13: Traffic To Your Own Site Without Ads

Hello and welcome to the Product Growth Lab podcast hosted by Andrew George and Melissa Pickle. This is the podcast for creative product-based business owners who want to grow their businesses without overwhelm or massive investment. Each episode we explore actionable strategies, real-life stories, and insights from business owners and experts who know what it takes to succeed. Whether you're just starting out or looking to scale, we're here to help you grow your business on your own terms. Subscribe and join us each week as we dive into practical advice and inspiring stories to help fuel Feel your drunk giraffe. This is the Product Growth Lab. Let's get started. Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast. Hey, we are working on episode 3 of like the Wily Betsy series going on here, and today is one of the most exciting bits and probably also the scariest for most people, and that is how to drive traffic to your store without ads, which is the fun part because But the good news is you don't need ads to do it.

There is so much organic traffic out there and any strategy, even a strategy that has ads, should combine ads with some organic traffic. Absolutely. We've spoken a lot. I've done a whole summit about it. We've done events. We've done a lot of stuff where we talk about traffic. And one of the things I bring up time and time again. Is the 4 different buckets of traffic. And you should have a social source of traffic, relationship source of traffic, paid source of traffic, and search. Social, social and search are— and I suppose relationship as well— are like your nat ads. And then we'll find a much easier, nicer way to explain that, but here we are. But having something from each of the 4 buckets. And that is what I always recommend. And we also say, do not come into a fresh business and decide, okay, I'm gonna do all 4 from day 1. You start slow and stack.

Hey, you've got 4 buckets right there. If you think about it over the course of a year, if you dedicate 1 quarter of each year to one of those buckets and stacking on, by the end of the year you got 4.

Yeah. That's pretty nice. And I think I think it is getting a little bit harder to say have one social platform because things keep changing, things are shifting a little bit, platforms are coming and going, and there's all these algorithm changes. And maybe if you were on Twitter when it changed to X, there was like a massive exodus of people and you could have lost that traffic source. So sometimes you do need to add some extra in there, but I think having one main platform and then you syndicate out, you have your like repurposing strategy, which that is made easier with AI. And then should shit hit the fan, suddenly Instagram disappears tomorrow, you're like, okay, I have a bit of a base following and some base content over on platform B, and I can just move in there and kind of cater my content a little bit more towards that.

All right, so today we are going to be going over— stay tuned here for the best organic traffic sources for handmade businesses. We're gonna go over how to use Pinterest for long-term traffic, how to leverage social media effectively without having to post 24/7, and finally, how to get found on Google with simple keyword here, simple SEO. All right, let's go. So first we gotta get outta the way here is we talked about like we're all, this is without ads. Why without ads? Because paid ads aren't always the answer. And they work. They totally can work, but only if you know that everything works first. Paid ads are an accelerator and they burn money no matter what. Okay, so if your offer is good, it's going to burn your money in the ads and you're going to get it back. But if your offer or your conversion, your pages are bad and you put ad money on it and it throws traffic at it, you're going to make a bad converting page probably convert worse. I know most people think if I just get enough traffic hitting my page, it'll work. And ads will get me the traffic. But you gotta know that you got your ads set up correctly. They're going to the right people. They have a message on them that people wanna click on or an image that they wanna click on, and they land on a page that the person's interested in taking an action on. That's a lot of steps on something you're throwing money at. So if you're not willing to straight burn your money, don't go ads. Now I will say, get it outta the way with ads. If you have something that is working really well on Audiance, You can supplement and boost and encourage growth on that with ads. And that's all we're going to talk about with ads today. Sound good, Andrew?

Yeah. Ads make a bad product fail faster. How far, when you start with ads, is data? It either tells you, oh, and it's difficult because it's like sometimes the data can tell you, okay, this works, the product is great, and I have great ads. Sometimes your product can suck. But your ads are great. Sometimes your products are great, but your ads— like, it's hard to figure that out.

So many variables.

