Driving large amounts of free targeted traffic to your website is pretty hard nowadays without spending money.
Not many people know about Facebook Groups, or if they do they don’t know the untapped potential they have to generate free targeted traffic to your site.
Every generic ‘drive traffic to your site using these X methods’ article will at some point list forums. They will generally offer some recycled advice about leaving a URL in your signature to drive traffic or answer questions to add value.
No doubt you have tried this and got less than satisfactory results.
In this article I will show you two ways to generate hundreds if not thousands of targeted views daily using Facebook Groups and online forums that aren’t even in your niche.
Facebook Groups
On the top of Facebook you have a search bar where it gives you the option to search for people, pages, places, events, apps and groups.
Let’s assume I run a niche site that affiliates various products aimed at backpackers who visit Australia. Using the Facebook search type I type in “Backpacker Australia” and select the result type ‘Groups’.
Just on the first page I have found two highly targeted groups that contain 22,522 members and another one with over 11,376 members. These are basically fish in a barrel waiting to be shot at.
That’s a lot of people.
What’s next?
I first join all the groups with my Facebook account. A lot of groups will be shown as ‘private’, all this means is the admin must approve you before you can join. Depending on the activity of the group it will take less than 24 hours.
My next step is to drop URL links to my site by answering peoples’ questions. People use these groups to ask questions about which blogs to read, hotels to stay in or things to buy for their trip.
For the example above I would provide a legitimate response on the best hostels in Bryon Bay. With it I would link back to my site which reviews the best hotels and hostels in Australia for backpackers.
I can’t answer every question with a link back to my site because people will quickly find out what I am doing and ban me from the group forever. This is not what I want because a group with 22,522 members is a goldmine, and I want me some gold.
I usually use the 80/20 rule with Facebook Groups.
This means 80% of my interaction in the group is in-depth practical advice that makes me come across as an authority on the subject and someone who can be trusted. The other 20% of comments I do the same but place links back to my site.
Whether you sell supplements, clothing or gadgets, there is a Facebook Group for almost every niche that you can join to drive free targeted traffic.
How to make use of forums not in your niche
Every major forum has an off-topic section where users can discuss other topics outside their niche. Take TwoPlusTwo which is the biggest poker forum in the world.
Outside all their poker related categories they have sections on health, travel, computer help, sporting events and even wrestling. The travel section alone has 4,980 threads and over 168,836 posts.
While sites like TripAdvisor don’t allow you to promote your travel site on their forum, most other forums simply won’t care (assuming you don’t spam).
One of my websites is a popular travel site about travelling in Thailand and guess what? There’s a dedicated thread talking about Thailand on TwoPlusTwo which has 52,157 posts and over 3.4 million views!
I need to get me a piece of that pie.
What’s next?
I decided to make a comprehensive post about everything people need to know who are coming to Thailand for the first time. Where to stay, breakdown on cities, the best bars and clubs in the area and how to get around the country.
But that’s not all, when I did create my post I linked several websites including my own.
Forum members can be hard people to impress and if you straight up spam without providing value they will call you out for spamming and you will get banned. But by providing a super detailed post that addresses the needs of many readers, after only a few posts I had established myself as a person of knowledge and trust.
Not only did this get me targeted traffic but all newbies visiting Thailand are redirected to my thread post when asking several questions to use as a ‘start here’ guide.
There are hundreds of forums that have millions of active members with very active off-topic sections in your niche. They all contain thousands of prospects waiting for you to solve their problem
Summary
The key to using Facebook Groups and forums successfully is how you’re perceived by others. If your posts come across as a snake oil salesman then you will end up getting banned, some sites will even permanently block your website URL which is not good for business.
I only stick to a couple of larger forums because I don’t have the time to post on everyone. If you took advantage of several forums that have a huge user base – who needs SEO?
Let me know how you got on with these methods by leaving a comment below.
