9 Easy Ways to Generate FREE Traffic !!!

We all know it & we all face this challenge – lack of website traffic. This is one of the most common challenges I hear from business owners or digital marketers. Last month we discussed about getting relevant traffic by spending just $10/day. Several marketers report having lost a significant percentage of their search traffic over the past year or more, and are always on a hunt for new ways to drive relevant traffic to their site.

Many marketers spend a huge sum of money trying to launch their website through strong advertising campaigns; however, lack of funds shouldn’t be a setback as there are many ways to get traffic without spending a dime.

Quite a few people have approached us & asked various questions. How do we get free traffic? Are there any other sources besides Google that can bring visitors to a web site? How quickly can we get traffic?

The answer is yes, you can get FREE traffic from other sources besides Google. And you can’t get traffic once and then just reap the benefits. Getting traffic is an ongoing task and you must continuously do it. This article is an attempt to help marketers with actionable tips for getting FREE website traffic. While some of these strategies won’t be a quick fix, you may be surprised how many of these start to generate consistent results.

1)  Optimize your website for Search Engines

To start with, submit your website to the search engine webmasters. I am sure that you all agree that the best way to get free traffic is by optimizing your web site for Google that holds more than 90% of search engine market share in India. However the competition is huge. So you need to have a great web site both in terms of content and SEO if you want to get huge free traffic.

Yahoo and Bing may not have the market share of Google but a top position in either can bring in a good number of visitors. Although the traffic from Bing is meager 7-9% compared to Google, it is still a good source of free traffic.

2)  Viral Marketing

Today, everyone wants to go viral. Everyone wants to have as many hits as Psy’s Gangnam Style. Viral content is called so because it distributes like a virus – i.e. when users like your content, they send it to their friends, post it on various sites, and promote it for free in many different ways. Free products and services are great for getting free traffic to your site and one of the best varieties in this aspect is viral content. Viral content distributes on its own. Your only task is to create and submit it to a couple of popular sites. After that users will pick and distribute it for you.

3)  Article Directories & Classifieds

Advertise on free classified ad sites. There are many of these on the net. Some of the more popular ones are  iNetGiant, Some local ones are  Just Dial, among other business domain specific classified sites.

4)  Forum Participation

Start a forum on your website – An active forum can quickly begin ranking for long-tail keywords. They also reduce your site’s bounce rate while increasing time-on-site, as well as building a community.

Sign up to yahoo answers – Sign up to yahoo answers and leave great helpful comments to questions people are asking for, leaving a link back to your site with more helpful tips on it.

Comment on blogs – Visit other people’s blogs on the topic related to your website. Most blogs allow you to add comments about the issues being discussed. Add insightful comments about the blog topics, and leave your website link. Your comment and your link will permanently remain on the blog website.

Post in forums – Visit the online discussion forums where your target audience is participating. Post useful responses to people’s questions, and include a link to your website at the end of your post next to your name. Don’t overdo it with your posts, otherwise other forumites won’t respect you, and won’t visit your site.

Join free safe-lists – These are lists of subscribers who have opted-in to send and receive emails to each other. You can instantly reach potentially thousands of people by sending out emails, and you don’t have to worry about receiving spam complaints either because everyone on the list has opted-in to receive emails.

5)  Build Strong Social Network

Social networks are also a great way to get traffic for free. If you are popular on networks, such as  Twitter or  Facebook, the traffic you get from there can easily surpass the traffic from Google and other search engines. It is true that building a large network of targeted followers on Twitter and supporters on Facebook takes a lot of time and effort but generally the results are worth it.

6)  Social Bookmarkings

Submit your website to top social bookmarking sites to create a backlink to your website, which will increase you page rank as well. Some of them are  Reddit,  Digg,  Delicious, etc.

7)  Use Offline Promotions

Offline promotion is frequently forgotten for generating FREE website traffic. But it is also a way to get traffic for free. Some of the traditional offline ways to promote your site include printing its URL on your company’s business cards and souvenirs or sticking it on your company vehicles. You can also start selling T-shirts and other merchandise with your logo and this way make your brand more popular.

8)  Exchange Links

Create a ‘links’ page on your website that will contain the links to other non-competing websites in the same industry. Contact the owners of other websites with your proposal to exchange links. You will add their link to your links page, and they will link to your website in return. This will help build strong backlinks & enhance your search results. Trusted links are the best source of FREE traffic.

9)  BONUS TIP:

Only 3 things works best:

1. CONTENT!

2. CONTENT!!

3. CONTENT!!!

In the next blog, let’s elaborate extensively & spend time to understand in great detail about importance of great content & how to create it.