And that's a whole thing. So what we're focused on is the other 3 parts of the equation. And there are so many there, but I think the main ones we'll focus on today are Pinterest. It's the one— I can hear people groaning as I say it, but it has been there forever. There's always the, oh, Pinterest is— no, it's always been there. And the people who make use of it and who've adapted with it over time and keep getting traffic over the long term, and it's a great traffic source for them. So it's totally something to focus on. And then if you're like me, and I think Melissa as well, it's like one of the things that's on your list to get to eventually and it just never happens. So we're going to tell you why. Maybe move up the list. We're going to talk about Google search, that kind of SEO, great long-term sustainable-ish until they make some changes. Strategy. We're going to talk about social media. Of course, that's the first thing everyone thinks of when they think of organic traffic. And of course, I want— I wouldn't be me if I didn't sprinkle in some email marketing in there too.

That's kind of relationship building right there, is email marketing. I feel like it at least fits in that relationship bucket. Yeah. Case could be made.

But if you're worried that Like you think, okay, no one has successful business without spending a ton of money. It's not true. I've done it. I've never spent money on a single penny on ads. I think I boosted one Facebook post. Most of our assets went in ads, but our clients, I don't think any of them spent money on ads either.

I boosted a post, that's about it. Yeah.

We all have businesses that we've grown to a level that like you might want to go to too. So. Totally, you can grow your traffic, you can have sales coming in every day, you can have collections that sell out, you can have like the sellout Black Friday that makes you wonder why you ever started a business because you're just dropping orders. Like, you can do all of that in a totally organic way because I've been there and I've tried.

So everyone says, I want 100 orders a day, until they get it and they go Yeah, totally.

You can have, uh, cry on the floor, want to go out your business level of orders completely organically. So Pinterest is the first thing I want to chat about, and we don't all have a great year telling you to get on Pinterest as a great traffic source because I have been super inconsistent with this. I do it, I'd like get behind it for a week and then it's abandoned for another 3 years.

I will be relaunching my Pinterest. Yeah.

And it's one of those weird platforms that it's, it's a bit socially, it's a bit search engine-y. It's hard to put it in a bucket. I think some people think—

it's a bit too scrolly.

Yeah, it works a bit like social media, but it is a search-based platform and you can have links. Like, it is pretty separate from a social media platform, but it's more social than Google is. Somewhere in between. And I think people, because most people are on social media and they kind of think, if I think about social media, I focus on Instagram, so I'm not doing there. And if they're focusing on SEO, they're probably focusing on Google, so I won't do Pinterest. And it ends up getting ignored because it is this weird in-between platform.

But the great thing with Pinterest is like Google stuff doesn't die. Since it's search-based instead of what's the newest thing out there, your stuff has a chance of living for years versus the only time your stuff lives for years on social media, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, any of that, is if you go viral. And even then, it might be a good luck on it getting to last for years. Think of Pinterest much more in the same vein as thinking of YouTube. You don't need to create videos for all of it. Yeah.

Also, much like everything else that has had this short-form video introduced, those do perform well. It's the short-form video is hard to escape at the moment, but we'll see how that goes long-term. But the basics of Pinterest, and these are like the tried and tested truths that even a non-expert can tell you works, is make sure you have some really great quality product images and focus more on the kind of lifestyle photos. Does this fit into a lifestyle? How are people using it? Having people in your images and making sure that you include keywords in your pin titles and descriptions, and making sure that you pin consistently. A pin or two every day is a great way to get started. And because Well, no, I think you have to have a link on Pinterest. It's not even just, uh, you think you need to post a pin. They're a really great way to drive traffic over to your store, and they also, if you integrate with Shopify, they have a really great way of tracking that traffic, which is really nice.

They have a really fantastic integration with Shopify. I know when I grew a brand to a million monthly views on Pinterest, which doesn't like— it sounds impressive but doesn't actually mean that much because they didn't put any of their own unique content up, so it didn't go anywhere. But at that point, I was doing 5 posts a day.

