Today, I want to educate you about how to get free website traffic.
Many people make the common mistake thinking that making money online is fast, free, or easy. It’s not. One of the common mistakes people make is thinking all you need is a pretty website and the money will start rolling in. Nothing is further from the truth.
If you are trying to make money online, traffic is king. Yes, you need a basic website, but what you really need is lots of quality, targeted traffic.
What I want to do in the paragraphs below is teach you how to get free website traffic. I’ll walk you through a simple five step process I use myself, and then I will share some specific things you can do to bring traffic to your website, even if you don’t have money to spend on advertising.
Five-Step Process to Get Free Website Traffic
I’m a big fan of systems. I believe that if you want to do something well, you need a documented process. What you will see below are the five steps I use to come up with my website marketing plan, so I can be efficient and work smart.
Step # 1: Determine Your Ideal Visitor
If you want to know how to get free website traffic, this is the first and most important step in the process. You must decide WHAT type of people you want to visit your website. This is known as your target market.
Set aside some time to identify what niches or demographics of people would be your “ideal” visitor. Is it stay at home moms in the USA? Is it men in their forties? Is it small business owners with less than 10 employees? Is it divorced dads?
Please put some serious thought and consideration into answering these questions. This will allow you to focus in on the perfect visitor. Until you identify your target market, nothing else matters.
Step # 2: Determine Where Your Target Market Hangs Out Online
Once you know your target market, spend some time to figure out where they hang out online.
- What forums do they visit?
- What keywords are they searching for?
- What blogs and websites do they visit?
- What newsletters do they subscribe to?
- What groups do they participate in on social media?
- What videos online are popular with people in that chosen niche?
I like to call this consumer research. You must evaluate your competitors. You also want to figure out what websites your target market loves, what information they are searching for, etc. Knowing this information will help you identify WHERE you want to spend your time with your marketing efforts.
Step # 3: Decide What You Want Each Visitor to Do
The next step in my five-step process on how to get free website traffic is to decide what you want each person to do once they visit your website.
Do you want them to buy something? Are you trying to get their contact information, so they become a lead? Are you trying to get more subscribers to your YouTube channel? Are you simply trying to get more traffic to your website? Or something else?
It makes no sense to start your marketing campaign until you know what you want each visitor to do when they get to your website.
Step # 4: Determine Your Marketing Plan
The next step in the process, now that you’ve answered these other questions and done your consumer research, is to decide what your marketing plan will be. We know you are trying to do things for free, so you won’t have a marketing budget.
But you should have specific marketing goals. You should have a daily action plan or checklist detailing exactly WHAT you will do each day to generate your free website traffic.
Step # 5: Execute Your Plan
Most people will skip straight to this step. That is a huge mistake. If you don’t know the who, how, what, why, where, or when before you start promoting your website, you are going to go through a lot of frustration. You will waste time and energy.
Assuming you have gone through each of the five steps mentioned above, you can now apply any of the ideas you see below as part of your marketing plan.
How to Get Free Website Traffic
I’d like to share 12 ways to get free website traffic. My best tip is to start out with ONE of these strategies at a time. Do that strategy for one month. Learn everything you can about it and take all out massive action. Once you learn what you are doing, then you can start with a second strategy.
# 1: Leave Blog Comments
One of my favorite ways to get free website traffic is to leave high quality blog comments on relevant blogs in your niche. Find the two to five most popular blogs that post content for your target market and become an active contributor on their blog.
Whenever they publish a new post, read it, and post a comment. Include a link to a relevant page on your website. Also, make sure you reply to other comments that people leave.
Simply put, be a person of value, not a spammer. If you provide good comments, some people will naturally click on your link to learn more about you and what you do.
One good blog comment can send you thousands of visitors for YEARS to come.
You probably visit at least a few sites that are relevant to your business on a regular basis, so why not join the conversation? Commenting doesn’t necessarily provide an immediate boost to referral traffic right away, but making a name for yourself by providing insightful, thought-provoking comments on industry blogs and sites is a great way to get your name out there – which can subsequently result in driving more traffic to your own site.
