possible)
• Mentioning reviews and testimonials from customers
• Adding screenshots of influencer collaborations or viral videos if needed
• Improve the SEO of the blogs according to updated strategies
• Insert more CTAs if you did not do them the first time

Relaunching the content will enable you to interest more people. Adding new information may bring the content to hold the reader’s attention as well.

Comment on Other Websites

Commenting on other websites has always been one of the best free traffic sources. Yet, the ways of engaging people have changed over the years.

In the past, people would usually comment “nice article,” “informative,” etc., on posts. Now, readers do not find these remarks helpful. Marketing experts suggest leaving helpful comments on the blog in relevant niches.

Commenting on other websites also helps you rank better on search engines. It may not bring a lot of traffic, but they show your eCommerce store to the target audience. Reaching a narrowly targeted audience increases your chances of sales.

Click to Tweet Links

Using less well-known strategies enhances the probability of the success of your marketing strategy. It is one of the best dropshipping sources to increase traffic to your store. While this method is not very popular, click-to-tweet links are quite effective.

Click to tweet refers to a CTA that generates an automatic tweet for users to share to their profile. They can directly share it on your wall. You can share the Click to Tweet link with your potential customers. They can read it and share it instantly.

Start a Podcast

Around 383 million people listen to podcasts as of 2022. And you can use this to your benefit.

Podcasts enable brands and businesses to communicate to an audience that prefers speech over text. Many people listen to podcasts when commuting to work or working out. Thus, it can be a productive way to connect to a captive audience.

You can either start your own podcast or collaborate with a well-known existing podcast. It allows you to reach a new audience and be more than a business. You can connect to potential and existing buyers at a deeper level. Sharing your stories directly is more than running ads or sharing testimonials.

Try this free traffic source for yourself and see how it works!

Write Engaging Blogs

Besides updating old blogs, it is important to write engaging blogs to attract more people to your store. Always remember that an engaging and entertaining blog is vital to any business. Blogs help you in different ways:

They provide the readers with all information regarding your products. You can share hacks and usage instructions about the items. Make sure to answer their queries and then talk further about it.

You can share snippets from your blogs to your social media accounts. It will increase engagement on your social media and bring free traffic to your blog. Many users may also be interested in purchasing products from blogs.

Blogs enable you to interact with other bloggers and brands as well. You can guest post on their blog and invite them to post on yours. This also acts as one of the best free traffic sources to enhance your business.

Product Description Optimization

While you optimize the blogs on your website, do not forget about the content on your store. You have ample opportunity to improve the position of your store on search engines.

Add keywords where possible, including product descriptions, image descriptions, etc.

Your store is a blank canvas; you can use it best with SEO.

Optimize Images

Apart from optimizing blogs and product descriptions, product images are crucial to search engine optimization. While it is convenient, it might not be the best in terms of SEO.

Some of the tips to ensure that your images are search engine optimized are:

• Saving the image with a suitable name
• Adding alt text (with keywords) to images
• Choosing a suitable image size, so it does not take a lot of time to load

Publish a Press Release

Press releases are excellent business dropshipping sources to engage people. They enable you to talk about trending events and related product launches.

It is recommended to keep an eye on events that resonate with your niche. You can share news about relevant products and direct them to your store. Press releases may comprise special prices and promotional offers as well.

Who doesn’t like them anyway!

So, you can use press releases to bring more people to your online store.

Analytical Tools

Analytical tools are critical to any business that wants to steal the limelight. If you want to bring your store to attention, you must use analytical tools.

Tools like Yoast SEO and BuzzSumo help you analyze your and your competitor’s website. BuzzSumo allows you to see how your website ranks compared to others. Eventually, you can also understand how to beat them. Use it free or get the paid plan to use all features. It gives you an insight into the keywords and the best topics of audience interest.

The Bottom Line

Dropshipping business is easy, yet it requires immense effort to make it work. With increasing competition, it is becoming important to market your online store as much as you can. Besides paid advertisements, you can rely on various free traffic sources to bring people to your store. They include search engine optimization, guest posting, answering questions on quora, posting on social media, sharing links to different platforms, etc. Using these traffic sources in the right way can increase the influx of visitors to your store. Eventually, leading to an increase in the number of potential buyers.

FAQs

• What is the best free traffic source?

The best free traffic source for every business is different. It depends on how you use it and your target audience. If your targeted buyers are Gen Z, you might find TikTok and Instagram to be the most helpful. Moreover, many people also opt for Reddit to look for products. On the contrary, others prefer comments from credible sites on blogs. In all, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, press releases, podcasts, and search engine optimization are suitable free traffic sources.

• How can I get 1000 visitors per day on my website?

The best way to bring visitors to your website or store is to be consistent in your marketing strategy. The first step is to create a content calendar. Make a schedule of when you want to post. Then search for relevant keywords and find interesting topics. Create thorough content with thorough answers to your audience’s answers. Promote it on different platforms to bring more free traffic to your store.

• How do beginners get traffic?

Bringing traffic to your store can take a lot of work when you are just starting. But you should still try your best. Understanding your audience is the most critical step in bringing traffic to your website. Next, conduct proper keyword research that helps you create a content plan. Now structure your topics and find professional writers to create content. Add relevant images, optimize the content for search engines and publish it. You can increase traffic flow to your website by sharing links to other social media platforms. Best free traffic sources like blog comments, Reddit, Quora, emails, and YouTube can also be helpful.

shailesh is a Design Founder & Advisor, Berlin School of Creative Leadership Executive MBA participant, Zippie advisor, Wolt co-founder, and Nordic Rose stakeholder.