I have been active on Reddit for almost a year now. I must say, it is a great community (it really is). And I am proud to be a part of it.
Besides being an awesome and helpful community, Reddit is also one of the platforms, which can generate tons of traffic to your website and give your brand massive exposure and followers…
In this article I will tell you how to get traffic from Reddit and get some real love from the most amazing internet community.
Table of Contents
What Is Reddit?
Reddit is a social sharing, news and entertainment platform that was founded in 2005. The name Reddit is a combination of “read/edit” and “read it”. The users typical call themselves “Redditors” which itself is a combination of “Reddit” and “Editors”.
Rankings on Reddit are determined by a combination of up- and down-votes. Every registered user is able to give submitted content a “thumbs up” (up-vote) or “thumbs down” (down-vote) which result in the ranking of the content. Users are also able to comment on the content.
Reddit gained huge publicity when it played an important role during the SOPA blackout or during special IAmAs (IAmA means “I am a” and AMA stands for “ask me anything) with President Obama or the engineers and scientists on the Mars Curiosity Rover Mission.
Reddit’s Traffic Stats 2012
According to Reddit’s blog, these are the traffic stats for the year 2012:
- 37 Billion Pageviews
- 400 Million Unique Visitors
- 4 Billion Votes
- 30 Million Posts
- 260 Million Comments
You definitely want to get a share of this huge amount of traffic. And you can. But only if you do it the right way.
Trying to get my blog posts out there to get traffic, resulted, most of the time, in failure. And, as we all have to do, I have learned from my mistakes.
This is how our stats look like after a successful link submission:
The spike you see on the top is our post about ways of using NFC tags, which got an incredible amount of traffic from Reddit.
Forgive Me Admin, For I Have Spammed
Being active on Reddit for almost a year I have seen many submissions rise successfully to Reddit’s front-page (the top of the top of Reddit), and some that have failed miserably. The ones that made it got tons of traffic, and the ones that failed were not only not getting any exposure, but also were considered being annoying spam.
To be honest, there were some things I shouldn’t have done on Reddit. I have spammed. A lot. Then I was banned for doing it. I have even tried creating new “throwaway” accounts and up-vote my own submissions. Of course, in the end it didn’t matter how much I tried to get my content voted up – the community does its magic. Always.
My biggest mistake was to think of Reddit as “just a source of traffic”. It’s not.
Instant Reddit Traffic – Just Add Value
So, after being banned from Reddit I felt kind of frustrated and disappointed. It seemed to me that the stuff I used to write was not interesting for the people I was actually writing it for. So I gave up.
In the next few weeks I have caught myself on the thought that I was somehow “missing” Reddit and its community. If you are not active on Reddit, you probably don’t know how interesting and helpful Reddit might be.
But then, after re-joining Reddit I have realized one thing your have to keep in mind when submitting your things to Reddit: be helpful and add value. Apply this thought not only when trying to get traffic, but also to the content you write. People like content, which helps or enlightens them. Period.
1. Get To Know Your Audience
Reddit is made out of different category-pages called “subreddits”. There are subreddits for more things than you can imagine: cute things (/r/aww), strange things (/r/wtf) and even strange cute things (/r/awwwtf).
Also, there are also tons of subreddits about technology and online marketing, like /r/technology, /r/webmarketing or /r/ppc.
I am sure that you will find your audience in one of the 221,986 subreddits. You just have to search for a bit.
2. Get The Audience To Know You
After you have successfully found the people you would love to read your content or buy your product – talk to them. Be active. Comment on submissions and give helpful advice to people. You can see excellent examples of good comments in /r/bestof.
Once you have established a good reputation you can slowly start to get your stuff out there. People will recognise you from your previous (helpful) comments and you will more likely be up-voted. But remember: you will only make it if you add value to your community/audience.
Small tip: the smaller the subreddit (fewer readers, niche) the easier it is to get to the subreddit’s own front-page and get exposure.
3. Timing Is Key
You definitely don’t want your link to get lost in the /new section of the subreddit. So choose your timing right.
According to an infographic about “Social Timing” by KissMetrics the best time to submit your link on most social networks is before 5PM EST. This is also the time when most people are actively browsing Reddit.
4. How To Submit Your Link To Reddit
First of all, if you don’t have an account – create one. It is really easy to do if you follow these steps:
- Click on “login or register” in the top-right corner on reddit.com
- Enter your username
- Enter your email (which is optional)
- Enter your password
- DONE!