Source: WordStream
# 2: Email Signature
Using an email signature is quite perhaps the fastest and easiest way to get free website traffic. The average person sends and/or responds to at least 20-100 emails per day. Include a catchy email signature with a link to your website. Over the course of a month, that would be 600 to 3,000 people, or more, that are exposed to your link. Some of them will check it out.
An email signature is also an especially powerful and absolutely free tool. Create a signature with a link to your website in it and have it automatically attached to every one of your outgoing emails. It takes only a few seconds to create an email signature, and it may bring in visitors to your site every day.
Source: Entrepreneur
# 3: Post in Facebook Groups
Share links to your website in RELEVANT Facebook groups, but only do so if they provide value. Join five to ten groups that are relevant to your target market. Become an active member in those groups. Respond to questions. Post comments. Share your thoughts.
When relevant, include a link to your website. Just make sure you read the rules and policies of the group before you do this, because some groups prohibit this.
There is an abundance of Facebook groups you can join that cater to all different niches, many boasting tens of thousands of members. Do a simple search of the group section for keywords relating to your industry and you’ll find a number of quality groups you can join.
Once you’re a member, you can start interacting with others in the group. But remember to read the group rules before you start promoting your business. Most groups have designated promo days on which you’re allowed to promote your content or link to your website. If you promote yourself on non-promo days, you could get banned. When you can’t promote your links directly, you can still get the word out about yourself by participating in conversations and giving advice to other members in the comment section.
Source: Inc.
# 4: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is like Facebook, except it is more business related. Include your link in you profile. Search LinkedIn for people in your target market. Send them a connect request, like a friend request. Build a relationship with them. Join groups on LinkedIn and share your content. Make sure your website and link are also included in your profile. You can also post articles on LinkedIn with links pointing to your website.
A LinkedIn profile is another fantastic way to get more traffic to your website or business. Simply make sure your profile has keywords scattered throughout so you’ll more frequently show up searches. In addition, LinkedIn is another great resource to define your business so your customers know what your business is all about and can easily access information that is helpful to them.
Source: Breaking The One Percent
# 5: Instagram
I haven’t used Instagram myself, but I have several blogger friends of mine who generate tens of thousands of visitors to their website each month, for free, from Instagram. They share videos and photos. People who like their content can visit their profile and click on their link to learn more about them and visit their website.
A recent survey conducted by HubSpot showed that seven out of ten hashtags on Instagram are branded. So, if you haven’t gotten around creating a custom hashtag for your brand, now is the right time!
After all, this is the platform where users engage with branded content the most. Statistics show that brands are getting 10x higher engagement rates on Instagram than they do on Facebook.
Source: WebsiteSetup
# 6: Pinterest
Pinterest is a photo sharing website. If your website has lots of great pictures, consider sharing them on Pinterest. Follow other people on Pinterest. Share lots of content frequently. Redirect people to your website whenever possible.
Pinterest doesn’t like to call itself a social network. It’s more of a discovery tool for inspiration and information. Pinterest acts as a visual search engine and millions of people conduct searches to help them plan for their weddings, look for gifts to buy during the holidays, and ideas on how to make their life easier.
This is why it’s important to go beyond growing your followers and think of Pinterst as a visual Google. And like a good blog post, each pin that redirects to your website should have 2-3 keywords in its description.
Source: The Agents of Change
# 7: Guest Posting
If you like to write, consider writing articles for other websites, or for the article directories. You can become a guest blogger. You might even get PAID to do that and send traffic to your website at the same time.
Find two or three popular blogs in your niche and see if they are looking for guest posts. Also, check out two or three popular article directories and post an article or two there each month.
When you do this, you get to include your links to your website in your author bio at the end of your article (and sometimes in the content, too). Basically, you get to leverage another website’s traffic and send some of them to your website.
Guest blogging helps you gain traffic, get in front of your audience, and boost your SEO ranking in a cost-effective way.
It helps you gain traffic because you’re able to get in front of a large and relevant audience—If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Plus, you establish credibility and authority by providing a valuable article and being shown on a reputable site. Once you provide value, these readers will go to your site.
