Affiliate marketing can be an incredible way to make money online. But with a more competitive landscape than ever, paid website traffic has become too expensive for most affiliate marketers to rely solely on it.
To build a sustainable business over the long term, you must find ways to generate free traffic for affiliate marketing.
And the best way to do that is by building an audience and constantly feeding it with valuable content to engage it, show your expertise, and convert it for your affiliate offers.
In this article, we’ll explore the 21 easiest ways to do that and get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
If you want to build a profitable affiliate business, read this to the end.
Let’s get to them.
Table of Contents
21 Best Ways to Get Free Traffic for Affiliate Marketing
#1: Write articles and blog posts
The #1 way to bring organic visitors to your site and generate free traffic for affiliate marketing is by publishing blog posts and articles.
By doing so, you’ll also be able to engage them and demonstrate your expertise, making them much more likely to buy your affiliate offers.
There are three ways you can go about creating written content:
- #1: Write your blog posts yourself
- #2: Hire a freelance writer to do it
- #3: Use an AI copywriting tool to create content 2-5x faster
Options two and three are great if you don’t have the time to create content, and they allow you to dedicate more time to other aspects of your business.
If you decide to hire a freelancer, there are many virtual assistant services that you can choose from that fit different budgets and needs.
And if you decide to go with an AI writing tool, there are several options you can choose from as well.
Artificial intelligence has come a long way, and tools like Content at Scale can create content that feels human and bypasses AI writing detectors with a few inputs.
#2: Record a podcast
Podcasts have become increasingly popular as people can listen to them while doing something else, like driving to work or working out.
That creates a fantastic opportunity for you to get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
One of the greatest things about podcasts is that you can interview other people in your industry. This enables you to deliver fantastic content for your followers while leveraging those people’s audiences and networking with big names in your industry.
Another benefit is that listening to your voice makes your audience more connected with you and your brand.
Throughout your podcasts, you can talk about your affiliate offers and how they can help your listeners, usually linking to them in the description.
#3: Do keyword research (and create content accordingly)
When creating content to rank high in search engines, it’s essential to understand which keywords will give you the best odds of succeeding.
You can use keyword research tools like Semrush to look for keywords with high search volume and low competition levels.
You can then optimize your content by following simple strategies such as:
- Adding a keyword ratio between 1 and 2.5%
- Using your keywords in your titles and at the beginning of your content
- Optimizing meta titles, URLs, and descriptions for your keywords
- Etc.
Further reading: Semrush Review – Should You Use this SEO Software?
#4: Use on-page SEO-optimization tools
Besides complete SEO tools like Semrush, you can also use simpler ones like Rank Math, which offers a free plan and gives you an on-page SEO checklist that you can see as you’re writing your content.
Besides displaying the keyword count, it provides you with other easy tips to rank higher, giving them a checkmark once you’ve accomplished them.
Some of those tips include:
- Using your focus keyword in the subheadings
- Having an image with your keyword in the alt attribute
- Adding internal and external links
- Title recommendations
- Etc.
It’ll then give you an optimization score based on your actions.
#5: Optimize your site for mobile
Ensuring your site is optimized for mobile devices is one of the easiest ways to rank higher on search engines, as most web traffic today comes from them.
This also helps you provide a better experience to your site’s visitors, making them more likely to come back and buy your affiliate offers.
When creating your site, make sure to pick a template that’s already optimized for mobile.
Most site creators, including WordPress, also allow you to preview what your site will look like on different devices. Oftentimes, small changes like centralizing your images can greatly impact your mobile visitors’ experience.
#6: Build backlinks
Building backlinks consists of getting other sites to link back to yours, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
Besides bringing you traffic from people clicking those links, having backlinks from reputable sources also increases your score on Google, helping your site rank higher and attract even more organic visitors.
To build backlinks, you can look for articles linking to outdated or lower-quality content similar to yours, which you can easily do with a tool like Semrush. You can also look for posts not linking anywhere but whose readers could benefit from your content.