Yeah, I don't think you do that anymore. I think you can post less than you want. Such— Pinterest used to be like this serious, like, you need specific software, you need a strategy, you need to be in there every day and having all this type of content. I think it has become a slightly more simplified, streamlined kind of platform to work with, um, and you can simplify a little bit.. And I think it's a good thing to say, okay, just get started, batch up a bunch of pins, schedule them in whatever scheduling software you're using, or I think you can schedule on Pinterest, or just set yourself a reminder to go in and do it organically, because I think that does help on Pinterest. And just start getting some stuff up. You aren't going to see results overnight on Pinterest. You aren't going to see results overnight anywhere. Start doing it. And I think over time you'll start to see a growth in traffic on Pinterest.

You're looking at 60 to 120 days really to get your growth on Pinterest, which makes seasonal collections difficult. If you're doing seasonal collections to where, if you're like Andrew and you repeat the same seasonal collection, it's fine. It's easy. Content's up there. Great. If you're like me and it's next week, I'm going to do a Christmas collection. Not very good.

Yeah, making sure that whenever a collection goes, that you're sending that traffic over to somewhere that gives them something relevant and related. If that soap, the Christmasy soap scent, is gone, you're taking them to your other more seasonal, seasonal soap selections instead, so you can keep using those clicks over time.

Yep. All right, so Pinterest, which we just said is very SEO, very Pinterest is about pretty pictures, easy readability on those pretty pictures, and keywords, long tail keywords, your pin titles and everything else. So from there, we're going to move right on down to Google search, which is all keywords. This is what Andrew's much better at than me.

And I wouldn't call myself an expert here, but it's something I have put some time and effort into, and I do see results from it. I'm trying to think, what year would it have been? I think It might have been 2020, like it could— yeah, probably around 4 or 5 years ago is when I did a lot of these SEO strategies, started taking a bit more effort. And I'm seeing the results of that today. Like the past couple of months, I've seen a nice upturn in the amount of sales that I get that can be traced back to a Google search. So it is that long-term strategy and it is even though I did it all that time ago, it's still working. So it's a nice long-term strategy in your store. And although it might be a bit more work upfront, I think it's worth it if you can say 4 or 5 years later that I'm still getting results from it. How often can you say that about other traffic sources?

That is almost a set it and forget it right there.

I thought I was doing better, but I keep running out of breath.

So So when you're looking with your product pages at Google SEO and all that, so you want to make sure your product titles are keyworded. You want to make sure your meta descriptions, your product descriptions have keywords sprinkled throughout them. And you want to make sure that your images have, are named keyword-friendly things. Right, Andrew?

Yeah, those are like the, those like kind of nice basic things, the things that you can focus on. And I think some of the tips there are. Like when it comes to product images, make sure that you title your images in a keyword-friendly way before you upload them is the easiest way to do this. And for some platforms, yeah, they don't let you change it. What it just, it saves as what I was uploading as. Um, Shopify lets you change it now, but that's a recent kind of update, but I don't think WordPress slash WooCommerce, whatever you want to call it. Um, let's see, change those at all. So doing that before you upload your images, making sure that your titles are keyword researched, and getting things in the description. And those are really the main things to focus on. And skip any of the weird kind of tactics that you see online that are like, do this or use these tags. Like, most of that, it means nothing. If it sounds like a weird kind of trick, it's probably nonsense. Actually, someone who's really good at dispelling the whole kind of— they aren't focused specifically on like e-commerce, so you won't get suited for that. If you go to Nikki Pilkington, which is N-I-K-K-I P-I-L-K-I-N-G, T-O-N, but she has these SEO myths debunked posts that are like all of the things you might hear online, and she's just, no. She's probably blunt and a little sweety, so if you don't like that, maybe not the best person to follow, but really good at going, this is nonsense.

All right, so definitely go check out, uh, if you're worried about what kind of keywords to use, here's a quick tip. You could use Google's free Keyword Planner to get started, at least so you have some kind of knowledge going into with your keywords that you do. So they have a free keyword planner, very simple to use, and it's going to give you a base idea on at least you can put a keyword and be like, does it get any searches a month? Or does it have a gazillion? Because you don't want to be at the zero and you definitely don't want to be at the gazillion. You're never going to rank. But if you find things that are in, what would you say is a good number to start at, Andrew? 30 to 500?

