The most challenging part of starting your Shopify dropshipping stores is driving traffic to your online store. If you don’t have a big budget to spend on advertising, you will need to pursue the free traffic method for your Shopify dropshipping stores.
The free traffic method itself will require you to invest your time and energy to make it work. It’s highly recommended to start using organic traffic, especially if you’re tight on a budget initially. There’re so many ways to drive free traffic to your online store. Some organic methods can send the free traffic faster while others take longer.
Kindly note that free traffic requires you to be patient. It’s not instant traffic like paid advertising. It would be best if you were consistent to make it work and get results.
Free Traffic Method for Shopify Dropshipping Stores
This blog post will share 12 free traffic methods to drive organic traffic to your Shopify dropshipping store.
1. Affiliate Partnership or Collaboration Method
You can drive organic traffic to your online store by collaborating with an influencer on your niche using affiliate partnerships. This method will be effective if you find tiny influencers with low followers (< 10K).
Tiny influencers (followers < 10K) will be more open to doing affiliate partnerships in which the influencer will earn affiliate sales commission only if they can drive a sale. This way, you don’t have to pay money upfront to the influencer to do a shoutout.
In some cases, you will find untapped influencers with followers above 10K but willing to do affiliate partnerships. This only can be achieved if the influencers have never done a shoutout before. Hence, they will welcome doing an affiliate partnership with you.
I have implemented this method on my Shopify dropshipping store using collaboration with an artist. I used different approaches by collaborating with artists who can make 2D artwork/ cartoon animation on Instagram and Youtube by selling print-on-demand merch from their artwork. This collaboration method uses affiliate partnerships where the artist will promote the merch to their audiences. This method allows me to drive free organic traffic and sales to my dropshipping store without spending any money on ads.
Implementing this method means you will need to pitch many influencers to get “YES.” It’s about the number of games. To track affiliate sales generated by the influencer, you can install free Shopify apps such as Affiliate Go Pro. Then, you can approach an influencer on Instagram, Youtube, Tik Tok, and Twitter and make an affiliate partnership with them.
2. Growing Instagram Page Organically
You can also use an Instagram page to drive organic traffic besides driving traffic through collaboration with the influencer. This method will require you to be consistent and patient to grow your Instagram page organically.
You will need to create an Instagram page for your niche dropshipping store and share valuable content on your IG page to attract followers. Start by providing helpful information on your niche and educating your followers. This method will work effectively to build a niche brand dropshipping store and build your authority in that niche. However, don’t use this method in a general dropshipping store.
Using the different hashtags on your Instagram post will be very important to help your post reach a wider audience and hit the explore page while also being active on your IG stories and reels. Doing Instagram marketing properly by utilizing hashtags, great content, and post consistently on Instagram will help to grow your followers time by time. Catcurio is a cat dropshipping store that does a great job building its Instagram following organically, as seen from the picture below.
Catcurio posts funny cat memes to build their followers organically and turn them into customers. This way, Catcurio can drive an organic sale to their Shopify dropshipping store without having to spend any money on Instagram ads or shoutouts.
If you’re serious with your Instagram marketing, I recommend investing in a scheduling tool to automate your Instagram post and stories. So, you don’t need to be actively on-time posting manually on Instagram.
3. Niche Forum Marketing
You may be surprised that driving organic sales from forum marketing is possible even for eCommerce stores. But unfortunately, many eCommerce store owners overlook the power of niche forum marketing to drive free traffic to their online stores.
You can build a niche dropshipping store in which you’re passionate and have knowledge. Then, you can participate in a niche forum by providing valuable and helpful answers for the forum members. Over time, you will be recognized as an authority figure in your niche.
Several members on the forum will notice you as an expert figure in your niche, and they will start looking at your dropshipping store and purchase products from your store because they trust you as an expert. Are you still wondering how to drive free traffic to your dropshipping store from the forum? Well, ensure that the forum you want to join has a signature at the bottom of your post.
