While pets are always an exciting gift to receive during the holidays, Best Friends Animal Society is encouraging animal lovers to choose adoption.
In a press release, Best Friends Animal Society CEO Julie Castle explained that adopting instead of shopping this season can help divert money away from the “inhumane puppy mill industry that churns out millions of puppies annually.”
“Not everyone considers this, but where gifted pets come from can either help or hurt efforts to end the killing of pets in shelters,” Castle said.
“I encourage everyone to adopt rather than buy a pet from a breeder, pet store or online retailer,” she also said.
Best Friends Animal Society is a leading national animal welfare organization dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters, the group says on its website. It works with shelters, rescue groups and members nationwide.
Anyone who may be interested in adopting Ophelia can email the group at houstonadoption@bestfriends.org or call (832) 342-9411.
With more consumers shopping online than ever before, retailers must work hard to get noticed.
What if you don’t have the budget for ads? Are you doomed to fade into the online abyss?
Absolutely not.
Over half of consumers prefer to shop online. Great news for online retailers like you, right?
With the growth of online marketplaces and hoards of choices available to consumers, it’s tough to get the attention you need to drive traffic and revenue.
Today, I’ll share 25 e-commerce tips to get more visitors to your site—without spending a dime on paid ads.
Best of all, many of these tips are easier to implement than you might think.
What Are the Benefits of Using Non-Paid Strategies to Increase E-Commerce Website Traffic?
Many marketers focus on paid e-commerce strategy because they think it’s the only way to outshine the big brands, but that isn’t always the case.
With 95 percent of website traffic hitting the first page of Google, all the traffic you could hope for is there, waiting.
One of the most obvious benefits of non-paid e-commerce strategies is you don’t need to invest money to drive traffic. You’re not trading dollar-for-dollar; instead, you’re trading time or resources for sales.
Another benefit is focusing on non-paid traffic means building a better, easier-to-use website. According to a study done by Amazon Web Services, 88 percent of online shoppers won’t return to a site they had a bad experience on.
With all the options for e-commerce shopping, why would they?
We’re completely inundated with options. The threshold for mistakes and user experience problems is getting lower and lower.
Finally, thinking outside the box helps build a real business with long-term potential.With paid ads, as soon as you turn off your budget, your traffic will plummet.
SEO, email marketing, and on-page experience are long-term strategies that pay off over time.
25 E-Commerce Strategies to Drive Traffic (Without Paying for Ads!)
Overall e-commerce sales have grown steadily year after year and show no sign of slowing down. By 2025, e-commerce sales could hit nearly 7,400 billion dollars. If you’re having trouble getting the traffic you want, there are tons of opportunities to get a piece of the pie.
Here are some e-commerce tips you can implement today to get more traffic to your site.
1. Start a Referral Program
Leads that come from referrals convert at a 30 percent higher rate than any other marketing method. If you don’t have a referral program for your e-commerce store, it’s never too late to get started.
Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be elaborate.
Take GetResponse, for example. You get a $30 account credit for every person you refer to the software.
Offer something of value to existing customers for every customer they bring to you; it’s as simple as that!
Start producing content regularly whether you have to hire someone or write everything yourself. I’m definitive proof that this strategy works.
If you don’t currently have a blog on your e-commerce website, starting one is easy. Most e-commerce platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify have built-in blogging templates to help you get started.
3. Improve the On-Page Experience
Google makes it crystal clear that the on-page experience is one of the most important factors they look at when determining whether a site should rank.
On-page experience refers to (but is not limited to):
To use these e-commerce tips, start by running the reports linked above. Google will offer you tips and strategies to improve your on-page experience.
Improving these factors helps increase your e-commerce traffic because your site looks better in Google’s eyes, and it’s easier for users to navigate, which keeps them coming back.
4. Build an Email List
Repeat customers spend 67 percent more than new customers—and one of the best ways to bring them back is by building an email list.
Why?
You’ve already established trust with them, and they know what you have to offer.
Take a look at this example from Birchbox:
Offering a unique promo code encourages customers to return and makes the offer feel exclusive and like they’re getting something that isn’t available to everyone.
To build an email list, try these strategies:
Offer a small discount (10 to 15 percent) for users that sign up for your email list.
Make your list feel exclusive by promoting new products only in your email list.
Post teasers about an upcoming email announcement on social media to encourage followers to sign up.
5. Retarget Email Subscribers
Once you’ve built out an email list, you’ll want to retarget users based on onsite behavior. Retargeting, in this case, means sending an email to someone who has shown interest in your business but didn’t take the action you were hoping for. (It can also be used for paid ads, but in this case, we’re covering non-paid strategies.)
Abandoned cart emails are one of the most effective ways to leverage email retargeting. In fact, they’re responsible for recovering nearly 30 percent of abandoned carts.
You can also send current customers suggested products related to a previous purchase. As we already covered, it’s easier to go after customers you already have than find new ones.
Here’s a quick guide to retargeting your email subscribers:
Look for ways to retarget users in your email marketing platform. For example, MailChimp has a retargeting email guide that walks its users through the process.
Implement the easiest retargeting campaigns first. Generally, abandoned cart emails and recommended products are easy wins.
Test other retargeting campaigns to see what works. For example, ask for reviews a week or so after purchase or suggest a new collection.
6. Optimize Your CTAs
Only around two percent of your web traffic will convert on the first visit, so capturing email addresses through your CTAs is crucial.
You need to experiment a bit to see what works. Even something as simple as the color of your CTA button can make a difference.
For example, Performable found that switching their CTA button from green to red boosted their conversion rate by 21 percent.
Try different CTA buttons and phrasing to see what works and test them side-by-side using A/B testing.
Don’t stop at colors, though. You can also test your CTA’s:
copy
placement
font type/size
including images
landing page
Offer
7. Improve Your Checkout Process
Nearly 70 percent of people abandon their cart. This can be due to hidden fees, shipping costs, too many steps, and a poor overall experience. The best e-commerce tips build on what you’re already doing, and the checkout process is a great place to start.
While people are more comfortable than ever shopping online, they also have high expectations for the process. How do you improve the process? Here are a few tips:
Get rid of hidden fees and be upfront about pricing.
Share shipping fees early in the process.
Limit the number of clicks to convert.
Scandiweb did a great case study of the steps to improve their checkout experience. You don’t need to go nearly this far, but it’s a smart e-commerce strategy to implement no matter how big or small you decide to make it.
8. Develop a Rewards Program
A white paper by Altfeld shows that when selling to an existing customer, the probability of closing that sale is as high as 70 percent.
What’s the most effective way to bring customers back? Loyalty programs!
Rewarding customers for returning and doing business with you again is a brilliant and timeless strategy.
For every dollar spent, you earn one dollar in rewards. The more you spend, the more rewards you’re eligible for, including discounts and free shipping. It’s so simple when it’s broken down this way, but the hard part is coming up with a smart rewards program.
To set up an effective rewards program, you’ll want to:
See what your most profitable customers have in common (location, products, interests, etc.)
Look at data to see what drives purchases. This will help you set up a reward program. Do they like free shipping? Discounts? Access to new product lines early? Use a survey to ask customers if you aren’t sure.
I’ve mentioned SEO already, but this step focuses on internal linking within your e-commerce website. How can this improve e-commerce traffic?
Sites without proper internal linking don’t rank as high as those with a solid link-building strategy.
By creating a web of links on your site, you’re telling Google that you are an excellent resource for what people want to buy and you’re a wealth of knowledge in whatever niche it is you sell in. That will improve the user experience while also improving your worth to Google.
Here are a few tips for adding internal links:
Identify hub pages—these are important pages you know your users want to see. Add links where it makes sense that point to these pages.
Link to related products on your product pages. If you sell tents, link to other camping gear, for example.
Use “breadcrumbs” in the navigation to help users quickly navigate back to core pages.
Use easy-to-understand anchor text, like this: Here’s more information about internal linking best practices. It’s clear what you’ll get if you click the highlighted text.
10. Get Active on Social Media
Ninety-one percent of people read at least one review before making a purchase. Where is a great place to get a lot of customer reviews?
Social media, of course.
Are you using social media to drive traffic to your e-commerce store?
Are you using it as a place for customers to land if they have something positive or negative to say about your business?
You should be doing both things because it helps show customers that you’re a real business with real people and not just some brand.
You need to be there for your customers. Sixty percent of people want to connect with someone during the sales process.
Remember that one time you were in a brick and mortar and wanted help finding something, but you walked around and couldn’t find anyone to help you?
How did that make you feel? Unimportant?
As people turn to e-commerce, they expect to have the same customer service experience they get in person. That means you need to be available to answer questions and assist throughout the sales process.
There are plenty of live chat software to make this process simple. Leveraging chatbot automation, which answers common questions before connecting users to a live person, can also make it more affordable.
12. Focus on Value Upfront
Your e-commerce strategy cannot revolve around you asking your customers to do things without making them feel like they’re getting the most for their time and money.
A great example of this is email marketing. We all know we need a lead magnet if we expect anyone to give us their email, right?
We’re getting to a point where just offering a product isn’t enough to make a sale.
You need to offer free shipping, free trials, fast shipping, bonus offers, and handwritten letters to drive sales.
Whatever you decide to offer, make sure it’s clear what you’re offering upfront so people can see the value before they click to buy.
This also extends to other areas of your site, such as:
product pages
landing pages
CTAs
social media posts
13. Improve Your Product Pages By Focusing on Benefits not Features
It’s essentially a representation of your customer. What do they do? How do they act? How do they think? What makes them click?
If you don’t have a specific avatar that you’re marketing to in your e-commerce business, you’re potentially leaving money on the table.
17. Use Trust Signals
According to TrustedSite, lack of business legitimacy causes 50 percent of cart abandonments.
What are we talking about when we say legitimacy?
Trust.
As someone works through the purchase process, they might start to feel uneasy. Are you a real site, or a scam? Is the quality going to match their expectations?
How do you avoid mistrust?
Add trust signals to the process. These include:
badges
third-party verifications
customer reviews
testimonials
HTTP
Adding a video of yourself or someone in the business is another great way to show customers you’re a real business.
These people expect you to pay the cost of shipping their products no matter how much they spend. You can thank Amazon for that.
That said, offering free shipping isn’t the revenue buster you think. As an added bonus, if you do everything else right on this list, you’ve likely secured yourself that customer.
There are a few ways to make free shipping work for you:
Up your prices to cover the shipping cost, then make it “free.”
Offer free shipping as a loyalty program reward.
Ask for an email address in exchange for free shipping.
Offer free shipping only for purchases over a certain amount.
19. Keep User Data Safe (and Make Sure Your Customers Know It)
This e-commerce tip goes hand-in-hand with trust signals, but it’s important on its own.
E-commerce sites collect a lot of data about their customers, including onsite actions, banking or card information, addresses, and potentially even social security numbers on your website.
