12 ways to get free traffic to your blog
PayPerClick (PPC) advertising and banner advertisements are a nice way to bring in new visitors, but sometimes a beginner webmaster does not have money to spend on online marketing or the like to get website traffic. How can you get more hits without taking any financial hits?
The power of guerrilla marketing is on your side. I thought I would share with you a few ways that I have managed to get new visitors without spending a dime.
- Write for other websites – You can submit directly to related websites or write articles for an article distributer like EZineArticles. They allow you to attach links and bio info to your article and if its reprinted watch your traffic grow.
- Join traffic exchanges – Make sure the exchanges you join are targeted or it will be a waste. Also make sure the link is worth your time by verifying quality websites within the exchange. Don’t join too many or you’ll be infested with banners.
- Offer RSS feeds and email subscriptions – Subscriptions mean repeat visitors and repeat visitors are always a good thing. It also help word of mouth to spread about your website content.
- Submit to directories - Of coarse you’ll want to start by getting into DMOZ, but it never hurts to do a Google search on directories in your website’s niche.
- Join every community imaginable – Especially if you are a blogger. Profiles where you can add your link and feed are an absolute must. Services like MyBlogLog allow you to connect with bloggers while exposing your website helping to gain backlinks, build traffic, create branding and it never hurts to have your blog linked in with a lot of others somehow. This seems to be the only problem with not hosting on a service like blogspot or wordpress.com, so bypass it by joining EVERYTHING else.
- Get Dugg, Stumbled,Redditted ect – Social bookmarks bring insane bursts of traffic. It never hurts to have an account at one of these and bookmark your own content as well as other good stuff *If you feel guilty ask a friend with an account to bookmark you instead
- Discuss your website in public – Don’t be shy to tell family, friend, coworkers and colleagues about your website. They are much likelier to actually check it out hearing it from a face they’ve seen than seeing the link somewhere.
- Advertise ofline – If you own a store or office you should already be doing this, but in other situations you can find many ways to promote your site offline. Post flyers, leave business cards, take out ads, hold events like dinners or concerts. Be creative and be proud of your website.
- Comment on other blogs, post in forums – Add something useful to conversations and make your link available in doing so. Most blogs allow you to post your link separately from the comment text and adding a link to your forum sig works wonders. Commenting first or nearly first is likely majorly boost your traffic.
- Submit to search engines – Do not pay for this. There are many services that charge fees to submit to major search engines but you can do this yourself at no cost to you. Most search engines have a submit your site page on them somewhere and cPanel has a built in search engine submission feature that works just fine to get your site listed.
- Ping it up – If you are using wordpress, you have a built in pinger already. Pinging is a way of letting other websites know that you’ve updated. Blogflux has a great service that ping several major blog aggregators with one click simplicity.
- Link to others and trackback - Trackbacks show on the site you are linking as a link back to your site. They are a great way to leave your card on another blogger’s page and theres a chance they might see something they like on your site and return the favor.
- You tell us - What is a way that you have increased your traffic without spending any money?
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Awesome Tips. I have tried some of these and they really work. I would like to add one thing that is Press release distribution, I have received good amount of traffic doing that plus quality links.
Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t think of press releases. That should have been obvious considering I just spent three years in college for Journalism.
Thanks for the great tip!
Excellent tips Ryan, I would like to add one thing that is Squidoo lenses and hubpages. They have been an excellent source of traffic and quality links from me. Plus i make revenue from my Squidoo Lenses.
Yes, Press Release are great so are squidoo lenses and hubpages
Well, but hubpages allows no-follow links. Both, hubpages and squdioo cliam to pay you money, but they do not. Nice tips, anyways.