A signature is basically like your card identity when commenting on the forum. There will be a line under your post to promote anything about your business. In this case, it will be your dropshipping store. Let’s see an example of a forum member below who promotes his eCommerce store selling fishing products on his signature line. The same thing you will do for your dropshipping store.
You will need to be active in the forum by answering questions or creating a thread by sharing valuable information on your niche. This way, people will start looking at your signature line and buying your eCommerce store’s product. You can find your niche forum by searching on Google with these search terms such as a fishing forum, traveling forum, cooking forum, fitness forum, etc.
4. Join Facebook Group on Your Niche and Provide value
Usually, what people do to advertise on Facebook is by running Facebook ads. But, here, we will discuss free traffic strategies on Facebook. Yes! It’s still possible to drive organic traffic to your dropshipping store using Facebook. However, I would like to advise the only best recommendation is to use the Facebook group.
The way you will drive free traffic from the Facebook group is not by spamming your online store link on your Facebook post. However, if you link to your online store on the Facebook group, you will be banned by the group moderator.
The best way to do organic Facebook marketing is to provide value to the group. For example, let’s say you’re running a cooking niche dropshipping store. You need to find a Facebook group related to cooking, meals, and recipes. One of the Facebook groups, “recipes & home cook meals,” can join and provide value.
You will represent yourself as an authority and helpful person in the Facebook group. This way, other Facebook group members will start recognizing and trusting you to become curious about you and check your Facebook personal profile.
Here comes the essential part of doing organic Facebook marketing. First, you will need to optimize your Facebook profile by putting your dropshipping store link on your bio profile. So when people check your Facebook profile, they will click to check your online store and buy the product from your store because they trust you as an expert.
In some cases, if you have become an authority figure in the group, other Facebook group members will start to chat with you, seeking personal advice. This way, you can provide them with a solution to their problem by recommending the product to your dropshipping store. This is the only legit way to drive free traffic to your eCommerce store.
5. Create Free Ebook and Slideshare to Promote Your Product
You maybe never think that writing a free ebook can drive free traffic to your online store. You can write a free ebook about the product review. Then, you can sell the ebook for free on Amazon KDP, Gumroad, and PDF Drive. The free ebook will trigger people to download and read it. This way, you can drive free traffic from ebook to your shipping store. You can make the ebook on Ms word or Canva.
The same thing with Slideshare, you can create a short PDF presentation explaining the product benefit or best product in specific categories. Then upload your short presentation on Slideshare to rank for a long-tail keyword with a low competition keyword. For example, you can see a Slideshare presentation about the best fishing rod.
Slideshare presentation ranks pretty well on Google SERP due to the high domain authority of the website. So, when people find your slide presentation on Google and read it, they will click the product or store link on your slide presentation, which is directed to your dropshipping store. Here you will get free traffic to your dropshipping store.
6. SEO Product Page Optimization and SEO Optimized Blog
Getting passive free traffic from Google SEO is the best organic traffic for your dropshipping store. In addition, you can rank your product page with low competition keywords to increase the chance of your product page ranking higher on Google SERP.
This is what Mug Dom did to rank all print-on-demand mugs on Google. Mug Dom targets low competition keywords such as Accountant Mugs to rank their collection page on page one Google, as shown in the picture below.
Suppose you’re serious about building passive free traffic to your dropshipping store. Then, I recommend you create your blog section for your online stores. This way, you can make content marketing to rank your blog post on Google SERP and educate the audience to buy the product in your store. For example, mug Dom is doing a great job creating a blog section to give a gift recommendation for each month, their personalized mug, as shown in the picture below.
Building content is not enough to acquire free traffic from Google SEO. You will need to build good quality backlink (Off-page SEO) to your dropshipping store to increase your domain authority besides working on the on-page SEO for the product pages and blog posts.
SEO only consists of two things building content and backlink. Therefore, it will be an excellent idea for an eCommerce store to build blog content to rank on Google and simultaneously build backlinks to your content. This way, you can post guests on other people’s blogs related to your niche and get a backlink to your blog content. However, some guest posts may not allow you to backlink to your product page directly. Hence building a blog section for your eCommerce store will be the best way.