What are you doing to protect this information?
Here are a few ways to keep your customer’s information safe:
Make sure you let your customers know that you’re doing all of this. When asking them to input sensitive information, include all the steps you take to protect their data.
20. Use Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is when you pair up with another brand or influencer to help them promote your products.
We see this frequently on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram.
With the influencer marketing market growing to 16.4 billion in 2022, the potential is there.
Start reaching out to influencers in your niche and see if they sell endorsements. Send them free products to test out.
At this point, you’ve read through 20 e-commerce tips; all of which will help you drive more traffic to your site and convert at a higher rate.
If you want to succeed, you need to implement these strategies. However, not all strategies will work for every brand. Or they might work, but with a different approach.
For example, an e-commerce fashion website might get better results using influencers than a B2B manufacturing e-commerce company.
The only way to know is to research, test, and pivot. If something doesn’t work for your audience, try something new. It’s the only way to keep growing.
22. Create a Sense of Urgency
Visitors who leave your site without purchasing rarely complete the sale.
Urgency offers a compelling reason to complete the purchase now.
Maybe it’s “Act now! Quantities are low!” or “Buy now for free shipping!” or “This is a limited time offer!”
You can approach it from various angles, as long as the feeling of “don’t miss out on this” is created with your visitor.
offer free shipping for orders over a specific amount, say $25 or $50
24. Launch New Products
According to Nielsen, 63 percent of buyers like it when manufacturers offer new products. What does this mean for you as an e-commerce store owner?
You need to launch new products and make innovations in your industry regularly. The best e-commerce tip I can offer you is to focus on making a difference for people.
See what the competition is doing and figure out ways that you can take it to the next level.
If you don’t manufacture your products, there are still ways to innovate.
For example, if you’re selling home improvement products, perhaps you could find a way to bundle multiple items together? You could even create a bundle subscription box.
25. Spend Your Money Elsewhere
While this whole list of e-commerce tips focuses on how “not” to spend money, perhaps you could take whatever you would spend on paid ads and spend it somewhere else.
Spend it on outsourcing high-quality blog content, SEO strategy, or influencer marketing.
Every business should have a marketing budget regardless of how big or small it is. If you’re currently spending money on paid ads, think about what else you could do with that budget and experiment with other paid options.
E-Commerce Tips Frequently Asked Questions
How can I increase my e-commerce website traffic quickly?
Social media and influencer marketing are the two fastest ways to get more e-commerce traffic. Other methods like SEO are more of a long-term solution.
What percent of my e-commerce traffic should be from non-paid sources?
In years past, organic traffic had some of the highest rates of conversion simply because people are finding you naturally. This means you’re likely a solution to a problem the visitor has. It’s tough to put an exact number on this though because every business is different. However, you can succeed with nothing but paid traffic if your strategy allows for it.
How do I track my e-commerce website's traffic?
There are many ways to track e-commerce traffic. You can use your site’s Google Search Console dashboard as well as tools like SimilarWeb and Ahrefs.
What is organic traffic to an e-commerce website?
Organic traffic is website visitors that find your site without the use of paid advertisements, often by searching on sites like Google or Bing.
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Conclusion: E-Commerce Tips
As you read through these 25 e-commerce tips, which ones resonated with you the most? Do you feel more equipped to drive traffic to your store?
The most important thing to understand is that you don’t have to do all of these things perfectly, you just need to gradually implement them to see results.
Figure out what is currently wrong in your e-commerce store and identify the low-hanging fruit. Perhaps you simply need to ramp up blog content or update your checkout process. Most of those changes can be completed in a few days or weeks.
With all of these tips and tricks available to you, the possibilities are endless.
What are some of the ways you boost e-commerce sales without spending money on ads?
Many business owners apply for a business loan and end up being denied, never knowing why. Surprisingly, one of the most common reasons for denial has more to do with the actual application than the creditworthiness of the company. A lot of applicants never make it to the financial review process simply because their application triggers fraud concerns with the lender.
Apply for a Business Loan Without Fraud Concerns: Consistency is Key
Discrepancies of any kind set off red flags for lenders. When something doesn’t add up, they don’t look too far for answers. In contrast, they simply deny.
Application denials for this are common because inconsistencies reek of fraudulent activity. Just the appearance of fraud, any inkling, is enough for most lenders to deny.
Consistent Business Information
Your business name and other information must be consistent. If you list it one way on your application and it is different anywhere else, denial is imminent. That means, even an ampersand in one place and the word “and” in another can mean denial.
Information Must Be Verifiable
When you apply for a loan, the information you put on it must be verifiable. Lenders might search with the Secretary of State to verify ownership. As you can imagine, if the business information on the application does not match the Ssecretary of Sstate records, they may very well deny it automatically.
If they decide to investigate further, they may ask for tax returns, even if they already have financials. The catch is, even if they originally ask only to verify information, due diligence dictates that they look at all of it. This may not work in your favor.
The more you make, the more you pay. As a result, businesses do not want to show they make money. Yet, if your tax return shows a large loss, it results in a denial. If your information is verifiable in the first place, it may not be necessary to give lenders tax returns.
Verifying Income
Do yourself a favor and don’t try to lie about income. There are plenty of ways to verify, and credit providers will do that. You can be sure they can and will verify everything. Not just income either. The truth is, this goes for any information. That includes ownership percentage, date of opening, and of course financial information.
Personal Information Matters
Some are surprised to find out that personal information comes into play when you apply for a business loan. It has to be verifiable as well. Resist the thought that you may be able to fudge on personal information when you apply for a business loan. They will know.
Do Not Buy a Credit Privacy Number (CPN) to Try to Hide Bad Credit
A legitimate CPN is available by working with an attorney to file a claim with the Social Security Administration. That is, if you have a compelling claim. Bad credit is not a compelling claim.
Some claim a CPN will offer fresh credit history. As a result, companies use sketchy ways to get numbers to sell. Unfortunately, these 9-digit numbers may be dormant social security numbers or numbers that belong to children. By purchasing one, you could unknowingly end up in an identity theft scam.
Also, using any number other than a Social Security number where an SSN is called for is a violation of two federal laws.
Your best bet is to resist the temptation to use a CPN.
Apply For a Business Loan the Right Way
It’s not hard to avoid denial if you just apply for a business loan the right way. First, make sure all of your information is consistent everywhere. Then, ensure that when you provide information on a loan application, it is verifiable. Last, be honest. Don’t use numbers other than your Social Security Number or EIN. In the end, this is your best chance at getting your application through the initial process and to the financial review. The best part? This is just one of the business loan secrets we can share with you.
Google made a big splash when they announced the end of third-party cookies in Chrome, and Apple has announced a similar change.
It’s a huge shift for social media marketers, so what can you expect cookieless paid social to look like?
Google’s answer to the end of third-party cookies is the Privacy Sandbox, which will anonymize data to help increase privacy and limit spam and fraud.
Social media sites, like Facebook and Instagram, however, are using a slightly different approach. Understanding what these changes mean and how to navigate the future of paid ads without cookies is crucial to long-term social media success.
Here is what you need to know about what this change means and how to prepare for it. (Spoiler: it might not be as big of a deal as you think.)
What Does the End of Third-Party Cookies Mean for Paid Social?
Third-party cookies are small pieces of code marketers use to access data about how users interact on websites, social media platforms, and more. They are placed by a third party and can track actions across multiple websites.
They allow you to target, for example, users who have purchased a specific item or read a news article about a specific topic on another site and then come to Facebook.
Third-party cookies are used heavily in social media marketing. That has a lot of social media marketers concerned about what this change means. However, marketers have been ignoring some drawbacks to third-party cookies. Understanding the drawbacks is crucial to understanding the impact of this change.
First, third-party cookies weren’t always accurate. For example, if someone uses their phone at work and then their laptop at home to perform a search, cookies couldn’t always track those as the same individual.
Also, if you search for one thing and your roommate searches for another (on the same IP address), cookies can’t always differentiate the two.
Another major concern is privacy. Do sites have the right to track an individual across multiple websites? Where does that data get stored? How long is the data stored? Do people have the right to ask advertisers to delete their data?
The EU and other organizations have pushed back with regulations designed to improve online privacy, such as GDPR.
Despite their flaws, cookies are an integral part of targeting paid social ads.
What does the end of third-party cookies mean for paid social ads?
First, it’s important to note that Google has pushed back the date for ending third-party cookies, which means you have plenty of time to prepare.
Second, there are already more effective ways to target paid social ads. The shift may make paid ad ROI drop (as marketers learn new strategies), but I don’t expect it to be a long-term issue.
You will need to adjust your paid social strategy to be successful. Luckily, the changes likely aren’t a huge shift from your current strategy.
I’ll cover six ways to prepare your paid social strategy for the end of third-party cookies.
6 Ways to Prepare Your Paid Social Strategy for a Cookieless Future
A cookieless future is coming—but you have tons of time to start testing new strategies for your paid social ads. The sky isn’t falling; you’ll just need to make adjustments to how you gather data and target users.
Here are six strategies to get you started:
Go All-In on First-Party Data
Third-party data is data another organization gathers and then shares with you. It may be incomplete, inconsistent, and downright wrong. That is why several platforms are ending the use of third-party cookies.
First-party data, however, is information you collect yourself about your prospects, customers, and social media followers. This data is not going away. In fact, it’s becoming more important than ever.
I strongly recommend you start gathering first-party data about your audience now so you can test new strategies and see what works.
Create a Facebook group so you can interact with users directly.
Encourage direct messages on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. (Instagram Stories are a great way to do this.)
Use social media to poll your audience.
Let’s look at how to use first-party data for paid social ads. For example, you can build an email list, then upload those contacts to Facebook and target those users.
First-party data is more accurate—and you have full control over the data. That makes it far more valuable than third-party data.
Leverage UTM Parameters
UTM parameters are small bits of code added to the end of a URL. They often look like this:
Looks complicated, right? This UTM parameter tells me that the reader got to this page by clicking on a link in a Facebook comment I left on one of my posts. Understanding where my traffic comes from is crucial to targeting paid ads and understanding how users move through my funnel.
These aren’t new, but if you aren’t using UTMs, now is the time to start.
UTMs make tracking where visitors come from easier because they stick around, even if users share it somewhere else.
For example, if someone reads a post on Facebook, then shares it on Twitter and texts it to a friend, that little bit of code will stick around. This means you have a much better idea of where people came from and how they’ve interacted with your brand on social media.
Facebook’s Conversions API allows customers to send data about actions they take directly to Facebook, without relying on browser pixel events. In layman’s terms, this means it’s first-party data, which we’ve already discovered is more accurate.
According to Seer Interactive, this allows marketers to access a wider range of data, is less vulnerable to issues like connectivity problems, and offers far more security.
Since Facebook and Instagram are connected, this data can be tracked on both platforms. I expect other social platforms to offer similar tools. In fact, Twitter already does.
