Frugal Marketing: Top 10 Obscure Tactics to Skyrocket Your Website Traffic

Navigating the digital landscape on a tight budget can be daunting. But with strategic and budget-friendly marketing tactics, you can increase your website traffic significantly. Here are ten obscure but highly effective strategies, complete with success rates and helpful tools, all implementable within a budget of $5000.

1. Embrace Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising has tremendous reach. With as little as $5 a day, you can reach over 1,000 people on Facebook alone. Also, you could expect to pay anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00 per action (click, retweet, like, follow, or “boost”) for a Twitter campaign. Nextdoor, the neighborhood-focused social networking app, presents a unique opportunity for brands seeking to target consumers on a hyper-local scale. As with all social media advertising, the cost to reach 1,000 people (often referred to as CPM) could vary significantly depending on these factors. CPM is your cost per mile. It measures your rate per 1,000 impressions. It’s best to start small, monitor your campaign closely, and adjust as needed to optimize your budget. Tools like Hootsuite allow you to manage and analyze your campaigns across multiple platforms.

2. Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Organic search leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound marketing leads have a 1.7% close rate. Tools like SEMrush or Moz can be crucial for finding keywords, analyzing your website’s SEO health, and studying your competition.

3. Leverage Email Marketing

Email marketing has an average ROI of $42 for every dollar spent. MailChimp, an affordable email marketing tool, allows you to create newsletters, automate emails, and analyze your campaign’s performance.

4. Dive into Content Marketing

Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. Platforms like WordPress make it easy to start a blog, while tools like Grammarly can help ensure your content is well-written and error-free.

5. Host a Webinar

Studies show that between 20% and 40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads. Webinar platforms like Zoom offer affordable options to host your virtual event.

6. Run a Contest or Giveaway

Contests on Instagram can generate 64x more comments and 3.5x more likes compared to regular posts. Tools like Rafflecopter can help manage your contests and giveaways across multiple platforms.

7. Collaborate with Influencers

According to a Mediakix study, 89% of marketers say ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. Apps like Upfluence or AspireIQ can help you connect with micro-influencers in your niche.

8. Use Retargeting Ads

Website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are more likely to convert by 70%. Tools like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads Manager can help you set up retargeting campaigns to re-engage your website, visitors.

9. Partner with Non-Competitive Businesses

According to a CoSchedule study, businesses that blog collaboratively have 2x more traffic. Look for guest blogging opportunities or partnerships within your niche to share and co-promote content.

10. Try Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing accounts for 15% of all online revenue from digital media. Using platforms like ShareASale or CJ Affiliate, you can set up an affiliate program to incentivize others to promote your products or services.

Remember, the key to frugal marketing is monitoring your results, optimizing your strategies, and adjusting as needed. With these tactics and tools, you can maximize your budget and drive substantial traffic to your website.

Leveraging the Power of Reddit for Genuine Search Results: A Better Way to Find Real Experiences

Over the last couple of decades, the internet has transformed from a frontier filled with random homepages and discussion forums to a realm dominated by large corporate entities. One of these giants, Google, has become the go-to resource for anyone seeking answers to any question imaginable. It’s a powerful tool, but its omnipresence has led to some unintended consequences. An increasing number of users have grown disenchanted with the search results, which are often filled with sponsored content and sites that have mastered the art of ‘gaming the system’.

In this era of search engine optimization (SEO), many websites are prioritizing keywords, meta tags, and link-building strategies above actual content. This, combined with Google’s paid advertisement model, often places such content prominently on the search result pages, pushing down the genuine experiences and wisdom shared by real people.

Enter Reddit, an online community often termed ‘the front page of the internet’. Could appending “Reddit” to the end of your Google search query offer a viable alternative? Could this route allow you to tap into real experiences rather than marketing-speak? Let’s delve into this further.

A Community of Real Experiences

Reddit is home to a vast array of user-created communities called ‘subreddits’, each catering to specific topics, niches, and interests. The magic of Reddit lies in its focus on actual user experiences, discussions, and insights. Each post and comment represents a slice of someone’s life, offering genuine and often unique insights that traditional search results may not provide.