It is really that easy.
Once you have created an account and were active on your subreddit you can submit your link. You can actually do it right away, but I don’t recommend you to do it – first build some trust.
Go to your subreddit’s page and click on “Submit a new Link”.
The next step is very important. You have to choose an awesome title. Make it as interesting and appealing as possible. And don’t use your punchline in the title.
Small tip: Read the sidebar on your subreddit. It contains a lot of information about the submission rules. Following them will increase your chances of getting up-votes.
Now the only things left are to paste your link into the form and click “submit”. Depending on the subreddit your link will appear in the “/new” section immediately or after approval from the moderators.
5. What To Do After Submitting Your Link
Once you have submitted your link you need to make sure to monitor the comments to your submission. If people have questions about your link – give them answers. Comments not only make the link more likely to be voted up, but also give you (as the submitter) more credibility.
I hope that if you follow this guide you will be able to get a decent amount of traffic from Reddit to your blog and give your brand good exposure.
Please tell us about your experiences in the comments. What has worked for you on Reddit? I will gladly update this guide with your tips and suggestions.
Great article, thank you. Will use it.
Thanks, Jonny. I’m glad it helped you.
Did you previously have problems with submitting your content?
Download all youtube video as mp4
http://ytvideo.pk/
I have hardly used this service. Your article gives me the boost to try it. thanks for publishing
You are more than welcome, Enstine.
I joined reddit almost 2 years ago and your article reflects my thoughts and problems with submitting an awesome link really well. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Paul.
There has been a discussion whether it is “ethical” to promote your own content on Reddit. What are your thoughts?
To bad I saw your answer so late. I think when people promote their content on Reddit they have to make it really appealing to the specific subreddit. E.g. I saw a sculpture on Reddit once that someone showed off. He was not even trying to sell it but in the end a lot of people wanted to have such a sculpture so he started a Kickstarter campaign and is now running his own business. If you are to direct in selling something it most definitely will fire back at you. Reddit is a community to discuss things and not to sell products.
I personally feel that the community is the best decider if it’s ethical or not. Sure, you might try manipulating the audience so that part might be unethical, but again, if they like the content, there’s no harm done.
If you’re promoting high-quality work, then I wonder why it matters if it’s something I created or something else created.
Followed your link from ProBlogger.
Trying to decide if I’m ready to try Reddit now. I’ve heard of it, of course, but had no idea how it worked.
Also followed your link from ProBlogger. Great stuff! I’ve been a little fearful of Reddit and the culture that exists there, but I definitely need to get more involved!
Great post. I frequent the r/productivity sub on Reddit a lot and have hit the top multiple times. I find it has a lot to do with the title also, some of my links don’t get upvoted nor downvoted. My most upvoted post was ‘The Most Important Tip for Fighting Procrastination’, which stayed near the top for a number of days.
It’s unpredictable but great, though I do find the traffic isn’t of the best quality. Hey, better than nothing!
Found you on ProBlogger. Thanks for the tips on Reddit! I am going to give it a try.
Love this article and how you’ve shared your experience with Reddit. I think getting banned from somewhere is the fast track way to learning how to get something done the right way. (Yes, I’ve been banned from a few places for not getting it quite right, usually it’s not spamming but breaking some other important rule that’s buried in the small print). I might try Reddit (again) but I am reluctant to join a community where I may not put in the time to make it worthwhile.
Reddit is a great way to get your brand out there.
And I had to learn it the hard way how to do it right.
I’m glad that you like the article.
I have a love/hate relationship with Reddit. I find that it takes quite a bit of time “wooing” the users so that they feel they can trust me. I also need to spend time keeping up with Reddit so that the trust is not lost. With all of the ways to share on social media, it is hard to spend so much time on just one. However, when one of my links does well on Reddit, I fall back in love!
Thanks for the advice on timing, I had never heard that before.
Wish I had this when I first started using reddit I could have avoided so many mistakes
Hi there Daniel! I spotted your post through Barb Sawyers ‘thumbs up’ – couldn’t manage to locate it on Darren’s thread! I’ve not even considered using Reddit – too many others I guess and not knowing anything about it. BUT, you have sparked my interest and this post is very useful in finding out more. Poacher turned game-keeper eh? Love it!
Hi Caroline!
Thanks for your compliments!