Use Demographic-Based Targeting
Most social media platforms already have robust ways to target based on factors like age, location, gender, and other demographic information. This won’t change because most platforms ask users for this information—which means it’s first-party data.
That means you can still target users on sites like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok based on demographic information.
Facebook ads, for example, offer a wide range of demographic targeting:
The way Facebook gathers this data might change, but your access to the data likely won’t. You can easily target users based on demographics or use lookalike audiences to find an even wider base to target.
Leverage Interest-Based Targeting
You don’t need to know every step users take to target them successfully with paid social ads.
For example, if you sell women’s clothing, knowing that someone is a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 (from demographics, which we discussed already) interested in fashion (because they follow three fashion bloggers on Instagram) tells you they’re likely to be interested in your brand.
Facebook already allows you to target users based on interests. Most of this data is gathered by actions users take on Facebook, which means you’ll still be able to target based on interests.
I keep mentioning Facebook because it’s the biggest social media platform out there, but other social platforms like Instagram and TikTok offer similar features.
The end of third-party cookies sounds like a huge deal. However, much of the data you already use for paid social ads isn’t third-party data or can easily be replaced with first-party data.
There’s one more way you should be adjusting your paid social strategy for the end of third-party cookies.
Use Detailed Location-Based Targeting
You likely know you can target users based on their general location. For example, you can target users within a 25-mile radius of your donut shop in Boston.
That’s as far as most marketers get, but platforms like Facebook offer multiple other options, including:
People living or recently in this location (default option): People list your city on their Facebook profile and anyone in that location based on mobile tracking.
People who live in this location: People whose current city from their Facebook profile is in that location. Facebook double checks this by paying attention to their IP address and friends’ locations.
Recently in this location: People who were in the selected area recently, as determined by their mobile device. (This includes people living or traveling to the location.)
Traveling in this location: People who are more than 125 miles from their home location and in your selected area, as determined by mobile device location.
What does this mean for you? If you’re targeting by location but not digging into the different options, you need to take the time to get more granular with your location targeting.
Paid Social Without Cookies Conclusion Frequently Asked Questions
How do I use retargeting ads on social media without cookies?
Use a dedicated landing page for an ad campaign, then retarget users (using first-party data) who visited that landing page with your retargeting ads. Note that other solutions may become available as marketers learn more about how marketing will work in a post-cookie era.
What is the difference between first, second, and third-party data?
First-party data is data you collect yourself; second-party data is data you get from another organization you know, such as another website with a similar audience. Third-party data is aggregated across platforms from various sources.
Here’s a visual that explains the differences:
What will replace third-party cookies for social media?
The most obvious replacement is first-party data. Gathering data yourself (or Facebook gathering data about how users interact on their site) is likely the most effective way to replace third-party data. Targeting based on location, demographics, and interests will also become more crucial.
Is Facebook Pixel a third-party cookie?
It’s actually both, according to Facebook. While the third-party capability is going away, there are still tons of data you can collect with Facebook Pixel.
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First-party data is data you collect yourself; second-party data is data you get from another organization you know, such as another website with a similar audience. Third-party data is aggregated across platforms from various sources.
Here’s a visual that explains the differences:
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The most obvious replacement is first-party data. Gathering data yourself (or Facebook gathering data about how users interact on their site) is likely the most effective way to replace third-party data. Targeting based on location, demographics, and interests will also become more crucial.
It’s actually both, according to Facebook. While the third-party capability is going away, there are still tons of data you can collect with Facebook Pixel.
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Paid Social Without Cookies Conclusion
The end of third-party cookies might sound like a huge deal, especially for paid social ads. The good news is there are several options for adjusting your social strategy.
You can gather first-party data, then use that to target your ads. You can better track how users move through your funnel using UTMs. Targeting by location, demographics, or interests will still allow you to target users in your target audience.
Finally, consider using the conversion API options for platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Are you ready for the end of third-party cookies? What steps are you taking to protect your paid ad ROI?
Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari already block third-party cookies, and recently, Google revealed it would no longer support cookies on ad networks and its Chrome browser.
What does this mean for marketing teams, and what can you do to ensure your business keeps running smoothly when you are marketing without cookies? Let’s find out.
Why Are Third-Party Cookies Going Away & Why Does it Matter?
Whenever you use the internet, especially on browsers like Chrome, your actions are tracked through cookies.
These cookies can help marketing teams understand user behaviors and ad performance, but they may feel like an intrusion of privacy for many users.
By blocking these cookies, users can increase their privacy and security. Browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Brave have already started doing this. Google will also begin phasing out third-party cookies from its browsers to strengthen user privacy and promote itself as a secure search engine.
This represents a considerable change for marketers who heavily relied on cookies for their ad campaigns.
When creating paid ad campaigns on browsers and social media platforms, you need customer details to customize the copy. Marketing without cookies means you’d have to rely on first-party data (more on that below) rather than third-party cookies.
Now Google is launching “The Privacy Sandbox” as a response to the cookieless future. Here data will be stored anonymously to form a middle ground where companies can obtain customer data without intrusive cookie tracking.
Beyond this, there are various ways to market without cookies. Below, we’ll discuss some of the most effective strategies and offer tips for marketing without relying on the use of third-party cookies.
4 Tips to Prepare for Cookieless Marketing
Your marketing campaigns don’t have to suffer because you don’t have access to third-party cookies.
Using the strategies and tips below, you can learn to leverage tools like first-party data to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts without depending on cookies.
Turn on Google Analytics 4
An upgraded version of Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4 supports both app and website-based tracking. It helps if you use both formats (app and website), as most businesses do today.
Whether you already run GA for an existing website or you want to create a different account for a new site, turning on Google Analytics 4 is simple. Here’s a detailed guide to help you get started.
Start Gathering First-Party Data
Third-party cookies are blocked, but marketing teams can continue to collect first-party data. This means you can still use data from email sign-up forms or newsletters, surveys, and other direct methods.
The biggest benefit of working with first-party data is you own the data. You don’t have to worry about buying it from someone else or losing the right to use it.
The second benefit is first-party data tends to be more accurate than third-party cookies because you know your customers and have the tools to figure out exactly where the data came from.
Another massive benefit is your competitors don’t have the same data. When you buy third-party data, there may be another company, most likely your competitor, that buys the same information.
Sounds exciting? Here are some ways to collect first-party data to help you get started:
online surveys
sign-up forms
newsletters
community polls
SMS answers
mobile notification responses
direct mail (offline post), etc.
These are some of the tools marketers typically use to gather first-party data from both new visitors and seasoned users. You may not want to start using all of them at once as it could overwhelm your customers.
Instead, try one or two approaches first. See how your audience responds to it. Are they receptive to your methods, or do they need a different approach? Experiment with different techniques to see what best suits your business model.
Invest More in Market Research
Market research goes hand-in-hand with collecting first-party data. When marketing without cookies, you need to know who your audience is.
Understanding their needs and pain points will help you tailor your campaigns to suit their needs without having to rely on external cookies data.
Collect questions and feedback from your current users.
Work with analytics to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
Hold focus groups with incentives for participants.
Observe how customers interact without interfering with their actions.
Post simple polls in community forms to get a broad view of audience interests.
Leverage the power of social media to understand what your target market wants.
No matter which method you choose, the bottom line is this: Start investing more in market research. Get to know your customers and target market with surveys, buyer personas, and most importantly, constantly testing your findings with A/B testing.
Focus on Personalization
What would you prefer? An email that addresses you by your name, or one that starts with a “hello there!?”
Research says people prefer the first option. Studies show 90 percent of users find personalization appealing and 80 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands provide personalized experiences.
If you want to take your marketing efforts to the next level, it’s best to focus on personalization.
Now that you’re already working with first-party data, this will be easier.
Start with using the customer’s name. There are dozens of tools in the market, including ones that work with newsletters to automatically personalize your campaigns.
Then address customer pain points. Get really specific about what bothers them and position yourself as a solution for those problems. This will help customers connect with your brand better.
Here’s an eye-opening graphic about pain points to keep in mind when working on personalization.
Rethinking PPC: 4 Tips for PPC Marketing Without Cookies
If you’ve ever run online advertising campaigns, you know the best way to get effective results is to target your ads to specific audiences. How can you do that when marketing without cookies? Here’s how.
Use AI-Based Bidding
By analyzing search data, AI-driven bidding determines which keywords and trends generate the most conversions. Then it optimizes your bids in real-time, maximizes efficiency for your ad spend, and improves the return on your investment.
The Smart Bidding feature of Google AI-based bidding provides bid strategies based on conversions. As a result, you can make targeted bid decisions for every auction in which your ads are entered.
What does it mean? Simply speaking, it means you can get more reliable results without resorting to guesswork.
Such automated bid decisions are based on data that includes information about the device, the current location, the time of day, remarketing list, enabled languages, operating system, and other relevant details.
Still confused about AI-based bidding? Don’t worry. Here’s a Google guide to help you get started.
Reconsider KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) measure progress towards achieving ad campaign goals, so the success of your PPC marketing campaign often depends on what you’re actually measuring.
Here’s where it gets interesting. When marketing without cookies, you may have to reconsider these KPIs to better align with your business goals. For instance, you may want to pay more attention to conversion numbers (how many users convert vs. how many users bounce from your homepage).
Cost per acquisition is another important KPI you need to consider to ensure your ad campaigns are profitable in the long run.
Fully understanding and leveraging these KPIs can help you make better marketing decisions, especially when you’re navigating this new territory of a cookieless marketing future.
Use Contextual-Based Advertising
Now that third-party cookies are out of the picture, you may be wondering: How can I know which ads to place where if I don’t have data about consumer behavior?
That’s where contextual advertising comes in. In context-based advertising, ads are placed on web pages according to the website’s content. For example, a tech blog may display ads about computer accessories, while a vegan-living website may display ads about vegan food products.
The Amazon Prime Video ad copy literally talks about being a “bookworm.” This is contextual advertising as users who read the NYT Books section are obviously readers in some capacity.
One more: Look at WSJ’s Life and Work section. It has a classic lifestyle content ad, considering users visiting this section have already shown an interest in lifestyle content.
Target Based on Location and Time
Say you want something more personal than contextual advertising. Then consider targeting users based on their current location and time of the day.
This can be as simple as “geotargeting,” where you change the ad copy to suit users from different regions. You see this in most search results.
For example, if you look up “coffee shops” from New York, you’ll see ads and search results for coffee shops in NY, even if the same brand has a franchise elsewhere.
The most interesting part? It doesn’t even have to be a huge brand. As long as the business has some web presence and works with geotargeted ads, it’ll show up for location-based searches.
Time-based marketing is similar, with the only difference being you’re now using time data to personalize your copy. Imagine getting an email greeting you with a Good Morning when it’s actually morning in your region. Feels good, doesn’t it?
