How to Use Reddit to Get More Traffic and Build Your Tribe

How to Use Reddit to Get More Traffic and Build Your Tribe

What is Reddit? Users submit links from other sites that are relevant to each specific community. These submissions have the link URLs at the end of the title: Users can also submit what are called text posts or self posts. Redditors can either upvote or downvote each submission. There are general subreddits like /r/fitness and incredibly niche subreddits like /r/bearsdoinghumanthings. There is a subreddit for anything you can think of. But on a subreddit like /r/entrepreneur where in-depth content is king, it’s best to create a long, detailed piece of content just for that subreddit. Step 3: Create your first link submission It’s finally time to submit a link to your site. Here’s what an AMA looks like: An AMA is a perfect opportunity to naturally mention your site or brand, and almost no one will mind. Are you a Reddit user?

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reddit

Reddit is possibly the most intimidating social network in existence.

It’s certainly one of the oddest.

If you’ve never used Reddit before, this probably looks like nonsense to you:

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At the very least, it looks like an early-2,000s message board throwback.

It also has a reputation for having ruthless users.

It’s been the home of several controversial communities, and Reddit users (who are called Redditors) are known to be incredibly harsh to others.

Yet Reddit is an amazing source of traffic generation, and you can use it to grow your following.

How is that possible?

While Reddit looks complex, it’s surprisingly easy to get the hang of.

When I was first introduced to Reddit, I was confused and honestly a little scared.

However, it didn’t take long for me to see the potential of using the site to get traffic.

Reddit has about 51 million unique users and over 1 million communities.

If those statistics don’t blow your mind, listen to this. Redditors are highly engaged––the site has an average bounce rate of just 25%.

That’s not bad for a site with millions and millions of users.

My description might have scared you, but rest assured that Reddit isn’t always a toxic place.

You can use it to get some productive discussions going, but you have to know where to look and what to do.

You’ll have to bring your top content marketing game, and you’ll make some mistakes along the way, but it will help you hone your marketing skills like nothing else.

You can become a valued contributor and get more people to your site. Let’s look at how to do this.

What is Reddit?

Reddit was started in 2005, and since then, it’s grown into a digital juggernaut.

One reason why Reddit’s so big is that it’s partially a huge aggregator.

Users submit links from other sites that are relevant to each specific community. These submissions have the link URLs at the end of the title:

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Users can also submit what are called text posts or self posts. These are original contributions by each user.

You can identify these by the self tag at the end of each submission.

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Text posts enable you to submit your own original content, which is important for driving quality traffic to your site.

Redditors can either upvote or downvote each submission. This concept is called karma.

Having a high karma score will work wonders for your Reddit credibility, so you want to avoid downvotes as much as possible.

As you’ll soon see, the best way to do this is by submitting super valuable content.

One more concept you need to understand is subreddits. A subreddit is a community based around a specific interest.

Each subreddit is identified by the URL structure https://reddit.com/r/subreddit.

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To find a subreddit, replace “subreddit” in the URL with a word or phrase.

There are general subreddits like /r/fitness and incredibly niche subreddits like /r/bearsdoinghumanthings. (Yep, that’s a real subreddit.)

All of this only scratches the surface of Reddit.

To really understand Reddit, you’d have to spend months using it.

I don’t want you to have to wait months to get results, so I’m going to tell you what you need to know to leverage the power of Reddit now.

First, it helps to get acquainted with Reddit, so check out this beginner’s guide to get started. Reddit is more than just a website. It’s a culture of its own.

There are social norms that are different from everyday life, and there’s lots of unique slang and expressions that get tossed around.

Second, you should target specific subreddits in your niche.

There is a subreddit for anything you can think of. You want to post in subreddits that relate to your niche.

Luckily, Reddit has a helpful search feature that allows you to search for subreddits.

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There are two ways to search: by keyword and by name. I recommend using both, and here’s why.

Let’s say you sell cooking accessories. You could start your search by entering the word “cooking” into the two search bars.

Using the first search bar will give you some suggestions:

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But not all of these are accurate. For example, /r/relationships is obviously not related to kitchens at all.

If you search by name, you’ll often get better results:

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Again, not all of these will be relevant, and some might even be inappropriate. You have to filter the results and find the best subreddits for you.

Once you’ve found a handful of subreddits, you can start using Reddit for real.

Step 1: Participate

This first step is one of the most important steps, but unfortunately, it’s also one of the most time-consuming.

You have to start out by participating quite a bit. You’ll have to wait a while to post anything.

Reddit hates marketing. The site is infamous for rejecting any form of sales, and if you go on Reddit right now and try to market your site, you’ll get torn apart in moments.

The site is infamous for rejecting any form of sales, and if you go on Reddit right now and try to market your site, you’ll get torn apart in moments.

You can still use Reddit to get traffic, but you have to walk on eggshells at first.

New accounts are largely distrusted on Reddit. Many people will create accounts and immediately spam their product or service.

In order to gain the trust of the subreddits you’re targeting, you need to start off by posting in them.

It’s a good idea to get a sense of what each subreddit values by clicking on the “Top” tab.

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This will show you the most popular submissions for this particular subreddit.

You can also choose the timeframe by choosing the option in the upper left-hand corner, so you can even see the most popular posts of all time.

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The top results will be different for each subreddit, and they’ll help you understand what kind of content you should post there.

In /r/entrepreneur, the top posts of all time are mostly in-depth articles and case studies written specifically for Reddit.

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