I came across your post as part of the Problogger exercise. Thanks – found it Informative and answered lots of my Q’s about Reddit, a platform that I’ve dabbled with, but without knowing too much about it.
Still i am confused
Hey Aman, how can I help you?
in real i submit a link and say to me ( that subreddit only allows text posts) why ????????????? wish help me
Hi Hisham,
Indeed, there are some subreddits, which allow only so-called “self-posts”. In this case you can either choose to put your link in your text posts (not recommended) or look for other subreddits where your target audience is hanging out. Let me know if you have any more questions.
very helpful. i’m new on reddit. We learn from mistakes. Glad you share your experience.
Sound good article about how to drive traffic for a blog but how far it works for a website
I do believe your open message to all new reddits.
http://www.freemenu.info/2013/06/js10.html
I have tried submitting jokers but it’s not been great so far. Jokes subreddit seems dominated by stuff that is pretty offensive and sad, as well as racist. Free country but my brand of cleverer humour is not so welcome. I might like it if you could at least post your website url on your profile but even that is not allowed. You certainly cannot post links in that sub, and I don’t think you can in ‘funny’ subreddit either. Reddit is more about finding content than producing it. Maybe the redditors are jealous of those who can create? Twitter has the balance between promotion and addding value just right. I will stick at reddit but given that I will struggle to probably ever submit a url (given the subreddits which are relevant for me), I cannot see it working out.
Just for your information I Goggled “How to get massive traffic to your website”
your article was the first result. I thank you for writing this; it is not common for
people to admit they made mistakes. I will be joining Reddit now and hopefully we can get what we came for “Massive Traffic”. You inspired me thank you.
Truly a well written post. Well, many users do spam and then get banned then rejoin. I appreciate that you have admitted that you spammed at first and thanks for sharing such an experience.
I have a new blog http://www.etechhut.com and I was wondering how to get traffic to it. I tried many social networking and social media websites and now I have included reddit to my list as well. From your experience shared in this article, I have come to realize that getting traffic is not a quick process. It is time consuming and rather slow in nature. You have to get to know the community and get them to know you as well. Slowly and gradually it will rise. Patience is the key. This is almost the case with all of the social media and social networking websites. Thank you for sharing your practical experience with all of us in a way everyone can easily understand.
its a very nice a help full dude
Great article… it’s always mystified me though (and perhaps that comes from a desire to understand, but an ignorance) why a successful Reddit submission can net me 200-500 views in the span of one day, and then none the next. Where am I going wrong, or is this simply what happens?
nice tips
One of these days, I will finally understand Reddit. Then the world will probably implode.
Thank you , it’s very helpful.
Will you please explain a bit more about timings ?
I mean after how many minutes/hours should I post/submit next link?
I’m asking about the time period between submission of the links.
Thanks once again!
I can’t explain enough how true this blog is. Build your account on reddit but enjoying it and then add some of your own stuff in with it.
It’s truly a cool place that believe it or not, a lot of people still don’t know about.
Hey Johnny,
If you want to stay away from being banned and from your posts being blocked my mods, make sure to keep a 4:1 comments to submissions ratio. Submitting one link every 4-5 days should be fine if the quality of your content is right and if the audience loves it.
If your posts are being down-voted don’t try to push your way to the top. Stop. Choose a different subreddit.
It’s the same as asking a girl out: if she says No and you ask her again (and again) it will just make things worse.
Thanks! Great advice.
this is great
I’m just spamed by reddit, even the domain of my website is spamed i guess.
After reading your article, I known the promblem, I should pay more patience on reddit i think.
You can contact the admins and apologize for spamming. Maybe this will help you. In case they do unblock your domain – don’t start spamming again! Leave the submissions to your fans!
They have blocked me to submit more links to my blog ( <a href=”http://jar4mobi.blogspot.com”>Jar4Mobi</a> ) what can I do ???
Did you spam my friend? 🙂 If not, you should contact the admins
You can get gradual traffic by get instant Backlinks at social bookmarking site of http://www.mspidy.com
This is a truly fantastic post. We really appreciate the category mention here. Thanks for sharing this awesome post and I am happy to find your blog. Great information and great to connect with you!
My pleasure
Thank you Daniel your article was extremely helpful, going to register today and give it a shot.
Thanks, great to hear that. Let me know how it turned out for you!
I doubt if i am going to follow this but i can surely say that most of the people will skip and would look for step-by-step instruction to gain traffic.
ya i know all these but if an site block by the reddit bot. what can you do to remove it. any idea?
