Drive Traffic to Your Website Using Reddit
In this article we discuss how entrepreneurs and business owners can use Reddit, an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members on Reddit submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Links that are upvoted the most are placed on the front page of Reddit. Placement on the front-page guarantees a staggering amount of traffic to your website or online store. However being upvoted to the front page requires your site to have unique, valuable and unbelievable content. This is a short coming for many product and service oriented online businesses.
Thus a different approach is required for e-commerce businesses. E-commerce business can make use of subreddits. Subreddits are parts of Reddit devoted to a specific topic, industry or niche. For example, the subreddit /r/gaming (for questions, feedback, and help regarding gaming) would delete a post or link about a computers, which belongs in /r/computers. In essence a subreddit is like a niche forum. It is is easier to reach the front/top of a subreddit then it is to reach the front-page of Reddit.
Subreddits have the following characteristics:
– they have specific subreddit rules
– they have moderators for each subreddit
– they have voting systems for links, posts and comments that depend on the subreddit theme
– Anyone can create a subreddit (free) and make it public or private.
– subreddits that post or receive at least 5 comments per day are considered ‘active’
– subreddits that do not post or receive more then 5 comments per day are omitted from reddit’s community count.
Some tips on the content to post in a subreddit:
– use unique and catch titles for your blog or content page
– use colourful and good quality images
– content should be interesting and informative
Businesses can make use of subreddits by posting links containing unique or valuable information from their website, in subreddit categories closely aligned with their business activities. Turn this link into a discussion by engaging Redditors who comment by offering more insight or advice. This link is now more than a gateway to traffic and possible conversions; it has now become a valuable authority for the topic posted as a link.
Furthermore, traffic to your website will be extremely targeted because only users interested in your niche would engage with your subreddit.
Participating in subreddits that are relevant to your business enable one to obtain a grasp of the style and functionality of subreddits.
Another purpose of subreddits is that they allow business owners and entrepreneurs to obtain regular good ideas in order to remain competitive. Each of the subreddit communities provide content, inspiration and allow engagement which enable your business to solve problems, grow traffic and remain abreast of the best business practices. Finding subreddits of your target market, enable your business to learn more about potential customers/audience and how to solve problems for these customers.
Reddit has a subreddit search feature at reddit.com/subreddits, that allows for easy search of subreddit communities. Each subreddit search produces numerous results. Many of these results will be applicable to your business niche or industry. Closely inspect search results that are related your niche and ignore or discard unrelated search results. On investigating the appropriateness of a search result, take into consideration the number of subscribers, when the last post was made and the type of content.
The primary goal of using subreddits is to establish your brand or business as an authority for that niche or industry. This will extend the brand ability of your business as well as acting a potential customer referral path.