This approach can also be useful to determine when ads will appear for users.
Say you want to market coffee products. It’s better to show these ads in the morning when users are considering buying coffee, rather than at night when they are more likely to avoid it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing in a Cookieless Future
Here are some frequently asked questions about marketing without cookies.
Why is Google getting rid of third-party cookies?
Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies comes as part of a comprehensive strategy to create a privacy sandbox so users can be tracked (for marketing purposes) while maintaining their privacy.
How will the end of third-party cookies impact marketing?
Most marketing teams were used to using third-party cookies for launching marketing campaigns. Losing access to those would mean you have to rethink your strategy, find better ways to collect information (first-party data), and personalize ad campaigns without relying on cookies.
What is the Google Privacy Sandbox?
Google has launched the Privacy Sandbox initiative to develop web standards that allow websites to access user information without compromising privacy. In essence, it facilitates online advertising without relying on third-party cookies.
What does cookieless marketing mean?
Cookies are bits of data that contain identifiers for consumers (personal and usage information), so cookieless marketing relies less on them in comparison to other marketing approaches. This involves using first-party data and personalization to increase the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
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Cookieless Marketing Conclusion
Marketing without cookies may seem like a daunting task at first. However, it doesn’t have to be so hard.
The best part is these methods give you more control and accuracy compared to cookie-based marketing, which has you sharing data with your competitors.
Which strategy will you try for marketing without cookies?
Top Google rankings are a pinnacle of online business success.
According to Backlinko, the first result on Google gets 31.7 percent of all clicks — while results on the second page receive just .78 percent of clicks.
I’ve talked to a lot of business owners and managers – newbies and veterans alike – who have struggled to unlock the secrets of how to improve their Google ranking without getting penalized.
I wish I could tell you there’s a magic button that ranks your site #1 without fail.
The truth is, it takes resourcefulness, dedication, persistence, and creativity. This is especially true because of the constantly changing nature of Google’s algorithm.
I learned this the hard way; but luckily, you don’t have to.
I’m going back to basics with on-page SEO to help you understand the new SEO rules, learn how to optimize for both humans and search algorithm crawlers, and to master on-page and off-page SEO.
Google executives like Gary Illyes and John Mueller confirm Google constantly changes its algorithm, even though most of these changes aren’t publicly announced.
While Google used to share major update announcements, the exact inner workings of the algorithm are still unknown. The majority of information is just speculation from industry professionals.
After all, if everyone knew exactly how to rank in the first position without penalties for shortcuts or black hat SEO strategies, Google wouldn’t succeed in ranking only the best results. Anyone could hack their way to the top without putting in the work.
Not only would this make it hard for honest people like you and me to succeed, but it would also seriously compromise Google’s mission statement:
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
The best knowledge we have of Google’s algorithm comes in the form of major algorithm updates like:
Page Experience Update (June 2021): This update affected Core Web Vitals, organic results, and News alerts.
Core Update (December 2020): This update focused on content quality and relevance.
Mobile-first update (July 2019): Googlebot now looks at all websites as a smartphone, prioritizing sites that work well on mobile devices.
Mobile-friendly update (April 2015): Favoring websites with mobile-friendly versions and setting the stage for future penalties if sites don’t comply.
Pigeon (July 2014): Worked to integrate local search results like Google Maps.
Hummingbird (August 2013): Aimed to understand the context and intent behind a user’s search instead of just looking at the literal words they typed.
Penguin (April 2012): Targeted spammers and sites that buy unnatural links to boost their rankings.
Not to mention Panda, Google EMDs (exact match domain names), and the Private Blog Network (PBN) deindexing updates. Then there’s Phantom, which first appeared in May 2013 and is believed to have been updated four times – but has never actually been confirmed by Google.
How are you supposed to keep track of all these Google updates?
Check out the video below to learn more about my strategies for link building, on-page SEO, and user metrics when trying to rank on Google.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of the algorithm, let’s get down to those actionable strategies I mentioned earlier.
Step #2: Assess Your Current Google Ranking
To improve your Google ranking, you need to know where you stand. This is true even for new sites. Thankfully, there are several tools to help.
Use Ubersuggest to Check Your Site’s Keyword Rank
If you’ve been targeting specific keywords in page content, use my tool Ubersuggest to assess your rank.
Login, then use the “Traffic Overview” under the competitor report. Type in your domain, and you’ll see a list of SEO keywords your rank for, top pages, and an overview of your SEO keywords ranking.
Scroll down to view the “SEO Keywords” chart, which tells you where you rank for main keywords.
If your site is slow, you have little chance of a high search position. It will affect your ability to convert and sell new customers, too.
Walmart experienced a sharp decline in conversions when its page load times increased from one to four seconds.
If this happens, it doesn’t matter what your on-page SEO, meta description, or title tags are. The search algorithm will punish you, even if you’re a giant like Walmart.
That’s why it’s important to run your own site speed test to figure out how to improve Google rankings. There are dozens of tools that can help you do this. Some of my favorites are:
Here’s how to test your page content speed with Pingdom.
Go to tools.pingdom.com and type in your URL. Choose the location you’d like to test from and click “Start Test.”
Quick Sprout registers a performance grade of 81. As long as your site registers over 50, that’s a good start.
If you get a performance grade of less than 50, your page content is really slow and you need to work on improving it.
Check the page load time, too.
Quick Sprout is doing pretty well at 1.89 seconds. Aim for under 2 seconds for a really fast site and under one second for mobile devices.
Remember, a load time of more than a few seconds could cause you to lose a significant amount of site traffic.
Check Your Site’s Health
After looking at keyword search engine rank and site speed, assess the overall health of your site before you start to optimize.
Have you experienced a sudden drop in organic traffic after months or years of consistency?
Are you wondering whether Google has deindexed (or banned) your site?
There are a lot of great tools to help piece together this puzzle. Try the MxToolBox Domain Health Report tool to check for major issues in five different categories: general site problems, blacklist, mail server, web server, and DNS.
Just click the box for each category to see specific errors and warnings. From there, you can work one-by-one to fix them.
If you want to check if you’ve been penalized by one of the major algorithm updates, check out FE International’s Website Penalty Indicator tool.
You’ll see a graph that shows your site’s traffic in relation to rollouts of major updates. This comparison takes you one step closer to knowing if an update directly affected your site.
To check for a Google penalty, login into Google Search Console and look for the “Security & Manual Actions” report. This will tell you if Google has taken a manual action against your site.
Note that this report will only show if a human reviewer has determined your site breaks Google’s quality guidelines — it won’t tell you if a Google Algorithm update penalized your site.
Next, it’s time to track some vital metrics of your site to find out what other factors you need to improve. Here are the most important metrics to assess.
Organic Traffic
It’s important to know how visitors find your site via Google. In the past, organic search drove most website visitors, crushing non-organic channels like paid search and social media.
Today, social media, email, and paid ads often lead the pack in driving organic traffic — but that can vary drastically by industry.
To find out how many visitors reach your site, log in to your Google Analytics account and check out the acquisition channels report. This helpful Google Analytics guide will guide you.
Organic Traffic Conversions
In addition to analyzing search traffic, it’s worth paying attention to the keywords that generate traffic for your site. This is harder to see than it used to be, but is still possible.
You can do this with Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). It can tell you how many clicks you get for certain keywords in organic search results.
Keyword Ranking for Transactional Keywords
The number one keyword research mistake is not spending enough time focusing on transactional keywords.
That’s because commercial keywords are the ones that drive revenue. To improve your search engine rankings and make money, you need to understand the difference between commercial and informational keywords to improve Google rankings.
If all of your keywords are informational, you will still generate organic traffic, but it may be difficult to convert those visitors to buyers or people who share on social media.
The reason is because of visitors who search for informational keywords like:
How to clear acne with home products
How to install WordPress
Make money online for free
Free ebook download
Top 10 free article spinners
If they’re not in the buying mood, they want you to speak their language; the search engine language of free. Now, these terms can drive traffic and a solid sales funnel will convert some of those people — but not many.
In contrast, there are people who use transactional keywords that show user intent, like:
Best acne products
Top 10 web hosting providers
Web designers in NY
These folks are probably searching for a solution that they can buy.
If you’re in the e-commerce industry, you’ll hopefully already know that transactional keywords tend to convert well.
Keywords that have the words below as a prefix (before) or suffix (after) to the rest of the keyword phrase tend to do well:
Buy
Review
Purchase
Discount
Coupon
Deal
Shipping
Order
Earlier, I talked about the keywords that are sending you organic traffic. They should also be used in the meta description as well as on-page SEO (more on this later).
Here’s another example. Can you spot the difference between informational and transactional keywords?
Set Up An SEO Dashboard to Track These Metrics
I recommend that you set up an SEO dashboard so that you can track all of the important metrics at any time.
If you have the cash to drop on SEO tools, go for it. If you are on a small budget, however, Google Analytics should serve you just fine.
In addition to setting up dashboards in Google Analytics, you can get even richer keyword data by connecting Google Search Console to Google Analytics. Here’s a complete guide on how to do that.
Step #4: Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly (and Ready For a Mobile-First Google)
More than half of all website traffic comes from a mobile device. That means if you want to rank well, your site needs to perform well on mobile.
While some algorithm changes remain unclear, Google left nothing to the imagination when it comes to mobile. On January 10, 2017, the Google Webmaster Blog said:
Starting today, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as high.
Then in 2020, Google moved to “mobile-first indexing” which means Google looks at websites as a mobile device. If your site is hard to navigate, your ranking will be impacted.
Luckily, it’s pretty easy to see where you stand. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test offers a quick way to determine if your site is mobile-friendly or on its way to Penaltyville.
Just type in your URL and click “RUN TEST.”
The results will give you a clear “yes or no” answer along with a list of the page loading issues it encountered. This way you can fix and optimize to ensure your mobile site running smoothly.
You’ll be able to look at page loading issues like redirection errors and pages where robots.txt blocked the Googlebot from crawling the page.
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, add this to the top of your to-do list.
You can get a quick fix through services like Mobify or Duda Mobile.
If your website is built on a popular CMS platform, like WordPress or Wix, most themes are mobile-friendly. You may need to update your site to the latest version to take advantage of these features.
Make sure CTAs and form fields use large, easy to tap buttons.
Don’t use popups that are impossible to close. Yes, pop-ups improve conversions, but they can also annoy users.
There’s a strong connection between mobile and local search. Google caters to hyper-local search, connecting consumers and brands as smoothly and quickly as possible.
These profiles can be a deciding factor for someone who’s searching in your area, so claim and update your business listing ASAP if you haven’t. This also goes for other local listing sites, like Yelp, Facebook, Better Business Bureau, and more.
Step #5: Diagnose and Fix Your Current Google Penalties
Now that you understand your search ranking and have set up tracking for the most important metrics, it’s time to examine your site in detail and fix any current penalties.