You can also host a round-up expert to collect opinions about specific topics. Those expert bloggers will put their ideas on your blog post and link each thought to their blog. This method will allow you to connect with other bloggers in your niche.
When the round-up expert blog post is launched, you can share the blog post link with all experts participating in the round-up. Mostly they will share your blog post link on their social media, emails, or blog post. Hence you will get a backlink from several websites, which will increase your domain authority.
After the round-up expert is done, you can pitch them to become guest authors on their blog. Since they know you already, you will be more likely to be accepted as a guest author after round-up expert.
It’s also a good practice to read the latest Google BERT update to keep you relevant with the Google SEO update.
7. Quora Questions and Answers
Quora is the biggest questions and answers site. Unfortunately, many marketers still overlook the power of Quora marketing. You can drive organic traffic to your dropshipping store by putting a link to your answers.
You can answer specific questions about products or problem solving, then recommend the product on your dropshipping store. Ensure to give value to your answer with a structured explanation, don’t spam all your answers with a link. You can put a link to your dropshipping store with no more than one link in every five questions you answer to avoid Quora deleting your answers.
You can A/B test by answering the latest and popular questions to see which can bring the most traffic to your dropshipping store. Here is an example of a Quora answer recommending the best frying pan you can use in your kitchen. The person put the link to her Amazon store.
I want to recommend you start answering Quora questions on the first week without putting any link yet,
and then on the next week, you can start putting one link for every five questions you answer. You can also answer a wider variety of questions, not only about your dropshipping store. This way, your Quora account will be safe from Quora moderation. Here you can read my personal story of how I used Quora to crack my first affiliate sale in my blog Ebiz Strategic.
8. Youtube Free Traffic
Youtube is the second largest search engine on the internet. Therefore, you will be missing a big opportunity if you don’t utilize Youtube yet to drive free traffic to your dropshipping store.
Some people may be confused about how drop shipping stores should create video content on Youtube to promote the products. However, the key to driving free traffic from Youtube is creating a Youtube channel for your dropshipping store and ranking the video on Youtube.
Odditymall is an example of the dropshipping store using Youtube to drive free traffic to their store. Odditymall compiles all the video clips of products, whether from AliExpress, Tik Tok, or Etsy. Then, reuploads it on their Youtube channel. Odditymall also put a credit on their Youtube video description where is the video source as can be seen from the picture below. In this case, the video was taken from Tik Tok.
You can also create content using a slide presentation and record your screen using OBS Studio, like explaining the product’s benefit, features, and how the product can solve problems and improve people’s lives if you don’t want to create a slide presentation using your voice.
The other option is using video software to compile video clips from the internet and put a robot voice-over. Then, you can build content to educate your viewers without showing your face and offer them products on your dropshipping store. So, there are several options to go in terms of creating video content for your dropshipping store. But, first, you need to choose which one is more convenient for you.
9. Build Subreddit on Your Niche
Reddit is the biggest forum on the internet, where all people worldwide come to interact with other Redditors. According to Similar Web, Reddit has 1.5 monthly visitors on average. This is huge!! You will regret it if you don’t try to drive free traffic from this largest forum community in the world.
I don’t think you will drive traffic to your online store by putting your store link on your Reddit post because you will quickly get banned by the Subreddit moderator.
So what will you do to drive free traffic from Reddit? There are several ways you can do to drive organic traffic. First, you can join several Subreddit related to your niche and be active in providing valuable information. Some Redditors will be curious about you because you provide value, and they will check your Reddit profile. This way, you can drive free traffic to your eCommerce store by putting your store link in your Reddit profile.
The second way to drive free traffic to your online store is by building your Subreddit. Having your Subreddit will allow you to set up the welcome message to put your dropshipping store link there. So, every time new Redditor join your Subreddit, they will receive a welcome message which contains a link to your dropshipping store.
Having a Subreddit will also allow you to put a stickied post on the top of your Subreddit home page, so other Redditors who come to your Subreddit will check your sticky post, which links to your site, as can be seen from the picture below. So while being active on other Subreddits by providing value, you will also build your Subreddit to have more control in driving free traffic to your dropshipping store.