When you append “Reddit” to your Google search query, the search engine will prioritize results from Reddit’s numerous subreddits. In doing so, you’re more likely to encounter answers and discussions from real individuals who’ve experienced or studied your topic of interest.

Why This Works

Unlike many sites aiming to optimize for Google’s algorithm, the content on Reddit is organic and user-generated. The voting system allows quality content and helpful responses to rise to the top, meaning you’ll likely encounter genuine insights before corporate-sponsored content.

Top 10 technical bullet points comparing the top 10 search results when “Reddit” is appended versus a standard Google search:

Nature of Content:
- Standard Google Search: Dominated by commercial websites, blogs, news, and sponsored content.
- Reddit-appended Search: Dominated by user-generated content, discussions, and firsthand experiences.
Authenticity of Information:
- Standard Google Search: Information often tailored to fit SEO practices, potentially compromising authenticity.
- Reddit-appended Search: Information derived from real-world experiences, making it more genuine.
User Engagement:
- Standard Google Search: Less direct user engagement. Most sites allow limited user comments, if at all.
- Reddit-appended Search: High user engagement. Users contribute to the content through upvotes, comments, and discussions.
Presence of Sponsored Content:
- Standard Google Search: High likelihood of encountering sponsored content and ads.
- Reddit-appended Search: Minimal to no sponsored content in the search results.
SEO Optimization:
- Standard Google Search: Content often heavily SEO-optimized, potentially affecting the quality of information.
- Reddit-appended Search: User-generated content with less emphasis on SEO, leading to more natural language and genuine insights.
Real-time Updates and Trends:
- Standard Google Search: Content may not always reflect the most recent trends or real-time events.
- Reddit-appended Search: Due to the community-driven nature, content is frequently updated and often reflects current trends and events.
Depth of Discussion:
- Standard Google Search: Limited depth of discussion, as content is often one-sided from the author’s perspective.
- Reddit-appended Search: Provides depth of discussion, with multiple perspectives offered by various users.
Subjectivity vs Objectivity:
- Standard Google Search: May lean towards objectivity, as most content is generated with a broad audience in mind.
- Reddit-appended Search: May contain both subjective (personal experiences) and objective (fact-based) content, providing a more holistic view.
Link Diversity:
- Standard Google Search: Results often include multiple pages from the same domain.
- Reddit-appended Search: Each result is usually a unique discussion thread, providing a wider array of information sources.
Easily Identifiable Bias:
- Standard Google Search: Bias in content can be concealed or difficult to identify.
- Reddit-appended Search: Any potential bias is often openly addressed or challenged by other users in the discussion.

Bridging the Gap

A typical concern about relying on Reddit for information is the potential for misinformation or lack of authority. However, many subreddits enforce strict moderation policies and have experienced users who can quickly correct false information. Furthermore, it’s important to note that the answers found on Reddit are not a substitute for professional advice but rather a complement, providing diverse perspectives and real-world experiences.

Here are some critical aspects that ensure the reliability of the information obtained from Reddit:

Community Moderation: Many subreddits enforce strict moderation policies, ensuring the information shared is relevant and accurate.
User Corrections: Experienced Reddit users are quick to correct false information, promoting the accuracy of discussions.
Diverse Perspectives: Reddit’s user base is incredibly diverse, bringing a broad range of insights to any given topic.
Upvote System: The upvoting system on Reddit ensures the most helpful and popular content rises to the top, making it more visible in search results.

Remember, while Reddit can provide real-world experiences and diverse perspectives, it should complement, not replace, professional advice.

The Future of Online Search

The practice of appending “Reddit” to Google searches signals a shift in how we approach online search. It’s an open rebellion against the corporatization of information and a return to the internet’s early ethos: a place where real people share real experiences and wisdom.

