15 Simple Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog or Website

Is lack of traffic giving you sleepless nights?
You are not alone.
Every website or blog owner feels the same way when there’s a traffic jam.
The instant solution to the lack of traffic is buying it, but that requires a sizeable amount of money and not everybody can afford it.
So when you need traffic and you don’t have the budget to buy enough traffic, what should you do? Give up and shut down your website or blog?
No. Get website traffic for free!
Getting free website traffic is easy and by using the 15 simple methods described here you can increase traffic to your blog or website without spending money.
Here are the 15 simple ways to increase website traffic for free.

#1 – Write content that attracts readers and compels them to share it.

Write interesting content.
If your target audience finds your content valuable, half of your job is done because people love to share such content.
Optimize your content for people.
Organize it using short paragraphs, subheads and bulleted lists. Make it easy to read online.
Optimize your content for search engines as well.
Use appropriate keywords at suitable places throughout your content to increase its search engine rankings
Enhance your content with multimedia. Use eye-catching graphics and photos to make your content stand out. Create interesting infographics.
Add buttons to help people share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media platforms.

#2 – Publish fresh content regularly.

Keep adding fresh content to your website on regular basis. If possible, do it every day.
Fresh content gives your readers a reason to keep coming back to your website.
I suggest that you follow a monthly editorial calendar. It helps you keep a track of the content to publish. It also helps you align your topics and content with any special occasions observed in a given month.
When you follow a schedule, you become more disciplined which is the first step towards becoming successful.
Regularly updated blogs and websites boost your reputation, too.

#3 – Optimize your website for search engines.

Search engines are the best source of free traffic.
Just make your webpages ready for search engines using keywords that matter for your business and you will start receiving swarms of traffic for free.
The process of making a webpage ready for search engines is called search engine optimization or SEO.
Begin by optimizing your website for Google, Yahoo! and Bing. There are many more big and small search engines out there but for the start, focus only on these three, or on Google alone if you want to channel your SEO efforts towards a single search engine.

#4 – Optimize your website for mobile devices.

Billions of people around the world get online and interact with one another using their mobile devices.
Besides, all successful people and brands have their websites optimized for mobile devices.
Do you still need more reasons? Just follow suit.

#5 – Write headlines that instantly grab reader’s attention.

A headline is the most important part of an article because it compels visitors to click.
Headlines help you make decisions. At a newsagent’s shop trying to decide which magazines to buy, what helps you most to make the decision? Headlines on the cover, right?
So write headlines that prompt visitors to take the necessary action. Write up to five headlines and then pick up the one that packs the most punch.
By the way, for this article I wrote and compared six different headlines before picking up the current headline.

#6 – Start an active forum on your website.

Starting an active forum on a website is a wonderful idea to boost traffic for free.
An active forum offers many benefits:

• It’s a great way to build a community.
• It helps keep people engaged.
• It increases the amount of time a user spends on your website.
• It serves as a perfect place to make important announcements.
• It’s a great place for information exchange.

So start an active forum today.

#7 – Build traffic by promoting content to your email list.

Do you have an email list? Good, it’s time to send some emails.
Promoting content to your target audience using emails is a great way of generating traffic on demand.
Don’t forget to include a link or two to your latest post in the email. Press the send button and watch your website traffic increase.

#8 – Share your content on different social media platforms.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and dozens of other social networking sites are great for receiving free website traffic.
Share your content with your friends and ask them to share it with their friends. This works like a chain reaction. If your content is interesting and worth reading people will click it through to your website, boosting traffic for free.
Do not restrict yourself to just one social media platform. Create profiles on major social networking sites and dedicate time to interact with your audience if you are serious about receiving traffic.

#9 – Use guest posting to increase website traffic.

Guest posting is a great way to increase website traffic.
Guest posting is inviting someone to write and publish an article on your website or getting an invitation from someone to write and publish an article on their website.
Besides multiplying traffic, guest posting helps you build a no-nonsense profile because you get featured on well-known blogs.
To get the best out of guest posting, don’t forget to ask the blog or website owner to include a link back to your website somewhere in the post. Such a link is called a backlink and it plays an important part in boosting your search engine rankings.

#10 – Make sure your website is beautiful and fast.

Nothing frustrates a user more than a website that loads slowly. Top it up with a design that fails to impress and that’s a recipe for disaster.
Follow latest design trends to choose a clean, attractive, responsive and familiar design for your website.
Also, make necessary adjustments to make your website load faster. So choose a design and functionality that do not affect the speed of your website.

#11 – Leave (meaningful) comments on popular blogs in your niche.

Leaving meaningful comments on other well-known blogs in your niche is a great way of increasing traffic for free.
A comment is like a doorway back to your own website for the readers of that particular blog.
Commenting works and is a lot of fun but to make the best out of commenting you must go beyond the regular stuff like “great post”, “wonderful article”, “this is epic”, etc.
Before leaving a comment, make sure you have read and understood the entire post. This will help you write valuable comments.

#12 – Respond to user comments.

When you dedicate time reading and responding to user comments, you get noticed.
Your reputation multiplies when you actively listen to your users. People start taking you seriously and you end up building a community of loyal users.

#13 – Answer questions relevant to your niche.

People are looking for answers to all sorts of questions. The chances are there are people out there who are asking questions relevant to your niche. Reach out to them right away to receive some free traffic.
When you answer a question, don’t forget to include a link back to your website in your answer.
Sites like Quora, Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers are three great places to start.

#14 – Start a poll.

Starting a poll on a trending topic is a great way to receive free traffic on demand.
Here are some tips to help you create effective polls.

• Ask simple questions that require neutral answers.
• Keep polls short.
• Use clear language.
• Speak user’s language.

#15 – Organize a contest.

When you give something valuable away for free, you not only get lots of additional prospects but also a chance to build a list of people who are interested in your stuff.
The trick here is to ask for relevant information that is truly essential for the contest. Do not ask for unnecessary details. For example, if you are giving away free e-books, it does not make sense to ask for people’s mailing addresses.
The prize doesn’t have to be an iPhone, iPad or a fancy gadget of that level all the times. It can also be one of your own products, popular books, software, free passes and tickets, online courses, or even a box of chocolates. Find out what works best with your target audience.
 

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