10. Blog commenting
Some of you may be thinking that blog commenting is dead. But, it’s still working until now only if you put valuable comments related to the blog post. But unfortunately, many people are spamming by commenting on other people’s blogs by writing something irrelevant or even only putting links without leaving a valuable comment.
Suppose you want to promote your eCommerce store by commenting on others’ blogs. You should respond to the blog topic by providing a valuable comment so that the blog admin will approve your comment. You don’t have to put your online store link on your blog comment. In some cases, the blog owner will delete your answer because it will be considered self-promotion.
The best approach to drive free traffic from blog commenting is putting valuable comments, so when the blog visitors read your comment, they will be curious to know you by clicking your profile which will be linked back to your dropshipping store. Kindly note that you will need to fill in your name and website URL whenever you comment on others’ blogs.
11. Pinterest Product Pins and Article Pins
Pinterest is considered untapped for dropshipping stores. Many eCommerce store owners haven’t utilized Pinterest yet maximally as a visual search engine. Hence, you will see that eCommerce stores only focus on their product pins to drive free traffic to their dropshipping store. Here is the example of Shopify dropshipping store Jullymart, which uses Pinterest product pins to drive free traffic to their store.
It will also be great if the dropshipping store owner creates article pins from their blog. So, the free traffic will be from product search and informational queries. Some Pinterest users will find your article pin and click the pin to read the article. In the article, you will recommend the product in your dropshipping store.
Besides, the biggest traffic contribution from Pinterest to your website is actually through article pins, so if you run your dropshipping store. It will be great if you have your blog section in your store. So you can do Pinterest marketing to drive traffic to your blog also. You can read this tutorial if you want to start your blog step by step, especially on WordPress.
Ensure to use your Pinterest business account and claim your domain website. You will need to install a Pinterest code to your website to activate the product pin. If you use Shopify as your eCommerce platform, you need to install Pinterest apps that automatically activate the product pin on your Pinterest account.
Optimizing your board title and pin product title with keyword recommendations from the Pinterest search box will help your pin rank and be found by Pinterest users. It will be great if the eCommerce store creates article pins for their blog on Pinterest. A blog can help boost the traffic and sale to their site using Pinterest.
12. Medium Traffic
The medium can be a powerful platform to hijack free traffic to your online store. However, I realized many eCommerce store owners hadn’t utilized this website to drive organic traffic to their store.
Medium is a free blogging platform that is free from any ads. The great thing about Medium is the high domain authority (DA 95). So what does it mean for you? It means you can leverage your blog post to rank on page one Google SERP and hijack the free traffic.
I recommend you write a blog post about any topics on your niche to promote your eCommerce store. For example, you can write an article about how-to, best [product], top [product], cheap [product], where to buy, etc. Those articles will educate people, and you will link them back to your eCommerce store.
One example from the Macsources blog on Medium promotes their website by putting backlinks on their medium article, as seen from the picture below.
You can also drive free traffic to your online store from Medium by putting your eCommerce store link at the footer of your article, such as “Originally published at youronlinestore.com. For more information, visit your social media pages Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest.”
But, kindly keep in mind don’t spam all your articles by sending a backlink to your eCommerce store since Medium will flag your store as spam and de-index your medium article from Google SERP.
In Conclusion
In a nutshell, there’re so many free traffic methods that you can implement to drive free traffic to your Shopify dropshipping store. I recommend you consistently focus on 2-3 free traffic sources until seeing results. Then, you can expand to another free traffic source to diversify your traffic. It’s called omnichannel marketing.
Implementing a free traffic method to your Shopify dropshipping store requires patience and consistency. This is the key to crushing it using organic traffic. Unfortunately, most people will not be patient enough and give up too early before seeing any traction coming to their store.
I hope you enjoy my blog post about the free traffic method for Shopify dropshipping stores. Let me know if you have any questions. Kindly drop a comment below. Thank you!
Enjoy this blog post? Bookmark and share it on social media!