This strategy is not an end-all solution to the issues plaguing online search, but it is a step toward prioritizing genuine, user-generated content over commercialized content. The hope is that this practice encourages a broader conversation about the future of online search and promotes a more people-centric, authentic internet.

In conclusion, appending “Reddit” to your Google search term offers an alternative way to find better, genuine, actual answers to your search results. It serves as a refreshing reminder that behind every search query, there are real people with real experiences waiting to be discovered.

The Unexpected Consequence of AI in SEO: A Web of ‘Garbage’ Text

The landscape of online search is becoming increasingly cluttered. As the race to optimize for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) accelerates, the quality of content found on Google and across the internet is deteriorating. A growing trend has seen the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to generate blog content packed with SEO keywords. These blogs, however, are not intended for human eyes; their primary audience is Google’s web-crawling robots.

Entities across a wide array of sectors are finding themselves having to invest considerable time and resources to tailor their online presence for Google Search. To streamline this often frustrating and time-consuming process, many resort to AI tools, contributing to an explosion of computer-generated content specifically designed to manipulate search algorithms.

This trend contributes to the degradation of Google’s principal product, Search. The widespread adoption of AI tools to generate a mass of SEO-oriented content is a cause for concern. For instance, e-commerce platforms have even launched AI features that allow creating product descriptions using keywords, adding to the surge of low-quality content—dubbed ‘SEO chum’—on the web.

These AI tools generate unique content, a strategy that appeals to Google’s preference for non-duplicate content. Despite this optimization effort, there is a keen awareness of maintaining quality in certain sectors, such as advice articles, where AI is eschewed in favor of human authorship.

The dependence on Google for online visibility has led to a constant cycle of content creation, frequently resulting in unnecessary or superfluous text. SEO has become a necessary, if not always welcome, component of online strategy. High costs often prevent entities from hiring SEO consultants or marketing agencies, intensifying their reliance on AI tools.

The importance of navigating Google’s SEO landscape has grown as other online advertising channels, such as social media platforms, become less effective. This shift has amplified the essential role of Google Search in the online ecosystem.

Despite these efforts, much of the SEO-optimized content remains tucked away in rarely visited corners of websites. The content, often nonsensical or bizarre to human readers, is solely designed to cater to Google’s algorithms. This situation has created an ecosystem where entities from all sectors endlessly generate more content just to be visible. Those searching for information and those trying to be found are ensnared in a seemingly never-ending cycle of creating and consuming ‘garbage’.

The current state of the online world seems untenable in the long term. While it is difficult to recall a time before the race for SEO, there’s a growing sense of unease about the sustainability of this trend. The increasing use of AI tools has led to a strange dance between entities and Google, all grappling with the ramifications of this keyword-focused contest. The future of the internet and online search could well hinge on how these challenges are navigated.

Are you a real estate agent looking to increase your business success and attract more clients in a challenging market?

Maximize Your Real Estate Business with Inbound Marketing Strategies.

You may think that marketing is expensive or time-consuming, but there’s an effective and less costly solution – inbound strategies focused on attracting clients through digital content. By creating informative web pages, engaging blog posts, targeted emails, and social media campaigns tailored specifically to your target market, you can maximize the success of your real estate business with inbound marketing. Read on to discover how inbound techniques can help take your real estate practice to the next level!

Establish your online presence and create a website with engaging blog content

In today’s digital age, establishing a strong online presence is more important than ever before. And a key part of that involves creating a website that showcases your brand and offers engaging blog content. Not only does a website serve as a virtual storefront, but it also allows you to connect with your target audience on a whole new level. With the right mix of technical know-how and professional expertise, you can create a website that not only looks great but also drives traffic and builds loyalty. So, whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or blogger, take the time to invest in your online presence and see the benefits for years to come. If your website is using WordPress as your website host, it’s real easy to create landing pages, contact pages, or create and write blog posts! WordPress has a great article on how to write a good blog post (step-by-step) here.