You can then reach out to their writers with a message highlighting how your content would help their readers and offer to link back to their site in return.
Another way to get backlinks is through guest posts, which leads us to the next strategy.
#7: Write guest posts
Publishing as a guest author on other people’s sites is an excellent way to get exposure to new audiences that might include potential buyers of your affiliate products. While most sites won’t pay you for your guest posts, you can add links to your affiliate offers or your site throughout them.
To find sites that accept guest posts, google terms like “your niche” + write for us. Then, pitch your idea while making sure to follow their guidelines.
Alternatively, you can pitch publications you enjoy and where your audience spends time. If your idea is good, they might accept your offer, even if they don’t mention anything about guest posts on their site.
#8: Partner with other content creators
If you’re an expert in your affiliate marketing niche, many content creators would be happy to let you speak to their audiences.
Some partnership types include writing guest posts on each other’s sites, recording interviews, promoting each other’s products and services, and more.
By doing so, you’ll get to display your links to their followers and have them become part of your audience as well.
#9: Partner with other affiliates (who sell complementary products to yours)
You can also partner with other affiliate marketers who sell different products from yours to a similar audience.
For instance, if you’re in the travel niche, you could partner with an affiliate that focuses on digital nomads who are constantly traveling.
Like with the previous strategy, you can collaborate by creating content for each other or together while promoting your affiliate links.
#10: Create a YouTube channel
With over 120 million daily visits, YouTube is one of the best channels to get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
Just like with other platforms, you should prioritize engagement over conversions at first.
YouTube marketing tools like VidIQ can provide many insights and tools that allow you to make data-driven decisions and save time when growing and managing your channel.
And, if you don’t want to shoot videos yourself, you can use an AI tool like Synthesia to turn written scripts into videos featuring human-based avatars with synthetic voices.
A relatively new video format you can explore is YouTube Shorts, which consists of videos up to one minute long that appear in the Shorts feed. Besides being easy to create, they’ve been gaining a lot of traction lately and now generate over 30 billion daily views, making them perfect for attracting new viewers to your channel.
Check out our Ultimate Guide to YouTube Shorts Ads for Affiliate Marketing
#11: Post on social media
Posting on social media is one of the best ways to get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
Constantly creating social media content can get you in front of more eyeballs and help you build an audience to which you can later promote your offers.
Ideally, you should pick up to three platforms and start with them. To make that choice, consider which platforms your audience spends the most time on and which are better for the products you’re promoting, the content formats you’re using, and the goals you’re trying to achieve.
For instance, TikTok is best for reaching younger audiences, whereas LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal for selling higher-end B2B products and services. Check out our post on How to Make Money With Tiktok.
But how do you optimize your social media strategy to get the best outcomes? That leads us to our next strategy to get free traffic for affiliate marketing.
#12: Use social media optimization tools
Social media optimization tools like Sprout Social can help you drastically improve the outcomes of your SMM efforts.
They provide data, insights, and automation tools that help you do more in less time and make data-driven decisions that’ll take your social media presence to the next level.
For instance, one of Sprout Social’s features lets you create posts for multiple social media platforms simultaneously.
Another feature allows you to follow conversations about your brand to learn more about your customers’ experiences and attitudes towards it, helping you improve your overall business and marketing strategy.
Check out our Sprout Social Review
#13: Create Facebook groups
With Facebook groups, you can put together a group of people with similar views and goals and create an engaged community to promote your affiliate offers.
The greatest thing about them? Many members will create content themselves, helping to increase engagement without requiring your effort.
But that doesn’t mean you should only show up to promote your affiliate offers.
To engage your group and give reasons for new members to get in, make sure to post and interact with relevant content and insights. This will also position you as a subject matter expert and make people more likely to buy your offers.
Besides, Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes group content over content from other pages, which means you’ll get more exposure to your group members than to regular page followers.
#14: Run webinars
Running webinars is a great way to deliver valuable content to your audience while promoting your affiliate products in the process.