This is fundamental; there is no point in promoting or building links to an unhealthy site. Before we dig in, I want to cover a few things that could get you a Google penalty.
Link Building has Changed
Bad links hurt your site. Use them and you can expect a Google penalty sooner rather than later.
That’s why it’s essential to think about how you generate links to your site.
The sentiment remains true today.
Here’s how. Start by identifying and eliminating unhealthy links.
Analyze Your Links
First, analyze inbound links to your site. There are several link analysis tools you can use to do this:
Let me walk you through a link analysis using SEOprofiler.
Sign up for a free account and go to Link Profiler → Backlinks. Let’s use problogger.net:
The results show the most important elements to look for when analyzing your backlinks:
Unique Active Backlinks: This shows the number of links that directly or indirectly affect your Google ranking. “Unique” means that the links are from different IP addresses. That’s one way to identify a natural link. These links have been indexed by Google in the last 90 days.
Nofollow links: Problogger has 10.2% nofollow links, which equals 1,522 backlinks from the total of 14,922. Google introduced the rel= “nofollow” tag in 2005 to stop spammy blog comments from artificially manipulating rankings. After the Google Penguin update was rolled out in 2013, it became essential to diversify your link profile. And as Matt Cutts mentioned, you need a mix of dofollow links (links that pass ranking value to search engines) and nofollow links (links that don’t pass ranking value).
Industry: If you read the content of Problogger, you might think that its industry is “blogging” or “internet marketing.” But, when you look at this analysis, it turns out to be “media.” Knowing your industry can help you identify relevant links that will improve your backlink profile in the search algorithm used by the search engine.
Link Influence Score: This shows how links from the website influence the search engine rankings of linked pages. The higher the score the better. As a very popular and influential site, Problogger’s score is a whopping 99%! Check your own site and see what your score is.
Anchor Text: Click on the link in the left menu to access data for anchor text (anchor text is the text that becomes your link and points to your page) linking into your site. Google’s Penguin update was rolled out to prevent site owners from manipulating search results with exact match anchor text. If you want to stay under the search algorithm penalty radar, diversify your anchor text.
It’s also important to know which links are harmful to your site so that you can remove them. Harmful links include those that:
Come from PR-n/a or PR0 websites
Are mostly sitewide links
Are from referring domain names with little traffic
Come from sites on the same IP class address
Come from web pages with a lot of external links
There are many free tools to help you identify unhealthy links. Two that I’ve tried include Monitor Backlinks and Linkquidator.
Remember to export the list of unhealthy links once you find them. That way, you can refer to them later.
Clean Up Your Link Profile to Avoid a Google Penalty
That’s the next step in cleaning up your link profile, and there are two ways to do it.
1. Request a Manual Link Removal: Visit the website where the unhealthy/unnatural links are coming from and contact the site owner. Ask the site owner to either remove your link (the better option) or add a nofollow tag to it.
If you have outsourced link building in the past, you can also contact the person who placed the links for you and ask that person to have the links removed. Here’s an excerpt from a post at Search Engine World to show how this works:
In this case, don’t ask the site owner to remove your links because they might assume you’re a spammer and ignore you. Instead, follow this tutorial from Search Engine Journal to learn the best way to contact webmasters about link removal.
2. Use Google’s Disavow Links Tool: If you’re unsuccessful in getting unhealthy links removed, your only option is to use Google’s own disavow links tool.
While manual link removal is best, this is a good second choice.
The disavow tool is part of Google Search Console. Once you open Search Console, you’ll see a list of all of your sites.
Go to the site for which you want to disavow links. This is what you’ll see:
When you check for unnatural links, you have the option to export the links that you find. If you have done this, upload the file and click “done.”
Like you, Google can’t actually remove the links as they don’t have access to the referring sites.
However, doing this authorizes Google to stop passing link juice (value) from those links to your page content.
3. Diversify Anchor Text Distribution: Anchor text can play a key role in improving or utterly destroying your search ranking. As I mentioned earlier, if you want a natural link profile, you have to diversify anchor text.
When distributing your anchor text, think about including these types:
Exact Match: Does the anchor text match the keyword that you’re targeting exactly? e.g. hybrid bikes
To avoid anchor text over-optimization, follow these two guidelines:
Avoid Excessive Keyword-Tich Anchor Text: If you want to link to your internal pages on a topic, like “link building strategies,” don’t use that same keyword phrase as your anchor text. Instead, use something like “learn more about link building” or a combination of a generic plus the exact keyword. Variety is key.
Avoid Irrelevant Links: What’s the point of linking to your dog training site using “best golf trainer” as your anchor? It doesn’t make sense to improve Google rankings and could actually result in a Google penalty.
Step #6: Improve Google Rankings with Keyword Research
Once you are rid of unnatural links, it’s time to improve on-page SEO the right way.
One essential element of an effective inbound marketing strategy is keyword research. You won’t get far without understanding how it works.
Learn How Your Audience Finds Your Site
To be effective, you need to pinpoint the keywords that your target audience is using to find your site. Here’s how that works.
Step #1: Visit Ubersuggest, Enter your Keyword and click Search.
Step #2: Click on Keyword Ideas
Step #3: Review Keywords and Search Volume for the Month
Here’s how that helps you.
When you research keywords, you’re getting firsthand information about your target audience, the information that they want to know, and how they want it.
For example, when someone searches for “html5 tutorials for beginners,” you know the searcher is a newbie who is searching for solutions and wants content that helps with this topic.
That can guide you to write headlines and content that ranks well in the Google search results.
It’s helpful to figure out the buyer personas and customer lifecycle of your target audience, so you understand what motivates them. Then, provide relevant page content that will help you increase your Google ranking.
Alexa can help you work out audience demographics, as in the example below for Upworthy.
Remember when I mentioned transactional and informational keywords?
When you do keyword research, you can easily see whether users are simply looking for information or ready to buy.
That’s called user intent, and here’s how it looks for the keyword research example used earlier.
In this example, free web design is an example of an informational keyword. Free web design courses is an example of a transactional keyword.
You need both informational and transactional keywords in your page content to improve the Google rankings of your website.
It’s your job to educate, inform, inspire, and build interest before recommending a product.
Informational keywords can be used to build email lists and nurture prospects before offering a product for sale.
Also, don’t ignore long-tail keywords and questions.
The rise of voice search and BERT means long-tail keywords are more important than ever before.
If your competitors are ranking ahead of you in Google search results, it’s time to spy on them.
If the search algorithm likes them, you can learn and copy their strategies.
I like to use Google Keyword Planner for this because it gives me an accurate estimate of competitors’ keyword targets.
Let’s assume you’re in the “survival knife” sub-niche. One of the authority blogs you might spy on is survivallife.com.
On the Ubersuggest homepage, instead of inputting a seed keyword, simply type your competitor’s URL into the landing page box and click search.
Then scroll down the page until you see “SEO Keywords.” You will see the keywords that your competitor is targeting.
In addition to the keywords, other data includes:
Volume: The number of searches the keyword has during a month.
Position: The position the URL is ranked for in Google search.
Estimated visits: The estimated traffic the webpage gets for the keyword.
For example, your competitor ranks number 1 for the term “survival life.” With the top spot, they receive roughly 395 visitors per month for the term. So, if you’re successful in overtaking them, you know what type of traffic to expect.
This works for any niche and can help you uncover hidden keywords that will help improve your ranking.
Boost Lower Ranking Keywords
If you find your web page on page two, how can you boost its ranking to the first page of Google?
The Complete Guide to Outsourcing for Small Businesses
An In-Depth Guide on How to Outsource for Small Businesses
X Ways Outsourcing Can Revolutionize Your Small Business
Contact the blog owners that you mentioned in your post and ask them to check it out. Hopefully, you’ll get a handful of authority sites to link back to you.
Use Keyword Analysis to Improve Content
Let’s get one thing straight.
There is no optimal ratio for placing keywords in an article.
However, knowing the right keywords to target is of the utmost importance. That’s the basis of keyword analysis.
The starting point and cornerstone of search marketing campaigns. By understanding what queries qualified visitors to your website type into search engines, search marketers can better customize their landing pages to increase conversion rates.
Unless you know the queries that qualified visitors type into Google, you’ll find it difficult to improve your ranking and conversion rates.
By now, you know how to do keyword research. That’s the easy part. The difficult part is knowing which keywords are bringing in organic traffic.
Ever since Google’s “Not Provided” update, this info has been hard to come by. This guide to unlocking Not Provided Keywords will help you recover some of the data. However, these days, it’s impossible to get a full view of what terms drive organic traffic.
You do want to pay attention to popular keywords, terms your competitors rank for, and Google’s “People also ask” questions.
Use this information to write on-page SEO content that matches user intent (remember that?). This will improve the Google ranking of your web pages.
How should you place your target keywords in the content?
Let’s assume you want to write an in-depth review on “best senior irons for seniors.” Here are some titles that you could use:
Top 10 Best Senior Irons For Seniors
Buyers’ Guide For The Best Senior Irons For Seniors
Best Senior Irons For Seniors – The Ultimate Guide
To start your introduction, you could begin like this:
There are several senior irons in the marketplace. But knowing the right one for you is the most difficult decision. If you read this guide from start to finish, you’ll know the best senior irons for seniors that are affordable and reliable.
Or, you could start your introduction by asking a question:
Do you want to find the best senior irons for seniors? This page will not just tell you about the irons but will show how to use them to improve your golf game and provide practical tips on getting a huge discount for your purchase.
Do you see how I placed the target keyword in the first paragraph, without making it seem like spam?
As I’ve said before, target a specific keyword in a natural manner – don’t just try to make it look natural.
Step #7: Increase Google Ranking With On-Page SEO
Now that you know which keywords you want to target – and should be targeting – to maximize your performance, you’re equipped to make meaningful on-page SEO changes.
Backlinko has an excellent guide that breaks down on-page SEO factors that will earn you big points with Google and your visitors.
Let’s break down a few key considerations.
Optimize Title Tags
Title tags are still a big part of determining how your site will perform.
Avoid using the same keywords and title tags over and over. This way, you’ll diversify your opportunities while avoiding cannibalizing your own efforts.
Say that you’re an ecommerce company. A good formula for your product pages could be:
Curly Hair Leave-in Conditioner – Hair Care | Diana’s DIY
Here are a few more title tag optimization tips:
Use pipes ( | ) and dashes ( – ) between terms to maximize your real estate.
Avoid ALL CAPS titles. They’re just obnoxious.
Never keep default title tags like “Product Page” or “Home.” They trigger Google into thinking you have duplicate content, and they’re also not very convincing to users who are looking for specific information.
Put the most important and unique keywords first.
Don’t overstuff your keywords. Google increasingly values relevant, contextual, and natural strings over mechanical or forced keyword phrases.
Put your potential visitors before Google – title tags can make-or-break traffic and conversions.