Utilize social media platforms such as Instagram to reach more potential clients

In today’s digital age, businesses have a plethora of channels available to connect with potential clients. One such channel that has gained immense popularity over the years is Instagram. With its user base crossing the 1 billion mark, Instagram has become a go-to platform for businesses to engage with their target audience. Leveraging tools such as Instagram ads, sponsored posts, and influencer marketing, businesses can not only increase their reach but also drive conversions. Additionally, Instagram analytics provide valuable insights into the performance of marketing campaigns, allowing businesses to optimize their strategies further. So, if you’re looking to expand your client base, it’s time to consider Instagram as a powerful marketing tool. This guide provides real estate agents with a comprehensive explanation of how to set up an Instagram account and use ads. You can find it here. Another good guide after you establish a Real Estate Instagram account can be found here “5 Hacks to boosting your real estate business’s Instagram presence.”

Leverage search engine optimization techniques to increase website visibility

To elevate your website’s visibility, it’s essential to implement sound search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. SEO helps you not only attract more traffic but also enables you to understand your audience better. This requires technical expertise, and you need to have a sound grasp of its best practices. You can start by conducting a thorough analysis of your website, going over your website design, your content, coding, and other critical factors that affect your website’s search engine ranking. Once you have identified these areas, you can begin implementing SEO techniques that are proven to get results. This includes optimizing keywords, improving website speed, optimizing images, creating relevant content, and more. With time, effort, and the right SEO techniques, you can enhance your search engine ranking and allow your website to reach its full potential. HubSpot (which I am Social Media HubSpot Academy certified), has a “Blog SEO” How to Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Content” here.

Create blog posts and content that speak to your target client audience

As a marketer, it’s essential to know your target audience inside and out to create content that speaks to their needs and interests. To capture their attention, it’s important to adopt a tone of voice that is informational, technical, and professional. Your audience is looking for concrete and practical information that will help them solve their problems or make informed decisions. By adopting this tone, you’ll demonstrate your expertise and ability to provide valuable insights to your readers. This approach will not only help build your brand’s credibility but also establish a lasting relationship with your target audience. So, take the time to understand your audience’s pain points and interests to create content that speaks directly to them in a tone that is professional, technical, and informative.

Utilize email marketing campaigns to stay top-of-mind with prospective customers

Email marketing campaigns have become increasingly popular in the digital marketing world as a way to reach out to prospective customers and keep your brand top-of-mind. By utilizing email, businesses can provide personalized content and promotions directly to the inbox of their target audience. With advanced targeting and segmentation, email campaigns can be tailored to specific customer groups, making the content more relevant and engaging. Email marketing also allows for easy tracking and measurement of campaign success, providing valuable insights into what is resonating with potential customers. When done correctly, email campaigns can be a highly effective tool in building brand awareness and generating leads. A Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Email Marketing can be found here.

Listen, measure, and optimize inbound marketing efforts for better results

As a marketer, it’s essential to listen, measure and optimize your inbound marketing efforts to see better results. This process involves analyzing data, identifying trends and patterns, and adjusting your strategy accordingly. By listening closely to your audience and measuring their engagement with your content, you can create more targeted campaigns that speak directly to them. Understanding the data can help you optimize your tactics and drive better results. With the right tools and strategies, you can improve your inbound marketing strategy and achieve your goals. It’s all about being nimble, adaptable, and always striving for improvement.

Overall, real estate agents who are proactive about inbound marketing can reap the benefits for both themselves and their clients. By creating a web presence, utilizing social media platforms, optimizing website visibility and content with SEO strategies, creating blog posts to meet the needs of target audiences, and sending email campaigns to stay on top of prospects, agents can get better results and uncover more opportunities. The key to success is measuring metrics such as time on page, visits per page, and bounce rate so that strategies can be properly optimized over time. As a final call to action: Sell your home fast and for top dollar. Contact us today at XYZ Real Estate Agency or find your dream home through our website! My proven digital marketing strategies will take your real estate career to the next level.

If you’re a real estate agent who doesn’t have an Instagram account set up yet, or if you’re an old-school agent who wants to improve your Instagram strategies to get more client leads, I can help. Please feel free to reach out to me and fill out your information on my contact page here.

