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Using Reddit To Generate Traffic

When most businesses think about advertising online, Reddit may not be the first site that comes to mind. But the self-proclaimed “Front page of the internet” gets millions upon millions of unique viewers per month–and from of the biggest opinion-makers on the web. It is a great place to influence the influencers, and as such it is not a place for formal pitches; it is a place to be clever and go big.

Reddit has two types of advertising programs: custom advertising and self-service advertising. In this post, I will be addressing the latter.

Self Service Advertising On Reddit.com

The self-service ads appear at the top of all the pages under the “sponsored headline” section as seen below.

Reddit Ads

Your ad will get a 70×70 image and around 100-150 characters of text to induce a click. The question you have to answer is where you would like the user sent to next. You have two options: one, send them directly to your landing page off of Reddit, or two, send them to another page on Reddit with an embedded text box and any message of your choice with unlimited text and links. This second type of promotion is perfect for adding more details and using a softer pitch. If you are selling the kind of product that sells itself, just send them to your site. If your product requires a bit of a connection or bond, I suggest the “Embedded Text Box.”

Money To Spend On Reddit AdsHow Much Does It Cost?

You can start your ad campaign with as little as $5, but I would not come to the table without at least $300 to test. That should get you around 300,000 impressions as long as you don’t need to GEO target within the United States. If you do need to target a certain area, $300 will net you only around 60,000 impressions, though that is enough to give you a good first impression.

How You Can Target

Unless you are a big brand or have the budget to pitch the general masses, I would stick to “Subreddit & Interest Group Targeting” combined with a GEO location.  There are around 7000 subreddits and nine interest groups to choose from.

Pick wisely and get to know the subreddits and their audiences well before going all in. These groups have leaders, rules, and personalities, and you will benefit from hanging out and reading the threads for awhile before writing your ad copy and picking your thumbnail image.

The Reddit Audience

You might think they Reddit users a bunch of young men with no money, but you would be wrong.  The median age of the visitors is 35 years old, and the median household income is $67,973.30 according to www.nielsen.com. The Reddit media kit states the site currently gets 5.6 billion page views and 114 million unique visitors each month, who spend an average of 14 mins on the site. Those are some impressive numbers, and to top that off, Alexa says the site is number 50 in its Global rankings.

You now know a reasonable amount about advertising on Reddit.com, so consider checking out the site and giving it a try.

Blogger SEO Checklist

If you are going to take the time to create a piece of content for the world you might as well do it right.  I have never been great at writing well as far as human/editorial guidelines, but I do understand what search engines want and how they engage with online content.  Below is a checklist for you to use before you write your next blog post.

  • To Do List:
    • Before You Write
      • Keyword Research.
        • Before you publish your post, do a little keyword research
          • Visit https://adwords.google.com and find out what phrases people are typing into search engines the most in the topic area you are covering.
          • Go to your favorite forum and sort the threads by views and date so you can see the most popular topics of the day, week and month.  This will give you some real insight into what your audience is interested in.
    • While You Write:
      • Make Sure
        • You have 250-300 words, 400-600 is even better if you have talented writers.
        • You have at least one image, with ALT tag and file name using proper labeling.
        • You bold your keywords once in content body text if that is natural.
        • You have at least 1-2 hyperlinks to other content on your site and relevant authority sites in your niche.  (Use proper anchor text.)
        • Top Keyword Phrases Appear in the following locations:
          • Headline & Subheadlines
          • 1st & last Paragraphs
          • Image
            • File Name
            • Alt Tagbed
    • After You Publish:
      • Post link to content on
        • Social profile pages
        • Start A Thread:  Go to a forum and start a post about your article.  Click Here & Here to learn more.
          • Industry Forum: Start A Thread
            • (Provide examples for your staff)
          • Company Forum: Start A Thread
        • Social Bookmarking Site
      • Ask another
        • Blogger for a text link to your post.  (use relevant anchor text)
          • Try and get a link on outside domain.
        • Staff member or friend to leave a comment
        • Staff member or friend to Facebook Like, Tweet, Retweet, or +1 your post.
        • Maximize your Press Coverage:

Remember if you don’t promote yourself no one else will.  The only way to get people to read your content is to make it as easy as possible for them find and see it.  Good luck.

Google Analytics and Tracking URL’s

If you are in need of a free way to track links you use in marketing campaigns, I suggest Google’s URL builder tool.

Google-URL-BuilderWith the Google URL Builder, you can easily tag URLs with custom campaign variables. That way, you can track which of your promotions are generating the most traffic/conversions. For example, consider setting up a unique URL for each banner ad you have on hand-picked industry sites.

This is a powerful tool b/c it enables you to see the ROI on everyone’s marketing efforts.

Fill out the following details: on the page, https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en to start generating tags now.

  • Website URL
    • This is the URL of the page you want the person to go to.
  • Campaign Source
    • Please use the following
      • Location where you are doing the promotion.
        • Example:
          • www.Xing.com
          • bills blog
          • Facebook
          • etc…
  • Campaign Medium
    • What type of campaign is this Example: text link CPC, banner, e-mail, social media link
  • Campaign Term
    • Don’t usually need to use this field; it is normally for (identifying the paid keywords)
  • Campaign Content
    • Use this field to differentiate your ad in some way
      • Examples:
        • You can put the section name where the ad is appearing
        • If this is a link within an e-mail and there are many links you can label the link such as, “Link1” or “Link2.”
  • Campaign Name
    • Product Name, Promo code or even a slogan.

If you are interested in learning more on this topic, I recommend checking out the following sites.  They are full of expert advice on using Google Analytics to its full potential.