Amazing!! I have found another related article too in the link
below:
http://technology-vibe.com/blog/creative-ways-drive-massive-traffic-blog/
Thanks
So I have been posting good content to reddit and it has been gaining great traffic but since the past day, my submissions that usually would gain atleast a few hundred visits has not even gained one visit. can reddit block your site but still make it appear as if its showing your links? I dont understand reddit, i thought i did. I tried to submit an article from http://www.crushbored.com but nothing.
Great post . I have tried it few times , but no luck . Time to try again !
I like this post but here you need to put some more information. I have blog and I want to get more traffic on my blog. But its new and if I’ll post new link on reddit I might get traffic there. Please advise something unique for new visitors. If possible please look at my blog and comment.
http://bestshayarisonline.blogspot.com/
Hey Iris that’s what I commented. New people really need good advice.
Thanks for the tips, I have visited Reddit in the past to leave confused… I know many others use Reddit as a primary way to drive traffic, I do like that you also included the mistakes you’ve made but at least you give us the opportunity to skip the mistakes and get right into being active and gaining that credibility over time. I’m going to try it with my website that offers free Facebook Covers and hopefully they have a subreddit category I can fit into successfully.
http://www.quality-cover.com
It definitely helps just as much to know what not to do. “Be helpful and add value” and don’t spam. Sounds good! 🙂
Reddit is a great place for traffic but also friends and story’s. I use it for my hosting services.
http://buildawebsitewithfreehosting.com/
Thanks for the valueable suggestion i think spending time on reddit makes ot better to get more traffic like any other sites
kanuj
Candytech Gaming Gadgets & More
Hey There …. Just Wanna Add Up To This Article That http://www.getlikenow.com Works Perfectly Fine For Me…You Must Try It Too…. It Not Only Helped Me Increase My Traffic But Also It Helps In Increasing Social Media Presence Of Websites….And You Get Rewards Tooo….
Some excellent information to consider. Have a great time looking around Reddit and seeing how the tools may integrate in the press distribution industry… Very interesting! It is quite fascinating to see how many people use it (and after looking around the site for awhile, I now understand why).
Excellent article!
Best Article
http://www.leetblogger.com
very helpful info. Just started using reddit. Must say it is taking some getting used to. I have gotten a ton of traffic to my website from it. Which is confusing, because no one seems to be voting on my posts within the subreddit, or is it that they are getting an equal amount of up votes and down votes?
Really very informative Article.After reading i realize the importance of Reddit social bookmarking website……….http://saneesh.com
Great article! Very helpful. I think timing is especially key. I like to use this resource to check when the most users are on for some of the big reddits: http://0bservat0ry.com/reddit.html
Its awesome 🙂
http://www.zeropixels.net
Awesome
An amazing and also stupid way i experienced about Reddit and got great numbers of visitors in 10 minutes.
i explained about this trick on my blog http://goo.gl/UMTFwR
I will try to get traffic from Reddit using these techniques on my blog – my wp tips
thanks for the info on reddit it is something we are looking at for http://ilovestaffordshire.co.uk as a source of promotion, but will tread carefully now!
Find here guest post blog post. Buy quality blog post for traffic & visibility ( tech, health, business) https://guestpostservices.wordpress.com/ high pr
Interesting. I just got some huge traffic, which is what caused me to start researching this more. http://techswag.co
This is really useful information…. the best and easy way to increase quick visitors if anyone want to promote their business and want to increase sales then you should visit http://www.elasticroi.com/marketing-solutions/ here you get best marketing Solutions for your business.
Thanks for the tips! It’s very helpful for a new startup online marketer. http://bimserver1.com/2014-the-year-it-was-in-twitter/
I have a hard time on reddit, there are so many rules now and it’s hard to find a nice comfortable place where you can be yourself because some redditers are rude lol. Just being a Ghost and watching I have a year membership and it’s interesting lol Nonetheless, thanks for the article it was a nice read!
Best,
Laurara Monique
Lauraramargosian.com
hot or not?
http://www.brixton-beds.co.uk
good info about reddit thanks for post http//:www.mobileprice18.com
Really very informative Article.
Reddit is really a great place to grab traffic to blog or website.
http://www.dezinewave.com/cool-behind-the-ear-tattoos-designs/
It helps me in getting traffic from reddit. thanks a lot
Thanks for this article. It helped me get going on reddit. And, I appreciate your honesty as I’m sure we’re all looking to boost traffic but want to do it without getting kicked out. 🙂
Thanks so much, it makes so much sense now!