How to SEO Optimize a Social Media Profile

A well-optimized social media profile will show up higher in Google search results, boosting your brand reputation. As a bonus, maintaining your profile according to SEO best practices help potential customers find you through social media.

Social media profiles are not only a way to connect with your audience, but also a powerful tool to boost your SEO ranking. By optimizing your social media profiles for SEO, you can increase your visibility on search engines, drive more traffic to your website, and generate more leads and conversions. Here are some tips on how to SEO optimize your social media profiles:

- Fill out your social profiles with as many details as possible. Include relevant keywords in your profile description, bio, and posts that match what people are searching for. Also, use consistent branding across all your social platforms, such as your logo, name, and color scheme.
- Point links back to your site from your social profiles and posts. This will help you build authority and trust with search engines and direct more visitors to your site. Make sure your links are relevant and useful for your audience, and avoid spamming or overdoing them.
- Share high-quality content from your site on your social channels and encourage others to do the same. This will help you increase engagement, reach new audiences, and earn more backlinks. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours, which signal to search engines that your site is valuable and trustworthy.
- Publish content that’s worthy of backlinks on your social channels. This means creating original, informative, entertaining, or inspiring content that people want to share with their networks. You can also leverage different types of content formats such as videos, images, infographics, podcasts, etc., to appeal to different preferences and platforms.

Pro Tip: Monitor your social media metrics and analyze how they affect your SEO performance. Some of the metrics you should track include impressions (how many times people see your posts), clicks (how many times people visit your site from your posts), shares (how many times people share or repost your content), comments (how many times people interact with your posts), followers (how many people follow you on each platform), etc. These metrics can help you understand what works best for each platform and audience segment.

By following these tips on how to SEO optimize social media profiles, you can improve both your social media presence and SEO ranking.

Unleash the Power of SEO with This One Simple Trick: Weekly Original Content

Want Great SEO? Content is King! Generating original weekly content is crucial for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for several reasons. Here are the main ones:

Fresh Content is Valued by Search Engines: Search engines, such as Google, prioritize fresh and original content in their rankings. Regularly publishing new and relevant content shows search engines that your website is active, up-to-date, and providing value to users. Fresh content also increases search engine rankings (SERPs) and traffic as well as getting quality links from other sites. If there’s not enough relevant content for your brand or business, it pretty much defeats the purpose of having a website in the first place.
Improves User Engagement: Fresh content can also improve user engagement by keeping them interested in your website and encouraging them to spend more time on it. Increased user engagement signals to search engines that your website is relevant and valuable, which can improve your search rankings.
Increases Website Traffic: By providing valuable and engaging content, you can attract new visitors to your website and increase traffic. More traffic to your website can also lead to increased visibility, which can improve your search rankings.
Boosts Keyword Rankings: When you publish new content regularly, you have the opportunity to target new keywords and improve your rankings for those terms. This can help you reach a wider audience and attract more qualified leads to your website. Add a few keywords that sum up your article theme and target audience. Don’t spam keywords.
Provides Opportunities for Backlinking: By producing high-quality content, you may also receive backlinks from other websites, which can help boost your website’s authority and search engine rankings.

72% of marketers report that content creation is their best-performing SEO tactic. (OptinMonster)

If you lack the resources for generating content, outsource to an agency or freelancer for help. The basic purpose is to create content and try to post at least 2-3 times per week. Content is scalable and you can add as needed or when more resources become available. Content Marketing is important! Without it, you’re going to struggle to attract the attention you need to collect leads and convert them into sales or clients!

Generating original weekly content is a critical component of an effective SEO strategy. By producing fresh and relevant content, you can improve your search rankings, attract more traffic, increase user engagement, and ultimately grow your online presence.

Boost Your Visibility and Attract More Traffic to Your Instagram Profile: Discover the Secrets to Increasing Your SEO Discoverability on Instagram!