Keep in mind Google shows roughly 60 characters on a SERP, but don’t cut off if a longer title suits the page content. The search snippet title Google displays can be dynamic based on the search query.
So ultimately, you might be doing yourself a favor by getting more descriptive.
Plus, desktop snippet titles are limited by pixel width, while mobile display titles are typically longer.
In the image above, Google displays as many characters as possible from the beginning. But in the image below, Google truncates the middle of the title to show the term “Hobo” at the end to show relevance to the user’s query.
While meta descriptions have negligible (if any) impact on your rankings, they still serve the important purpose of helping to determine your search snippet and adding an extra factor of uniqueness. This in turn can influence your click-through rate (CTR) from SERPs.
Schema markup can be thought of as extra “labels” on information that tells Google what your content means. For example, let’s say my name appears on an article, so Google displays my name in a SERP entry.
But if I use the right schema around my name in the article’s HTML, I can indicate to Google that I’m the author of the article, not just another term in a sea of indistinguishable words.
Not only does schema markup help Google understand your website, it also makes a massive difference in attracting traffic to your website.
Schema helps give users more relevant information in a visually organized and aesthetic way.
You can use schema tags to identify various types of SERP information, including:
Featured snippets are featured more on mobile SERPs, which we discussed are more common in the U.S. than desktop searches.
The best part about them is that they push you to the number one result (also known as the coveted “position zero”) even if you’re not winning in the rankings otherwise.
It’s an easy way to push your result to the top of the page.
Here’s the best way to target them.
Think of a question in your industry that people are regularly typing into Google. Try something basic like, “What is digital marketing?” or “How to rank on Google?”
A sitemap tells search engines about the organization of your site’s content.
That way, when Googlebot reads the file, it can more intelligently crawl your content. This helps make it more readily available for ranking on SERPs.
Sitemaps also provide valuable metadata about pages on your site like when they were last updated, how often you make changes, and how the page relates to other pages on your site.
Once you have your sitemap, check out my article on XML Sitemap to download your sitemap file, put it into the domain root folder of your website, and add the sitemap URL to your Google Webmaster account.
Now that we’ve covered some key on-page SEO factors, it’s time to discuss how to differentiate your brand from good to great with unique, strategic, and purposeful content.
Step #8: Use Keywords to Create Better Content
Although I’ve touched a bit on keyword research and placement already, in this section, we’ll look more at going leveraging those keywords that you’ve researched.
Sadly, a lot of people misunderstand the purpose keyword research and placement.
Even before Google rolled out their first Google Panda update, the best search marketers knew that quality, valuable, and useful content should target a particular group of people.
Optimize for informational keywords and improve your search ranking by writing resourceful and detailed content while supplementing it with descriptive meta description and title tags.
This process attracts raving fans, gets your content shared on social media platforms, and garners relevant and high-authority links naturally.
If you want to write resourceful and detailed content, follow the guide below:
Use Data-Driven Articles
According to ConversionXL, data-driven approach can increase your traffic.
Back up facts with accurate data so that people will see your content as authoritative and share it on social media, expanding your organic reach. This post on how to create and promote an infographic is an example of data-driven content.
Aim to include newer stats — less than three years old is ideal.
You can even micro-target content. For example, if a blogger experiments with niche marketing, take it a step further and try niche marketing with an aged domain name, then write it up.
Here’s how to tell a story that captivates your audience:
Begin with something unique: Start your story with a unique message that resonates with your audience. Ideally, this should connect with your audience’s questions or pain points.
Infuse Your Own Experiences: It’s called a story for a good reason. Use your own experiences (whether good or bad) as part of the message. No fakery allowed!
Jon Morrow used this on-page SEO content technique to grow his blog to 1,740 loyal subscribers in just seven days. Here’s the post that helped him connect with his audience: How To Quit Your Job, Move To Paradise, and Get Paid To Change The World.
Add a Call-to-Action (CTA): Every story must have an ending. Once you capture your readers’ attention, they expect you to share the solution. After all, your story is supposed to solve a problem, not nurture it.
Use a call-to-action link or button to lead people to your funnel and convert them. MatchOffice increased its conversion rate by 14.79% by changing its CTA copy.
Unbounce provides some more examples of actionable CTA buttons to replace your generic ones:
Write Shareable Headlines
Google has made a lot of changes to search rankings, but one element remains crucial: the headline.
If you write a shareable headline for your post, nothing can stop it from getting clicked, read, and shared by true fans.
Peep Laja of ConversionXL increased his conversion rate by changing the word “today” to “now” in a headline. It also helped him increase sales by 332%.
Headlines truly win the clicks.
Even if your web page is ranked at #1 in Google for page content, that doesn’t mean you’ll get the most clicks.
On-page SEO gets you in the running but the title can convert impressions to clicks.
Let’s search for the term how to outsource. Note that the most clickable headline is in position #2.
The perfect example of a website that uses shareable headlines to boost conversion rate is Upworthy.
I’ve used Buzzsumo to analyze Upworthy’s headlines. Check out the amazing number of shares the first article has racked up.
If I wanted to craft a better headline for my own content, here’s what I’d do:
Add numbers: Upworthy’s post was shared over 1.6 million times on Facebook because it has a definite number. If the headline was “Americans are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact,” I’m sure the total number of social media shares would be lower.
Here are some more examples. When I wrote this post, these headlines were ranked in the Google top 10 for their respective keywords. But, a simple tweak would result in a higher click-through rate.
Original headline:
SEO Basics For Optimizing Your Site
Let’s add some numbers:
6 SEO Basic Tips For Optimizing Your Site
12 SEO Basics You Need To Optimize Your Site
Original headline:
Freelance Writing Tips For Stay-at-Home Moms
Freelance Writing Jobs To Make Money
Let’s add some numbers
5 Freelance Writing Tips To Help Stay at Home Moms Make Money
10 Freelance Writing Jobs You Can Make Money From
Invoke Curiosity: Curiosity will cause people to click your headline, but do it with caution and make sure that you deliver on the promise of your headline with quality content.
For example, if your title is:
Top 7 Body Building Secrets You Didn’t Know
Then make sure that you reveal the ‘7’ secrets, and ideally, what you reveal needs to be new or unique.
Create a Multimedia Experience
While regular blogging is important, don’t settle there.
Hone in on your keywords to learn the questions that brought your visitors to your site. Then use diverse types of content to answer those questions, like:
While the occasional duplicate content won’t destroy your rankings, you’ll be doing yourself a favor by showing Google each piece of content is original, relevant, and useful.
Once you have great on-page SEO content that includes informational and transactional keywords and tells a story that appeals to your audience, it’s time to build links the right way to improve Google rankings.
Step #9: Build Links the Right Way
Earlier, I showed you how to analyze links to your site using SEOprofiler.
Note that it shows a range of different types of anchor text for inbound links.
That’s exactly what you need to build links the right way and improve Google rankings.
Here are some of the ways to do that and the types of links that you need.
Anchor text linking (in-text links): Anchor text links are simple links that appear within the content. See an example below…
I’ve found placing anchor text links “above-the-fold,” can increase conversion rates.
The anchor text linking strategy is mostly used when you’re looking to rank for a particular keyword.
You can use your target keyword as anchor text, but to be on the safe side and avoid penalties with the search algorithm, mix it up with generic keywords.
For example, if your primary keyword is digital camera reviews, when building your links from another site, link naturally like this: find the best digital camera reviews, top digital camera brands, etc.
A good mix is smart on-page SEO.
Internal Links: External links (that is links from other sites to yours) are important, but internal links are also important. Make sure to link to important internal pages using optimized anchor text when it makes sense.
Editorial Links: Creating useful content and sharing it through social media naturally results in valuable inbound links.
A good example is a post on 200 ranking factors that Brian Dean wrote. It’s been cited multiple times.
For Google, what other people say about you is much more important and relevant than what you say about yourself to improve Google rankings.
Over the years, I have created thousands of rich, data-driven, and useful blog content.
If you search for anything related to content marketing, Quick Sprout and neilpatel.com pop up, which means that I get a lot of editorial links.
Copyblogger links out to useful and relevant resource posts that contribute to the engagement that they already have with their audience.
I strongly believe that the site owners didn’t do anything to get those editorial links.
They simply earned the links because of the usefulness of their content. Focus on exceptional content if you want to earn links that will improve the rank of your web pages.
Scale link building: Link diversity is the ultimate way to generate Google-friendly links and improve Google rankings while staying off the penalty radar.
This tutorial from SEMrush will show you how to ethically build links to improve Google ranking.
Old techniques, like directory submission, forum marketing, wiki sites, and even guest blogging and press releases don’t work and they also put you at risk for a Google penalty.
To get a diverse inbound link profile, write page content that will gain links from local, regional, and international sites relevant to your own.
Then, you’ll build a natural link profile with natural, targeted on-page SEO that will withstand anything Google throws at it.
Step 10: Get Active on Social Media
What does social media have to do with search rankings?
That’s a great question.
Search engines like Google try to take into account as much information as possible about your website.
They use it to determine the quality of your website and thus where they should place you when someone searches regarding a topic within your niche.
One of the factors that search engines consider is social media. In particular, they consider the following questions:
How active are your social media accounts?
How up-to-date are your social media accounts?
How many shares does your website content get on social media?
It’s not just worth it for the sake of reaching a larger audience on the social media platform itself; social media can drive traffic to your site, which improves your search ranking.
How do you share content on social media that users are likely to share?
Here’s one great tactic: when you share stuff on social media, you want to increase your audience size and encourage people to engage with your content.
To do that, you can tag some of your friends who you think might be interested in the content.
This doesn’t just show the post to people you tagged. It also ensures that Facebook will show your post to all of the friends of those you’ve tagged.
You can easily increase your audience size by several thousand with a few relevant tags.
However you do it, use social media to build your SEO. The search engines are watching. Start performing.
Frequently Asked Questions About How to Improve Google Rankings Without Penalties
What is the top way to improve your Google ranking?
The most effective way to improve your ranking is to do keyword research and write content that is highly relevant for user intent associated with those keywords.
How long does it take for Google to rank your content?
It can take up to six months to have your content appear in the search results.
Is it possible to rank in the top results on Google for Free?
What are some strategies to rank on Google that are penalized?
You can be penalized for things like duplicate content, over-optimization, and bad linking practices.
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How to Improve Google Rankings Without Penalties Conclusion
The key to higher Google rankings without getting slapped with a penalty boils down to providing useful content, presented in a helpful way.
A few basic include:
Take the time truly understand your target audience and their desires.
There’s no hiding it, Instagram is one of my favorite social media channels. Not only is it a great way to share your life with friends and family and promote your business, but it’s also a great way to make a lot of money.
Best of all, you don’t need a big following and there are several different ways to earn an income. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make money on Instagram using seven of my favorite strategies:
Get paid for sponsored posts.