Great advice! I am new to the Reddit world and I can see that the community is very tight. They help out each other and it is a great way to share information.
I really don’t think it helps to post your own stuff to reddit.
thanks for writing this article ,If you want to learn simple ways to earn money then visit this site waystoearnmoney.co.in
Sir …I am continuously submitting my post on reditt but still I am unable to get traffic from reditt. So please tell me how can I improve my traffic from reditt ?
Great Article! I do agree that Reddit is great place to achieve massive traffic! Problem is it merely accept frequent posts even hardly you can post a link in a day! Just wonder how can be solved this issue!
Awesome article…and so appropriate. Frip Games
Reddit is a great crawl to boost your brand.
But its very hard for newbies to learn how to manage posts.
I am too lazy to read all the rules of reddit.
here it is http://www.pincaption.com/ because of that I am ban.
how to unblock from reddit?
Thanks
nice tips i will try really there
thestarfashiontrends.blogspot.com
Get an iphone6 for free it’s simple as that: http://tnijgo.pl/sposobiphone6
Hello Daniel, I write my views about love and I always submit links to /r/love but I can’t find the subreddit /r/love when I look for it. But it works, I get a few audience because of it. I don’t know how does this happen, or is there a /r/love subreddit but I just can’t find it in reddit?
Here’s a sample link to my reddit post (not to my blog lol) I just made a while ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/love/comments/383mhr/lovestruck_love_is_the_craziest_love/
Some of my links got upvoted. So how did people find it? Is this effective or should I try subreddits that exist?
k7x | mario games | kizi :Please click and play all free games online sexy games.
WOW!! One of the best guide on the net to drive traffic from Reddit. I am also planning to do this for my blog http://www.gadgetsupersite.com
I have just started using reddit and will definitely follow your rules
Do you use any other websites for better quality traffic?
Same story happened with me !!!! But finally stopped spamming and posted link in some time limit and got enough traffic from Reddit.
After scouring the web for guides on how to promote a website this was the only article to actually prove useful and practical advice; something I can actually try and do! Many thanks and great article.
Hi, thanks for this article, I am newbie on resist and was just figuring out how to use and and found your article. It was very informative and helpful
reddit is great for lots of subjects, especially sports. IMO.
My comment krama can not increase why?
Its a brilliant article! I’m glad I got this to read it during the time when I was really in need to learn about Reddit. Thanks so much for this lovely article. I hope it may help me too. Keep publishing such good articles.
Thank you, i am back to Reddit now. Your article is helpful..
thanks for this great information.
most of the new comer think it as a bookmarking site at first. there is the problem begin. more than 4 time you get the punishment before you start learning the proper ways of reddit.
Hey great tutorial.. Thanks for sharing dear.
Regards
It took me forever to actually post on the site but now I have figured out that part. Computers got to love them 🙂 I see others my age and don’t feel too b ad that I don’t get some of it. Just love to paint so if it is another place to show what I love to do well then touche’ I am in. I got a couple of sorry I am a bot you did it wrong lol but I just keep trying.
My son has been bugging me for so many years to try to post to the site. So, I guess if you keep at it you can as they say “Google” how to 😉
Sir
You Just Said about building some trust before posting. What kinda trust did you actually mean. I mean how can a new comer gain the trust of the redditors….
2, Is there any link between “imgur” and “reddit”
Thanks
Nice question. I think your question will help many of the beginners.
ya suer
Never got any single visitor from reddit. Will try your advice
Amazing post Daniel. You discussed very important points in the post which are very useful for every newcomer of reddit.
yeah reddit is just aweeome
I have done it and my blog is approved. Reddit is a really good service. Thanks for sharing.
I just love this blog post…I think Reddit is one of the best source to get high quality traffics..
Thank you sir,
you have submitted wonderful article with us.
some time I feel that reddit is not good but sometime we got good visitor from it.
Why we does not get continuous visitor from reddit ?
Your blog is really useful and informative. I really liked it.
Nice article. Thank you.
I think I got banned from Reddit myself. Posting on the productivity reddit. Stopped posting. Then posted comments. Ended the comments with my name and a link to my site. Is that considered spam/Self-promotion?
Thank you for your insights. I just signed up for reddit today, so this is quite helpful.