Instagram SEO means optimizing your Instagram content to be discovered in search results. When someone searches for a relevant keyword or hashtag in the Instagram search box, you want your account or content to appear near the top of the list. Are you looking to increase the discoverability of your business on Instagram? If so, then incorporating some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies can help. Here are a few tips to get started:

Use relevant and popular hashtags: Hashtags are a great way to increase the visibility of your posts on Instagram. When adding hashtags to your posts, make sure to include ones that are relevant to your business and popular within your industry. This will help more users discover your content and potentially engage with it.
Optimize your profile: Your Instagram profile is like a virtual storefront for your business. Make sure to include keywords in your profile name and bio that describe your business and the products or services you offer. This will help users searching for those keywords find your profile more easily. Your bio is a great place to add keywords that you want to rank for. You can use this space to describe your business with relevant secondary keywords.
Engage with your audience: Instagram is a social platform, which means that engagement is key. Comment on other users’ posts, reply to comments on your own posts, and use Instagram’s “Stories” feature to keep your followers engaged and coming back for more. The more engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to share your content and help increase its discoverability.
Use relevant keywords in your captions: The text in your post captions is another opportunity to incorporate keywords and increase discoverability. When writing captions, think about the words and phrases that users might search for when looking for businesses like yours. Using these keywords in your captions can help your posts show up in more search results.
Encourage Tagging. Another way to boost discoverability on Instagram is by getting tagged. When people tag your account in their posts or Instagram Stories, others will be able to click through to your profile. So, there’s a good chance you can attract an even bigger audience the more you get tagged

One thing to note is that getting found on Instagram doesn’t work like on popular search engines such as Google. For one, hashtags make more of a difference than keywords do, although keywords still play a small role.

At the same time, adding hashtags to your bio won’t help your account show up in searches for said hashtags. Also, incorporating keywords into your profile name and Instagram handle improves your discoverability more than adding them to your content.

Overall, incorporating SEO strategies into your Instagram marketing efforts can help increase the discoverability of your business and attract more potential customers. By optimizing your profile, using relevant hashtags and keywords, and engaging with your audience, you can help more users find and connect with your business on Instagram.

Google My Business Benefits for SMB in 2022

Make sure you register your SMB (Small Business) website with Google My Business. Search Engines like Google are the new yellow pages.

Registering your site with Google My Business (GMB) should be #1 priority (particularly if you’re starting a brand new business). Doing so can give your business a quick win by helping it appear in relevant geographic search results — within just a couple of weeks. Industry stats show that people who see your “Google My Business” listing will click through to your website, and will call your business directly. Google My Business listing can also drive local SEO success for small businesses, pretty much guaranteeing visibility on Google Maps and Google Search. Make it easier to reach product or service escape velocity with the power of Google search and Google My Business.

Your GMB listing gives potential clients easy access to your hours of operation, phone number, website and directions with a click of a button—all at no cost to you. As zero-click searches become more and more prevalent, having a means to represent your business in search engine results pages (SERPs) is essential. Without a Google My Business listing, you could miss out on converting customers at the earliest stage!

Google Search Console adds Page Experience Report

Looks like the Google Search Console “Page Experience” report is going to be pushed out and delayed until mid-June and the end of August.

So what’s the Page Experience Report In Search Console? The new report combines the existing Core Web Vitals report with other “components of the page experience signals,” Google said. So this report also tells you if your pages are over HTTPS, are they mobile friendliness, do they not have intrusive interstitial, and the current status of safe browsing on those pages.

the Page Experience update will see Google’s Core Web Vitals become more influential elements in search ranking. The 3 vitals include:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This element measures loading performance and how fast the key visual elements of your pages become available for the user after clicking through.
First Input Delay (FID) – Similar to LCP, FID measures how long it takes for your page to become interactive, so users can click and search.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – This element measures visual stability.

The Search Performance report is also getting the ability to filter pages with good page experience to let site owners keep track of how those pages compare to other pages on the same site. This is a good thing and will help in configuring and tweaking your website funnel!