Yeah, like 150 to 300 if you're just starting out trying to write. I think that would be a good Place to start.

Because the thing with keywords that people— that don't have a ton of searches mean that big brands with sophisticated systems probably aren't going to target those words that much, which means you have a chance of getting a higher result in the search results. All right. And I totally didn't realize that I 100% jumped over. Social media. So let's talk about here social media and without burnout, like what kind of stuff actually works to get you progress on social media without you having to be on it 24/7 and doing stupid things?

Yeah. The first kind of thing to throw out is the quantity over quality thing. The, the, yeah, to post daily. Sure, if you're just gonna post junk and nonsense that no one cares about, it doesn't do you any good. You're just flooding. So like, there are enough social media posts in a day. You don't need more of your kind of junky posts out there. Spend the time and create some decent content that people are gonna interact with. I think people often worry like, I post every single day, but I don't get a ton of followers and no one interacts with my posts. Look on your own feed and be like, okay, if you were your customer, would you like your stuff? Would you leave a comment? And 9 times out of 10, if you— when I ask someone that, they're like, well, no. So how can you expect anyone else to? And I think there's a ton of, especially with AI, and there's all these like prompt things out there that there— it's easy to come up with a bunch of content, but how How much is anyone really interested in it?

How relevant is it?

Yeah. Like I know, I think a lot of it comes from like the coaches and stuff where it's okay, it's super attractive for you all to go, here's how you can create 100 posts in a minute and I'll show you like the Canva bulk create thing and you get some quotes, but no one cares about the 100 quote posts you're about to post after that. It sounds really good for me to tell you how you can get all these posts. But they need to— you need to do something with it. You need to— if you're going to post a quote, why is that relevant to your audience? Use your caption to get back to some sort of point, because just the random quote with no real point, I don't really care.

Or maybe put it in a carousel with a quote and maybe your reaction to the quote and a product pic.

Yeah, just that kind of random posting doesn't get you anywhere. So focus on high-quality posts that get engagement posts that if you were to see it, you would like it, you would leave a comment. Kind of just like, yeah, if it's like really good stuff that you want to share, that's another great one. A good kind of measure to go is, would I be comfortable putting ad money behind this post? Every single post you put out should be something that if you had the budget, you would put money behind. Anything that you're like, oh no, I wouldn't be willing to let it It's probably because it's not good. I put our post— I put the broken podcast script into ChatGPT to do stuff with it. I was like, Andrew is really blunt. I'm like, am I? And they're like, I can hear it today. This one, you're going to hate me for telling you, but creating some short form video is the best way to grow these days. I'm not saying you can't grow with static posts, but they, the platforms want the video. Your people on like They want it because your people want it, really. Obviously there are people who hate video, but on the most part, people engage more and are more interested in video. And of course it is harder to do. Like, the posts that perform well are like decent quality videos. Voiceover stuff tends to work better, and a lot of people hate their own voices, but it's kind of If you want, if you're focused on growth and want to use the best methods for it, you kind of have to get over it. Suck up. I say that as someone who had to do that themselves. There was one point when I was like, I'm never gonna do any video content. I'm never gonna go live ever. And look at us now.

Hilarious. You don't have to, so you can make the videos all about your products. You can do the voiceovers, you can show behind the scenes of your products. Someone who I just started following, and I am like addicted. Anytime one of his videos, I'm gonna watch it. He's like, shoot, Grayson is something. His wife is crafty, and he's like a down south guy. So he's all, you people, was the one I was watching yesterday, your wife is bougie. You don't know bougie until you know whether you're team cricket or team silhouette. You know, there was a difference in like all this stuff. And at the end he's, I wait, stick. You're the wife. Did you talk about— yes, we got stickers. You can get your own Crafty Bougie stickers, Blue Collar Bougie, and all this stuff. And no, because I'm not a sticker person, but I will watch every one of his videos and I will share them with people who are sticker people.

