Do you ever feel like you create exceptional content but no one notices?
Or do you spend hours crafting the perfect video or blog post but the only one to comment on it is your mom?
I've been there.
When I started my first website, Insuranceblogbychris.com, I'd spend hours pouring time and effort into a single article.
And when I finally hit publish... crickets.
Fortunately, I didn't give up. I kept on grinding until I ultimately grew that site to 70,000 visits per month and had a multi-million dollar exit.
But my journey from unnoticed articles to a bustling, high-traffic site wasn’t just luck—it was strategic.
And the cornerstone of that strategy? A powerful approach I refer to as the OPT method — 'Other People's Traffic.'
Curious? Keep reading to uncover the essence of OPT and how harnessing it can transform your content's reach and your business's success - or if you're just getting started, give your online venture a massive jumpstart!
Introducing the OPT Method:
Let me tell you a quick story...
In 2012, I attended my first FinCon, a conference for financial online marketers, hoping to gain some marketing insights for my business.
What I got instead was much more valuable.
I met my friend, Jeff Rose, a popular financial blogger and Youtuber.
I can't overstate the value of this single relationship. It catapulted my website.
First, Jeff let me guest post on his website, goodfinancialcents.com. Next, he introduced me to several of his friends who interviewed me for their podcasts and let me guest post as well. Most importantly, he introduced me to Pat Flynn, who let me write a guest post for his highly authoritative site, smartpassiveincome.com.
The SPI guest post gave me even more clout and led to several more opportunities.
The results were immediate. Within a few months of attending FinCon, I was getting hundreds of new referral visits per month from my new friends' websites.
The best part?
The organic search traffic to my website also soured. Apparently, Google really loved all the links I was getting and now considered my site more trustworthy. This was a massive bonus!
I began to realize that it no longer mattered that I had little-to-no social following, email list, or budget for paid ads. I could use other peoples' traffic to get results!
The OPT Method was born.
In the remainder of this article, I'll offer examples of how I've used OPT and how you can get started doing the same. I guaranteed that you'll see possibilities for your own venture.
Five Ways to Tap into OPT
Once I recognized the power of meeting influencers, I doubled down on my efforts. I began attending more conferences, masterminds, contacting influencers by email and Twitter, and even buying their courses and products - anything I could do to get in contact with them.
Since first recognizing the power of collaborating with influencers, I've discovered other ways to tap into their audience.
#1 - Affiliate Relationships
When I was growing Credit Knocks (Acquired by Finmasters.com), the credit space was brand new for me. So while I was establishing my website authority, I relied on affiliates and their audience to bring in sales.
One fantastic partner was my friend, Phil Smith, who I met in War Room, Digital Marketer's mastermind group. Phil had a list of over 100,000 people on his email list who fit my target demographic for some of my offers, so I wrote the email copy and he sent it off. We tracked his sales and I split the revenue with him.
Did you see what I did there? How I created revenue with someone else's audience?
This is a great example of the OPT Method.
#2 - Joint Ventures
Sometimes your skills may match up perfectly with an influencer's where it makes sense to partner on a project. This is what happened with me and Dr. Bart Ehrman.
Bart Ehrman is one of the most famous New Testament scholars in the world. He has written six NY Times bestselling books, teaches at UNC, and his name gets searched 22,000 per month.
I also happen to be involved in a joint venture with him where we've done multiple six digits in online courses and events.
How did I meet him? I became a paid member of his blog which gave me access to comment on his articles. Bart is a great Bible scholar but not a great marketer, so a few years back, I approached him about a partnership. I handle the marketing and he handles the content creation.
This has worked fantastic for me because going into the venture, Bart already had a sizeable Youtube subscriber base and email list. That's the OPT Method at its best!
#3 - Guest Posting for Website Traffic
I also mentioned guest posting above. This is where you write an article on someone else's site. They'll often let you link to resources on your site from the article which not only gives you the opportunity for free referral traffic but also helps your website's SEO!
The best websites to guest post on are related to your niche but aren't experts in it. This way you can add major value to their site. For example, when I was selling life insurance, I wrote dozens of guest posts for money blogs. Most of these dealt with investing, budgeting, or getting out of debt, so an insurance article fits there, but the bloggers simply didn't have the insider's knowledge that I did about insurance.
And obviously you want to post on sites that have traffic. You can check traffic estimates using tools like Ahrefs or SEM Rush.
Don't sleep on guest posting. It still works.
#4 - Cross-Promotion
In many cases, businesses or influencers will promote your product or service if you promote something of theirs. The crazy thing is it doesn't even have to be an equitable trade. You might have no traffic and think you don't have much to offer, but if your brand is in close alignment with a friend's, they'll often help you out.
Bart and I recently put on a conference where the Society of Biblical Literature - an organization with tens of thousands of members and a 100K+ email list - sent a promotional email to their entire list for us! All they wanted in exchange was for us to mention their website during the conference. That's a great deal!
#5 - Name Recognition for Traffic
Here's a spin on OPT.
If you get tight with a big name influencer, you don't necessarily need "their" traffic. Pretty much anything you do will simply perform better with their name on it. That's why I wanted to go into business with Bart.
Take this example from the "When Belief Dies" Youtube channel. Its average video only gets 100-200 views, but if you put Bart's name and face on a video.... BOOM! 50X the traffic!
Here are some ways you can get your A-list friends involved in your business:
There are also many non-traffic related perks you can get from a good relationship: endorsements, credibility, or depending on what you sell, they may even become your clients!
The Easiest Way Get Started with the OPT Method
Now that I've shared some ways you can benefit from OPT, I want to share the #1 way to get in with a big name influencer.
Buy something of theirs!
If it's a smaller business, you'll often get access the owner's email or get access to them through a Facebook support group if you simply buy their product or service. But don't stop there. Actually use it and write a review - or better yet, create a video review! There's no greater compliment to a business owner than a customer who actually uses their product and then comes back and reports on it.
That's it.
This is how I made contact with influencers like Darren Hardy, Neil Patel, Don Miller, Brian Dean, and my partner, Bart Ehrman.
If you want to dig deeper, I'll be creating a separate post about all the ways you can make contact with A-listers, so be sure to bookmark our site and check back often and subscribe to our email list. But for now, the method above will get you started. It's the best way I know of to ignite your business if you don't have website traffic, and email list, or a budget for paid ads.