You can either run them live or record and show them at specific days and times your audience can choose from.
One of the greatest benefits of webinars is that scheduling them to specific times makes it harder for your audience to procrastinate.
You can use a webinar tool to run webinars like WebinarJam, which provides several features that help you run them and improve your audience’s experience and conversions.
Check our WebinarJam Review
#15: Create a newsletter
With 99% of users checking their email inbox daily (some as much as 20 times per day), creating a newsletter is one of the best ways to cultivate an audience and generate free traffic for affiliate marketing.
To create one, signup for a tool like Mailchimp, which allows you to create an email list, create good-looking emails, schedule them, track your campaign’s outcomes, and more.
You can then add a popup on your site where visitors can subscribe to your newsletter and start planning your content.
Some critical advice when it comes to newsletters includes:
- Delivering valuable content (rather than just pitching your affiliate products)
- Sending emails regularly
- Creating catchy headlines
- Asking people to share your emails
- Etc.
You can then track your outcomes to determine which headlines, topics, and formats are getting the highest open rates, click-through rates, and shares.
#16: Answer questions in large forums (Quora, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, etc.)
Large forums like Quora and Reddit offer a great opportunity to generate free traffic for affiliate marketing.
That’s because they allow you to contact people actively looking for advice related to your products or services.
To convert buyers from those forums, check them regularly. And whenever you come across a question that relates to your offerings, seems to be getting a lot of interest, and that you could give a genuine answer to, take some time to write the best answer you can, highlighting how your affiliate products can help readers solve their problems.
Or, instead of linking to your affiliate offers immediately, you can also link to your site or social media profiles to grow your audience before attempting to convert.
#17: Interact in niche-specific forums
You can use that same strategy in forums targeted at your niche and industry.
In fact, those forums can usually get you even better outcomes than generalist ones as you’ll find more people who are interested in what you’re offering and because they tend to generate more engagement among their members. Check out the Powerhouse Affiliate Forum!
#18: Comment on blog posts
Commenting on other sites while providing valuable insights will allow you to position yourself as a subject matter expert, increase your following, and send leads to your affiliate offers.
You can also get other benefits from this strategy, like getting inspiration for your content and networking with other creators in your niche, which can turn into partnership opportunities.
#19: Classified ads (Craigslist, Hoobly, etc.)
Many affiliate marketers often forget about more traditional (and free) platforms, such as Craigslist, when promoting their offers. That creates a goldmine for those that end up exploring them.
Craigslist alone still drives over 50 billion page views each month, giving you a huge audience that you can advertise to for free.
All you have to do is create an account and start posting ads. Experts recommend posting up to three ads per day, as posting too many will often flag your account and possibly lead to them being removed.
#20: Attend conferences and networking events
Growing your business digitally is great, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t also explore offline venues like networking events and conferences to generate free traffic for affiliate marketing.
Networking in those events is an incredible way to grow your audience and partner with industry leaders and influencers.
When attending them, start conversations with as many people as you can and get them to visit your site or follow you on social media. You can also give speeches and ‘pitch’ to multiple people at once.
#21: Sell to previous buyers
What’s the single easiest way to get free traffic for affiliate marketing?
For most businesses, it’s by promoting products to their previous buyers, as they’ve already established trust, can be easily accessed, and are far more likely to buy from them again.
Many of the strategies we’ve covered so far can be used to keep in touch with previous buyers so you can later promote new products and services to them.
A final piece of advice, though: to get people to buy from you repeatedly, the most important thing is to promote great products that’ll make them glad for following your advice in the first place. This is the time to prioritize product quality over your commission per sale.
Final thoughts
And there you have the 21 easiest ways to generate free traffic for affiliate marketing.
But remember that most require consistency and patience to generate the best outcomes. Pick the ones you feel are the most adequate for your business, and try other ones over time.
By doing so, you’ll be setting your affiliate marketing business on the way to massive success.
Do you know of another strategy that we haven’t covered? Let us know in the comments.
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