Source: Convince&Convert
# 8: SEO
If you are good at SEO, you can focus on this to get free website traffic. This is something I have never done myself. I just focus on creating high quality content and the SEO normally works itself out naturally. Perhaps you could barter and trade with someone who is good at SEO and they can help optimize your website with the right tags and keywords.
Today, if you don’t understand SEO, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Discover the nuances about SEO so that you’re engaging in the right type of traffic delivery strategies. You don’t want to bend or break the rules. Plus, by really having an understanding of SEO, you could quite literally supercharge your results.
Source: Forbes
# 9: Safelists & Traffic Exchanges
Safelists and traffic exchanges are a good strategy if you are in the internet marketing or make money online or home business niche. If your niche is different, you can skip this suggestion.
Safelists and traffic exchanges offer you the opportunity to send free traffic to your website in return for reading other people’s emails. I wouldn’t recommend the free option of doing this for most people, but if you were willing to become a paying member, it would be beneficial.
A very effective way of using both traffic exchanges and mailers is to use them to build your own potential customers list. You do this by getting a good autoresponder that you can use to send regular mails to them, independent of any mailer or traffic exchange. The method here is to use a lead capture page, also known as a squeeze page, to encourage fellow members to subscribe. Remember that traffic exchange and viral mailer users are for the most part, looking to earn credits and to further their own business interests. The more attractive your offer, the better your chance of getting their sign up. But be honest, and deliver what you promise or you will lose them.
Source: Pro Trend Marketing
# 10: YouTube
YouTube is the second biggest search engine online, right behind Google. People go to YouTube to be entertained or to learn something. Take the content from your website and repurpose some of it into videos.
Make it a goal to publish 50-100 videos in the next 30 to 60-days. Keep your videos short and sweet and around two to five minutes in length.
In the description box of each video, include a link to your website. This will drive a lot of free traffic to your website. Even one popular, viral video, can send you thousands of fresh, targeted visitors every month.
YouTube is probably the best free traffic strategy on this list.
YouTube can help increase traffic to your website. Add annotation links to the video, and links back to your website in the description. Alternatively, you can request other YouTubers to share your content or link on their video. Making a video weekly can help drive traffic back to your site.
Source: Innovative Flare
# 11: Email Marketing
If you aren’t building an email list, you are leaving a lot of money on the table (and traffic). Make sure you have an autoresponder and an opt-in form on your website. Your number one goal should be to collect people’s email address, so you can send them follow up emails, build a relationship with them, and bring them BACK to your website. This will result in a lot of free website traffic if you do it correctly.
Sending out regular newsletters and promoting offers through email is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and can also help to get traffic to your website. Provide useful information and links to pages on your website where they can learn more, such as through blog posts and landing pages for particular offers. Just make sure that you don’t continually bombard your readers with emails or your customers will either disengage with, delete, or unsubscribe from your emails.
Also, put careful thought into your email subject lines. These heavily influence whether or not a user opens your email. If your emails never get opened, they can’t supply traffic to your site!
Source: ThriveHive
# 12: Offline Strategies
Don’t neglect the offline marketing strategies either. Here are a few simple things you can do to get free website traffic offline. These are either free or low cost.
- Drop cards
- Flyers
- Car Magnet
- Business Cards
- Thank you notes
- Clothing
When it comes to boosting traffic, offline sources are usually overlooked, which is a real shame. When you utilize offline sources, it can have a huge impact on the amount of traffic your website gets. According to research from iProspect and Jupiter Research, 39% of consumers who perform online searches for more information ultimately make a purchase as a result of the influence of offline channels.
Source: searchenginepeople
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, these are my best tips on how to get free website traffic. Once you learn how to generate targeted traffic on demand, it’s easy to make money online in ANY niche. On the other hand, if you don’t know how to generate free or paid website traffic, it doesn’t matter how good your idea is, or how beautiful your website is, you will fail.
What are your thoughts about how to get free website traffic? Which strategy on this list is your favorite and why? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.