Website traffic is the online version of attracting consumers into your store. They may or may not buy a product during their first visit. But if they have a positive experience, they will eventually come back. The most difficult part is making the first visit happen. You could invest in expensive marketing tactics and tool to get more traffic. However, you know that you do not have the budget for it. Thus, we will show you effective ways to drive free website traffic.
Not All Traffic Is Useful Traffic
Before we start, here a few words of advice. The reality is that there are still black hat tactics to pump up your website traffic, for free or at a low cost. But these ways to drive free website traffic are not really useful for you.
Shady tactics attract low quality website traffic. You really do not want a high number of daily sessions just for the sake of the number. You want visitors who are interested in your products or services and will eventually become your customers.
Free Traffic Does Not Equal Effortless Results
As we start listing various ways to drive free website traffic, you will notice that you have to invest time and effort to achieve the desired results. This is something you need to keep in mind at all times when planning your marketing and promotion activities: you either pay for results or work for them.
There is no magic formula or trick to bring you qualified traffic for free and without any effort on your part. We understand that you are torn between lack of time and a tight budget, but you need to find the balance between these two constraints. It is the only way to stay in business during these difficult times, and under the threat of a new economic crisis looming ahead.
Effective Ways to Drive Free Website Traffic
These being said, here are five effective ways to increase your website traffic for free:
1. Add Fresh Content to Your Site Every Week
Both Google and consumer like new content. For Google, it means that your site is managed by someone, and actively updated to meet the consumers’ demands. For visitors, it is a source of useful information, and a reason to keep visiting your site.
You should add new content to your website at least once per week. Ideally, you should create blog posts, news articles, new product pages and the latest developments in your industry or related to your company.
2. Guest Post on Other Websites
Many websites allow various contributors to post articles. Each site has a list of rules relating to:
- Type of content
- Article format
- Tone of voice
- Article length
- Author bio.
In general, you can add your website in the author bio section of a guest post and one or two anchor text links in the article itself. If your article is high quality, interesting and useful, the readers will likely click on one of your links to visit your website.
3. Comment on Other Blog Posts
Here is another simple way to drive free website traffic. Find blogs in your industry and start commenting on their articles. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind. First of all, do not comment on your competitors’ articles – that is simply unethical and you do not want to see them commenting on your blog posts.
Secondly, make sure that the comment is truly useful and has something to offer, both to the author and to other readers. So “great post” or “awesome ideas” are out of the question.
Last but not least, do not include your website in the comment; that is simply begging for attention and clicks. Instead, when you fill in your contact data, add the business website there. But make sure that you post your comment under your real name, not the name of your business.
4. Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Website
Social sharing buttons should be on the list of basic features for any website. It is the simplest way to get your content out there for free. If readers like your blog posts, they will click the Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn buttons to share them to their social media profiles.
In turn, their friends will click on the links they shared and you earn free traffic to your website.
5. Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Posts
Here is a simple and underutilised way to drive free website traffic. Whenever you share your blog posts on the social media, use hashtags for the most important keywords. This will allow people who are interested in the topic to discover your content and visit your website.
At the present, hashtags can be used in posts on the largest social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.