Promote affiliate links.
Start an Instagram shop.
Make money from your content.
Become an Instagram coach.
Advertise your brand.
Get paid for teaching your audience.
Ready? Let’s get to it.
Why Should You Try to Make Money on Instagram?
Instagram remains one of the most popular social media apps.
If the sustained growth of Instagram wasn’t enough to convince you that it’s a great platform to make money on, maybe the comments of Mark Zuckerberg may help. At the company’s first Creator Week in June 2021, he said of Instagram: “Our goal is to be the best platform for creators like you to make a living,”
That’s exactly what’s transpired.
Instagram accounts with over one million followers can make in excess of $1000 per post, according to influence.co.
That’s not all.
You don’t need to be a mega-celebrity to make money on Instagram. Plenty of micro-influencers with followers in the thousands make a decent income through our 7 strategies.
What You Need to Make Money on Instagram
There are three things you need to make money on Instagram: reach, influence, and engaged followers.
Reach and Influence
The only reason businesses pay money to Instagram users is the exposure to the audiences they receive in return. They hope to make money from those followers. For it to be worth their time, these brands are only interested in influencers with large audiences. The bigger the audience, the more money they can make.
If you only have a few hundred Instagram followers to begin with then your potential audience size is low. With such a small sample space, your content won’t get seen by lots of people, let alone drive sales to your or a brand’s products.
To get started, you’ll definitely need at least a few thousand followers to be able to make money.
Engaged Followers
Sure, more followers will boost your ego. Mathematically, it increases your probability to appear in more Instagram feeds. However, a high follower count doesn’t necessarily mean high engagement, and shadow-banning on Instagram can leave you with little to no reach.
If everyone is cold to your posts, they probably won’t be inclined to buy anything you promote.
So on your Instagram account, if you rarely get people commenting, liking, sharing, and following you, then it doesn’t matter how big your following is, you probably won’t make much money.
On the other hand, even if you only have 1,000 followers and they are actively engaging with your posts, the potential to make money is there. Brands are willing to invest in you because of the profitable actions you’ll drive through your account.
7 Ways to Make Money on Instagram
Okay, so now you know why I think Instagram is a great platform to make money on and what you need to make serious bank. Now let’s look at my favorite ways of doing just that.
1. Become an Influencer and Get Paid to Advertise Products
I’ll preface this first strategy by stating that this is the easily most common tactic to earn money on Instagram.
Again, it isn’t viable for people with a few hundred followers. You need a minimum following of about 5,000 followers and a high engagement rate.
People with this reach can earn up to six figures per post.
All you have to do is post pictures around your interests that show your personality, helping you build up a glamorous personal brand.
Sure, you can follow a planned marketing strategy, but Instagram followers love when you are being true to your authentic self. As you share pictures and build your influence organically, relevant brands are likely to approach you rather than the other way round.
Once you satisfy these criteria, here’s a simplistic version of how making money works:
you create a sponsored Instagram post (it could be a photo or video)
you include a branded hashtag, mention, or link to promote a brand
you share it with your audience
you get paid
There is one warning going into this though: don’t pursue sponsored posts simply to make money without believing in the brand you’re promoting. Taking too many of such posts will also burn your audience’s interest and lead to loss of trust in your brand. For example, if you’ve built a following based on visiting fast food restaurants and writing greasy food reviews—suddenly partnering with a weight-loss brand could damage your reputation.
Simple enough to remember, right?
Let’s look at a few people who do this well in real life.
Adam Gonon is a fashion and lifestyle influencer from New York. With a touch over 50,000 followers, he certainly doesn’t have the biggest audience in the world, but that doesn’t stop him from creating sponsored content every few days.
You don’t have to promote fashion or other lifestyle products to get paid for sponsored posts. Amanda Holtzer is a health, diet, and nutrition influencer who works with brands like Costco and Juice Press to create sponsored content.
2. Promote Affiliate Offers
Promoting affiliate offers is not dissimilar to getting paid for sponsored posts. The difference is that you only get paid if people buy the product or service you’re promoting rather than receive payment for your post.
This can be both positive and negative, depending on your audience. While sponsored posts have guaranteed income, you could make a lot more by promoting the right affiliate offer. On the other hand, you could also make a lot less.
Being an affiliate on Instagram is a lot harder than running affiliate ads on your website. Not only do you require a launch audience, but Instagram doesn’t allow clickable links anywhere except your bio. The only way to promote an offer and make sure you receive the affiliate income you’re due is by using promo codes. These are trackable and can be added to your post or story easily. Of course, you’ll still need your followers to visit the affiliate website on their own.
3. Start an Instagram Shop
With an Instagram Shop, you can integrate your e-commerce store with your Instagram profile. This is the only way you can promote your products directly to Instagram followers through your posts, Stories, the Explore tab, and the Shop tab on your profile.
There used to be a lot of friction for e-commerce store owners who wanted to sell through Instagram, but not anymore. Instagram Shopping completely removes friction, letting customers easily check out products in the app and then head to your store at the click of a button.
Let’s say you’re a clothing store and you want to promote an outfit. Simply upload a picture of your model wearing your outfit, and Instagram will let you tag up to five products per post (you can tag up to 20 products per carousel.) You can also promote products in stories and videos, too.
I would like to show you one specific Instagram page that’s completely killing it.
It’s called Doug the Pug. As the name implies, it’s all about the life of one of the Internet’s coolest and cuddliest pugs, Doug.
This page chronicles Doug’s life and takes followers along on his adventures. As of August 2021, Doug the Pug had 3.9 million followers. Doug has his own book entitled Doug the Pug: King of Pop Culture (which is pretty impressive considering that he can’t actually write.) He even does appearances all around the country.
In other words, Doug’s owner has created a massive brand.
Guess what? The popularity they’ve generated is centered around their Instagram page. With 3.9 million followers, you can bet that they’re driving plenty of high-quality traffic to the store and consequently getting paid handsomely for it.
This is a brilliant example of how Instagram can be used to build a brand from scratch. Doug the Pug is a template you could use to launch your own brand and sell from your online store.
Just use your creativity and come up with an interesting angle that will get people excited and eager to invest in your brand.
There’s no doubt that there is a significant time investment involved, but it can pay dividends if you’re able to establish a large and loyal audience. The best part is all of the different ways you can monetize your brand later on.
4. Make Money From Your Content
Just like YouTube, you can monetize your content directly on Instagram. Try one of the three ways below.
IGTV Ads
IGTV ads are a great way to monetize your Instagram content. In March 2021, Instagram made ads available to creators in the U.S., the UK, and Australia. They appear when you watch IGTV from a creator’s feed.
Instagram’s COO, Justin Osofsky, says creators receive 55 percent of the advertising revenue generated through IGTV. That’s the same rate as YouTube making it a great alternative.
Live Badges
If you broadcast live on Instagram, Badges are a fantastic way for your followers to show their support. Think of them as tips your audience can give you when you broadcast. Your viewers can buy a badge during a broadcast, selecting from three levels of hearts that each have a different price point (one for $0.99, two for $1.99, or 3 for $4.99.)
Badges have gone down well with creators. Fitness influencer @charleeatkins said: “Badges in Instagram couldn’t have come at a better time for fitness creators like me. It’s an easy way to channel the love we already see in our Live feeds so we can continue building and creating for our fans.”
Patreon and Only Fans
You don’t have to rely on Instagram’s in-platform features to pay your bills. Third-party sites like Patreon and Only Fans are another great way to make money from your content. In both cases, you’ll want to give away a ton of free value on Instagram before encouraging your audience to follow you on one of the two platforms for exclusive content.
5. Become an Instagram Coach or Consultant
If you are killing it on Instagram and have a massive, engaged following, why not make money by teaching others to do the same thing?
People want to know how to build a following on Instagram and monetize it—it’s why I’m writing this article, after all. If you know how to do it, and have done so yourself, you can make a lot of money.
Take a look at Foundr as an example.
Right now, they have built a massive audience to the tune of 3.3 million on Instagram. And since it’s their strong suit, Foundr founder Nathan now sells his Instagram marketing expertise in an online course called Instagram Domination at a whopping price of $1,997.
Given that businesses that are passionate about Instagram marketing follow them, Foundr has a great pool of potential qualified buyers in their audience with them on Instagram. Many of these prospects are likely to buy their course.
The best news? Anyone can do this if they have a big enough following.
Travel bloggers, food bloggers, marketing consultants—if people are active in your niche and are trying to grow a following doing what you do, launching a course could be highly profitable.
6. Indirectly Make Money by Advertising Your Brand
You don’t have to have a business that’s directly tied to Instagram in order to use the platform to generate sales. Thousands of canny entrepreneurs have leveraged their Instagram following to make money through a separate business. It really doesn’t matter what kind of business you operate; Instagram is a great way to get the word out and generate traffic and sales.
Instagram is particularly powerful if you have a physical product that you can show people using. Service-based businesses like travel agents also work incredibly well.
Hashtags will be particularly important here if you want to increase the reach of your Instagram account. The more followers you have, the more people will see your posts and consider using your business in the future.
Promoting other people’s products via affiliate links or selling physical products through an online store are both great options to make money on Instagram. What if I revealed there was a way to earn more money than affiliate marketing without having to handle physical inventory?
There is, and it’s called selling info products.
Info products have become a bit of a dirty term, but you don’t need to sell dating advice or weird diets to make money on Instagram this way. If your Instagram account teaches your audience how to do something—whether that’s learning a foreign language, practicing yoga, or woodworking—you can create a premium info product that you can sell for upwards of $100.
There are hundreds of Instagrammers doing this right now.
One doing particularly well is Minimalist Baker, a food blogger who creates recipes with ten ingredients or less and sells a course on Food photography. As you can see, you don’t even need to sell something directly related to your niche. Minimalist Baker isn’t selling a cooking series or a recipe book—she’s teaching Instagrammers how to take pictures as well as she does—and raking in the cash.
Making Money on Instagram Frequently Asked Questions
How easy is it to make money on Instagram?
It’s never easy to make money online, but making money on Instagram is easier than a lot of other methods.
2. What's the best way to make money on Instagram?
The best way to make money on Instagram will depend on you and your following. Getting paid for sponsored posts, starting an Instagram shop, or getting paid to create content through IGTV ads are all great options.
How much do Instagram influencers get paid?
Instagram influencers can get paid north of six figures for every sponsored post. The larger and more engaged your following, the higher the fee you can command.
4. How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?
You need at least a couple of thousand followers to make money on Instagram. The more engaged your followers are, the less you will need, however.
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The best way to make money on Instagram will depend on you and your following. Getting paid for sponsored posts, starting an Instagram shop, or getting paid to create content through IGTV ads are all great options.
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Instagram influencers can get paid north of six figures for every sponsored post. The larger and more engaged your following, the higher the fee you can command.