Yeah. And I think the thing that always works really well and that people never seem to do is show your process. People love seeing stuff. I've seen so many soaps and candles and stuff get made. Do I ever buy that stuff for myself? No, maybe occasionally as a gift, but I will sit and I'll watch it, and those videos can get millions of views. If you can show yourself being your product, record a nice voiceover, you can get some really high-quality content that has a chance to go viral, or just getting enough of your people in front of your people, and it shouldn't be too hard.

Just be yourself on video. Last notes on here. You wanna talk about collabs? Uh, no. Okay. So key takeaway here on social media is think about it. It's not about going viral. Okay. Do it. Just eliminate the word viral from your vocabulary when it comes to social media as a business. We are not content creators like getting paid from the platforms to create content for them. Um, if that's a side effect of what you want, that's fantastic, but it should not be your main thing. Your main thing is using social media to get followers who will want to buy your products. Okay, so it's not going viral, it's about attracting the right buyers, getting the people, the right people to see your stuff. So when you have an offer out there for them, they buy it. That's what we want on social.

Yeah, and remember that for the most part, it really is about creating great content, even more than the platform. I think most people wouldn't consider themselves going on YouTube when we speak to people, but one of our clients who makes soaps gets a ton of views on YouTube when she like takes time and films the content. So your content really can live anywhere and get you results. In fact, one of our other clients creates more of the long-form YouTube content develop traffic and has had some great results on stuff she's done. So it really, you really can set up a home anywhere.

Did you want to talk about email?

Yeah, so the one thing I should mention on top of all of this is that if you want to take those people and have them with you long term, the best way to do this is to drive some of that traffic towards your email list. That way you have them, you can take them, transport them to whatever email platform you might use indefinitely and keep them as long-term repeat customers.

And if one traffic source shuts down, you can send your people to another one.

Yeah, if your email platform shuts down, make sure you've got—

that's bad if your email platform shuts down.

Yeah, just that you can take that with— I'm sure that some of them have shut down before. Like, there must be some. I always use ones that are fairly big, so I haven't had that problem with speculation. Yeah, make sure you have that list somewhere and you can transport them. If Shopify shuts down tomorrow, or if something happens with Shopify that makes you want to leave them— I've seen stuff on social media about that— you can go and say, okay, I'm going to move to WooCommerce, whatever, and you can tell people, okay, go to this. You don't have to tell your people You don't even have to tell people, you just link to your products and suddenly it's on a different site. So they won't notice.

Very true.

Even if you're starting out on Etsy, the day that you start your own website, you just change the product links in the products and suddenly the people are on your own site instead of Etsy. Like it's, that's why it's so important to have an email list.

So we went over Pinterest, we went over Google SEO, we went over social media without burnout. And a little bit on email, which is great because next week we're going to be going deep on email and use email marketing to website visitors into loyal buyers so you don't have to constantly chase the new traffic because it's much easier to sell to people who are already following you or already bought from you. Sell them again versus getting new people in. We still want new people, but it's great to add it to resell the ones who are already there. So that's coming up next week. Maybe you post about a flash sale that you run this weekend. And we got you, okay? We got you. You can grab our Flash Sale in a Snap guide over at theproductgrowthlab.kit.com/flash. He's laughing at me. I got it right. Yeah, theproductgrowthlab.com, theproductgrowthlab.kit.com/flash, and we can help you set up and execute your own flash sale this weekend. You got something to post about on And then next week you can post videos of you making those products because you got orders in, right? Fantastic plan. Wholeheartedly. Do it. Do it. And otherwise, be sure to let us know, drop us a DM, tag us in the Facebook group, any of that stuff for which platform of the stuff that we listed tonight you want to go deep in, you want to try, you want to be like, okay, this is my next thing. This is the thing I'm doing right now. Oh, that one focused. Between Pinterest, Google SEO, and social media. Okay. So thanks for tuning in to the Product Growth Lab podcast. We hope you found today's episode insightful and inspiring. If you enjoyed the show, leave a review. It helps us reach more creative entrepreneurs just like you. Stay connected and keep experimenting. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't forget to join our community for more resources, tips, and support. Until next time, keep growing and creating. This is the Product Growth Lab signing off.