A quick search on Google for secret traffic sources reveals over 4 million results.
That in itself suggests that they’re not particularly secret traffic sources if anyone can find them by searching.
Let’s have a look at some of the so-called “secret” traffic sources I found when I did that search:
YouTube (!)
Hmm, you’d need to have been living under a rock for the last decade to not have heard of them.
I’m not convinced it should be on anyone’s list of secret traffic sources but at least if you do things right it does stand a chance of sending targeted traffic to your site.
Essentially you put up a video with a good title, a nice looking thumbnail, a reasonably keyword dense description, some tags and a link to your website.
You consider uploading a caption file and maybe include it in a playlist and embed it on a website to help get natural views to it.
Done well, you can feature on YouTube and in the search results.
And you can repeat the process on other video sites as well as on Facebook.
One thing that’s often missed is using the other video sites as external links back to your YouTube video. Site rules vary as to the acceptabiity of pointing back to a competitor but blogging sites like Tumblr, WordPress, etc that then point back to your YouTube video (or embed it or both) can usually provide a good workaround.
OK, arguably slightly more secret than YouTube but not much. Most social network sharing links include it and anyone who does anything visual with their website probably already uses it.
You create a themed “board” where you “pin” photos and videos, add a description and a link back to your site.
I’ve not used Pinterest much personally but some people do get decent amounts of traffic from it.
It’s not pushed as much in internet marketing circles which means it’s probably a bit less subject to spam than some of the other options but they’ve recently stopped allowing affiliate links so you’ll need your own site (which you should have anyway in reality).
Forums
Another option for traffic that’s been around since as long as I can remember.
The basic logic is that you should be helpful first and foremost and shouldn’t be too pushy.
The success of forum marketing depends on lots of factors. Busy forums can get their posts shown in the search results so you get casual traffic that way. Quieter forums can be very loyal.
But forums can be more of a time sink than a lot of other methods and have the added issue that they can change hands, change popularity or just close for no apparent reason (probably because free forums aren’t exactly easy to monetise).
It’s an OK method that should be added to your arsenal of traffic tools but still not anything I’d call secret.
A weird site – one that I’ve personally never got the hang of – that occasionally shows in the search results for longer tail keyword searches – the kind you should be targeting anyway.
It’s quite cliquey and has been attacked by more than it’s fair share of spammers but if you can master it’s quirks I’m told that it can drive a decent amount of traffic to your website.
For me, Reddit kind-of qualifies as a secret traffic source as at first glance it looks odd and alien so you might ignore it completely.
RebelMouse
This could qualify as a secret traffic source – there’s a higher chance at the time of writing that you won’t have heard of it. But it’s big enough that Time Inc have selected it for one of their projects.
I’ve not heard much about RebelMouse and don’t currenty know how best to use it but it would be worth being aware of and maybe investigating.
Google News
Another one that you should have come across.
Of course, there’s a difference between knowing it exists and knowing how to get into it.
But unless your niche is very news conscious it’s probably not an essential source of traffic.
Press releases need more thought than articles – they need to at least pretend to be newsworthy and should follow a fairly strict formula.
But when I last searched Google News there were very few press releases in it – you may well be better adding yourself as a contributor to sites like Huffington Post that get treated as news sites.
So maybe – at a stretch – checking which sites appear in Google News and then contributing where appropriate or commenting if becoming a writer isn’t an option.
Blog commenting
Notice how I’ve not yet found a truly secret traffic source.
That’s because to become a traffic source, a site itself needs traffic.
And, in turn, that rarely means it’s a secret.
But blog commenting and posting comments on newspaper and similar sites can drive traffic.
Spammy blog comments don’t cut it.
You have to join in the conversation and contribute good information.
If you go down this route, take the time to research several blogs in your niche and then set up some Google Alerts so that you can be one of the first to comment on new posts. That will serve to get you better known to the blog author and also seen more by other readers if the commenting system lists the comments in ascending date order.
If new comments are added above yours then it’s less likely to be beneficial so it’s worth checking before spending too much time.
Web 2.0 sites
That’s probably not the correct term for all these sites but they’re sites where almost anyone can contribute.
In years gone by, it was sites like EzineArticles and Squidoo (before Seth Godin sold out his tribe) but now it’s more likely to be Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Mashable, Zimbio and many others.
Document Sharing Sites
These could count as sort-of secret traffic sources.
Sites like Scribd and SlideShare allow you to put up “documents” which can be PDF files, Word documents, PowerPoint style presentations and similar.
Traffic from these sites varies – as it does with all the other sources on this page – but pick some longer tail keywords, create a decent length piece of content and post it on one of them.
Profile links
The chance of getting much traffic from your profile link on a forum is low but it’s an easy thing to do.
The secret is to check sites you’re already a member of – Amazon for instance – and add your link if they allow it.
Real people are unlikely to find the link but search engine crawlers might.
Other profiles are more powerful – Facebook, LinkedIn, etc allow you to link back to your site and the nature of those sites means that more people are likely to be hunting for your information. Not necessarily lots of people but they’re definitely be targetd.
Other sites you notice as you surf the web
If you keep your eyes open.
Some of the options above are near enough evergreen but the web changes fast.
If you find yourself using a particular site more or getting mentioned more, investigate it in case it’s a potential traffic source for you.
The real secret with traffic is that it’s a lot easier – and safer – to get it in dribs and drabs from a myriad of sources than it is to get it from just one or two places and then go into panic mode when something changes and the hoards of traffic you were getting suddenly dry up.
And if you’d like more depth about some of these “secret” traffic options, check this out.