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You need at least a couple of thousand followers to make money on Instagram. The more engaged your followers are, the less you will need, however.
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How to Make Money on Instagram Conclusion
Instagram has been one of the most popular social media platforms for some time, and it’s continuing to launch new and engaging features. In other words, it’s well worth investing your time to make money on the platform.
If you can build an audience and establish trust, there are loads of ways to make money on Instagram. With so many potential business opportunities, anyone can earn money from Instagram.
Yes, even you.
Which tactic are you going to use to make money on Instagram?
That’s why diversifying your methods of increasing web traffic can offer better results. If you have multiple traffic sources, changing algorithms won’t completely halt your business. You will have a toolkit full of optimization strategies to keep your business running. Diversifying your web traffic can also be helpful in cases where there’s little scope for search engine optimization (for example, podcasts).
In this post, we’re going to look at effective strategies to grow your website traffic without SEO so you’re never left stranded by algorithm changes again. We’ll also look at practical tips you can start using right now, so you can get back in the game if your traffic has been low for a while.
Why Should You Try to Grow Traffic Without SEO?
You can generate substantial traffic from SEO alone, but not all traffic is equal. High-quality traffic (that includes users more likely to convert) offers better ROI, so you need to prioritize it.
Plus, if you aren’t an SEO expert, you may want to focus on other strategies to grow your website traffic efficiently.
This doesn’t mean you completely ignore SEO. All websites, irrespective of their niche, must follow the best SEO practices to avoid being penalized by Google and to ensure the site gets indexed.
The strategies we’ll discuss below can be a helpful addition to a pre-existing SEO plan.
Top Strategies to Increase Website Traffic Without SEO
1. Content Marketing
If you have been reading about digital marketing for a while, you must have heard the term “content marketing.” In simple words, it’s a way to organically advertise your brand through high-quality content.
Content marketing strategies often include blog posts, podcast episodes, infographics, YouTube videos, downloadable PDFs, etc.
For instance, Toggl, a time tracking software company frequently uploads informative blog posts and research data about productivity, work-life, and career.
This attracts users interested in time management, productivity, and wellbeing in the workplace. When they read Toggl’s blog, they eventually discover Toggl’s time tracking app, among its other productivity tools. Some of these users convert, helping Toggl increase their website traffic and ROI.
Content marketing isn’t limited to blog posts. If you connect better through audio, you can try launching a podcast or host a webinar.
Nowadays, most social media apps let you post a variety of content formats including photos, audio clips, long-form text, and videos. You can experiment with one or more of these formats to see what works best for your audience.
2. Paid Ads
Content marketing is beneficial but it can take a lot of money, especially if you’re paying established writers to create original, well-researched posts for you.
Most of these projects also take weeks or months to show results, which isn’t a practical timeline for many businesses.
If you want quicker results with a budget you can control, why not try paid ads?
Paid ads can instantly generate hundreds, if not thousands, of clicks to your website. Plus, with new advertising and social media platforms appearing and innovating regularly, getting your ads in front of the right people is becoming easier than ever.
However, you don’t have to stick to the largest platforms for effective advertising. In fact, advertising on lesser-known platforms whose audience aligns with your products can be more effective in the long run.
For example, if your ideal customer includes teens who enjoy memes and weird stories, you’d have much better results by advertising on Reddit, rather than Facebook or YouTube.
Another option is dating apps. If your brand is focused on relationships or if you’re targeting young singles, advertising on dating apps like Tinder can help you find your target customers faster.
If you’re worried paid ads will take a lot of money, remember, you don’t need to spend $1,000 on your first day.
Test the waters with $5-$10 a day and see what happens. Do that for a week, just to learn how different media platforms work.
3. Social Media Strategies
One of the best ways to increase your website traffic is to meet your customers where they like to hang out. Like we discussed earlier, almost everyone is using social media today. Ramping up your social media marketing efforts can help you reach new users, develop brand awareness and increase website traffic.
How to gain website traffic through social media?
When it comes to social media, you can’t just barge into “conversations” and ask people to buy something from you or to visit your website.
Think about how you’d present your brand in real life when you meet an individual for the first time. Would you immediately talk sales in their face? How about providing details about your product/service without introducing yourself first?
Remember, users visit their preferred social media platforms for entertainment, not for being sold to.
To make sure your efforts are well-received, you need to provide value first and develop positive relationships with your potential “followers.”
You can do this by sharing informative posts like How-Tos, or posting fun photos of your employees, like this post from Casper.
Leave thoughtful comments on user-generated content
4. Link Building Strategies
When marketing teams talk about SEO, link building frequently comes to mind. When reputable websites link to your content, the algorithm favors your website and increases its rank on the search page.
Sounds helpful, but that’s not all.
Did you know link building can help you increase web traffic without relying on SEO?
Link building for brand awareness is a process where you focus your strategies on expanding your reach, putting your content in front of new users, and generating conversations around your brand.
This is more than just a casual backlink in a blog post. Link building for brand awareness takes more planning and resources, but the investment is worth the high-quality leads you’ll get.
Here are some tips for developing effective link building strategies to increase website traffic:
Engage with your audience: Create interesting, shareable posts and encourage your followers to respond and share your content.
Work with PRs: Recruit efficient PRs to help generate brand awareness and distribute your story to your desired audience.
Guest blog intentionally: Choose unique publications that align with your readers’ key interests and post guest blogs on their page.
5. Interact With Other Blogs
Guest blogging is an effective traffic-driving strategy aimed at leveraging somebody else’s audience to widen your brand’s reach.
Think about it: Somebody in your niche has a large, engaged following. Imagine if you could put your content in front of them. How much traffic could you drive to your website!
Why would someone publish your work?
Probably because you’re good at what you do.
Everyone is looking for high-quality content. If you can provide a well-researched, helpful post for free, people are often open to publishing it on their website. After all, it’s benefiting their audience at zero cost.
Why would you give precious content away for free?
It’ll help you gain access to hundreds, if not thousands of new users, many of whom could become long-term customers.
It’s a win-win situation, but you have to be careful how you approach it.
Start by searching for blogs and media publications that publish content relevant to your business. For example, if you run a recruiting company, publish content on business blogs read by people interested in the latest recruiting practices.
If you want to find blogs in your industry that are accepting guest posts, use the following search queries to see more specific results:
name of your niche + “write for us”
name of your niche + “submit guest post”
name of your niche + “sites that accept guest posts”
In addition, research online biographies of specific companies and bloggers. More often than not, their web profiles contain a handy list of sites where they’ve been invited to guest post. That’s a plethora of most fitting guest blog opportunities presented to you on a silver platter.
Then, send a request. Most websites will have publication guidelines you can follow. Follow these instructions carefully to increase your chances of publication.
There’s also the option of using blog comments as a way to generate traffic to your site.
How exactly do you go about using comments to generate traffic?
When leaving a comment, make sure you are adding something worthwhile to the discussion.
There is no use in leaving comments like “Awesome post!” or “Nice website!”
If someone posts a question, make sure you take the time to answer thoughtfully.
This showcases your expertise in the given niche and will encourage someone reading to click on your name and be taken through to your site.
If you read an article on a subject you don’t know very well, it would be imprudent to voice your own thoughts as fact. In this situation, you should simply ask questions. Then the website owner would be able to elaborate more on complex topics or complicated sections.
If you’re knowledgeable about a subject, feel free to contribute (e.g., suggest something, recommend a solution, answer a question). If you’re a novice, it’s best to ask questions. Powerful questions can bring you website traffic by encouraging blog readers to check you out.
Avoid embedding links in your comments. It comes off as a wretched attempt to plant your flag on someone’s lawn.
It’s okay to use your website’s link in the URL field when entering your name and email address, but your comment needs to add to the conversation or challenge an idea without lazy attempts at driving traffic to your blog.
Refrain from using the name of your business as your “commenting name.” Use your actual full name instead.
Using a random or fake name is a missed opportunity to build strong branding because your brand actually starts with your name. In fact, failing to use your full name will reduce your chances of the website owner approving your comment.
6. Email Marketing
If you read a few posts on digital marketing, email marketing would be mentioned in most of them. That’s because it’s still one of the most efficient ways to increase website traffic.
Email marketing lets you reach potential customers directly. It’s an ideal platform for building long-term relationships for improved customer loyalty. You can post questions, ask for feedback, introduce soft sales, and persuade customers for the “big buy.”
Here are some tips for effective email marketing to increase website traffic:
Be real: Share stories, post behind-the-scenes content, and solicit original user-generated content.
Offer value: Just like content marketing needs a high value to convert readers, emails and newsletters must provide value before they make an ask.
Include all your links: Make it easy to read and share your post. Include links to your social media profiles, latest blog posts, and sales page in every email you send.
7. Provide Excellent Customer Service and Ask Customers to Review Your Brand
Ramping up your social media marketing efforts to increase website traffic is useless if you offer poor customer service.
According to a survey, 42 percent of customers said they bought more after pleasant customer service experiences.
Think about it: Users complain on social media, you offer a prompt and polite response. What happens? The person starts respecting your brand.
Even when users complain privately via email, it’s important to offer the best possible service so they come back for more.
How can you offer great customer service?
reply promptly
offer as many suggestions for customer problems as possible
apologize when you make a mistake and offer coupons/refunds
If you consistently provide great customer service, you can request users to review your brand.
Platforms like Trustpilot and Yelp can be great for building positive reviews. Many users consult these websites before making a purchase decision, so having a solid profile can help improve your reputation.
Increase Website Traffic Without SEO Frequently Asked Questions
Is it possible to increase website traffic without SEO?
Yes. You can use a combination of social media marketing strategies and content marketing techniques to increase website traffic without SEO.
Are there ways to increase website traffic for free?
Guest blogging, posting on social media, and requesting user-generated content are some of the most effective ways to increase website traffic for free.
Can I increase website traffic through marketing without an agency?
You can use techniques like guest blogging and content marketing to engage audiences without relying on any agency.
What's the best strategy to increase website traffic quickly?
Working on improving your social media strategies can help you connect with new users, develop brand awareness and drive organic traffic relatively fast.
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Increase Website Traffic Without SEO Conclusion
You shouldn’t only rely on search engines to increase website traffic. Algorithm changes and SEO techniques become outdated quickly.
The strategies we discussed today can help you create a comprehensive digital marketing plan to increase website traffic effectively.
Whether you use one of these tactics in isolation, or you use all of them together, they can transform the way you attract customers.
Which traffic-driving strategy will you try today?
No matter what industry you’re in, there’s always more work than time to do it. This means that there is always something lacking, always more work to be done, and new companies often fall behind their expectations and deadlines. One of the most insidious parts is that it leads to massive stress. According to business …
A memo sent to NFL teams Friday said officials have been authorized to penalize teams for unsportsmanlike conduct if a coach or someone else on the sideline approaches them while not wearing a mask or other appropriate face covering.
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