For any webmaster, getting free website traffic is such an important thing to do. You can’t obtain traffic and reap its benefits overnight. Getting traffic for a website is an enduring task and you need to sure you're doing it the right and proper way.
There are systems and ad networks to jump-start traffic streams to websites, but a lot of sites don’t have the resources that others have in place in order to create additional traffic. The good thing is, you don’t need to spend a single cent; all you need to have is the appropriate state of mind and enough enthusiasm. You also need to have drive and the determination to work hard and learn the proper techniques that will help you maintain a steady flow of free website traffic.
Tips to Get Free Website Traffic
Participate on Forums and Online Communities
You can use online forums and online website communities. The best thing in relation to forums and online website communities is that you be able to target a particular group that suits the particular demographic that you are in search of. You can talk about many topics concerning the niche market that you're trying to attract. One greater thing about it is that you know what you really aware on what you are doing and you have ideas of what may be the outcome of it.
Through online communities and forums you'll be able to make a name for your business and build authority for your brand. Prove to the community what you are capable of and surprise them with your various skills about the topic, with that you'll be able to make a name and build up reliance with people in your level of skill and awareness.
Send Newsletters
You can take advantage of newsletters as well. Give people a list of your products with attractive and amusing articles. If you make it motivating and amusing, people will be glad to subscribe to your newsletter and suggest it to other people they know. The more people who subscribe for your newsletter, the more people will visit your website escalating your traffic.
Trade and Exchange Links
Another good plan is trading links with other websites. You don’t need to spend a cent for this. All you need to do is attain a contract with another website owner. Through links exchange, both sites will sure profit from it. All traffic that arrives to the website could possibly click on the link of your website and stay on your website as well. This works fine for generating free website traffic, particularly when both websites contain the same niche.
Submit Articles on Free Articles Directories
Make articles that could temper the mind of people that have interest in your product. Write articles that will provide instructions and guidelines to other enthusiasts. Writing articles that give good service and information to other people would give the essential mileage your traffic stream requires.
A lot of sites offer free submission of your articles. As soon as people find interest in your articles they have a good possibility of following the track by knowing where the article came from. Take in a link or a concise depiction of your company with the article and there’s a great chance that they will visit your site.
Final Words on getting free website traffic
Make good content for your website. A lot of search engines capture good keywords your site utilizes and how they are utilized. It is not a must that content have to be done by an expert content writer. You can do it on your own but you need to make content for your website that is enjoyable and also informational. It has to give particular requirements and also great quality.
Internet users utilize search engines to hit upon what they are seeking. Search engines in response make use of keyword searching in giving their search results. By means of using accurate keywords, you can obtain high rankings in search engine results without spending any money.
Each and every one of these processes will drive more free website traffic. All you need is a little of effort and enough time. Study everything you can regarding the methods shown in this article and you will shortly own a website with a brilliant traffic flow devoid of using a great deal of money from your pocket.
About Iam Herbert
Herbert is the author behind Two-sided Perspective, a blog about views and insights about Blogging, SEO and Internet Marketing and Social Media. +Herbert is an online freelancer and father who loves to blog during his past time.
Excellent tips Herbert, forums and communities have helped me a lot with getting traffic to my website in the past and it’s one of my favourite methods. I use to enjoy doing article marketing in the past but these days I tend to stick to guest posting and writing on HubPages.
Thanks Fabrizio, I do enjoy in discussions on forums since we learn something out of our fellow members.
Hi, I would just like to ask. I used to keep on updating my site before. Then things turned really busy so I forgot about updating my site. I admit my page rank dropped drastically. Is there still a way to redeem my way again?
Lots of good tips and ideas here! Always go for targeted traffic when you try to get more visitors to your website or blog. Free traffic is of course free, but it often requires time, and time is money, as they keep telling us… If you have more time than money, you should try free methods.
Good point Rick, time is really a big issue and its hard if you can’t find ways to manage your time well
URLs in forum signatures are also a way to get traffic for free. There are forums, which get millions of visitors a day and if you are a popular user on such a forum, you can use this to get traffic to your site. When you post on forums and people like your posts, they tend to click the link to your site on your signature to learn more about you. In rare cases you might be able to post a deep link (i.e. a link to an internal page of the site) rather than a link to your homepage and this is also a way to focus attention to a particular page. Unfortunately, deep links are rarely allowed.
Hi Herbert, some cool tips here, participating in online forums and communities can be a great one, especially if there’s a popular forum or community for your niche.
I know article directories have taken a hit after panda, but they still work – I find the best reason for submitting to these directories is for content syndication.
When I first tried submitting articles I didn’t think any webmasters would use them on their sites, but to my amazement quite a few did 🙂
Thanks for the over-view Herbert, organized and straight forward. I can appreciate that, because 9 times out 10 people are all over the place, scratching their head trying to figure out “How to get traffic to m site”?
Thanks Brians
These are very good tips to get traffic to a site. At times it may be stressful when your site is not getting the amount of traffic that you want to get. By following these tips I am sure that the results will be good.
I’ve found the link exchange to be great. Not only does it help your SEO, but if it is actually on another site that is similar to yours, then you will most likely have some traffic trickle in from it, and the traffic that you receive will be the exact traffic that you’re trying to target!
To get the most out of link exchange, accept only links that are related to your niche, as what I have heard, it’s really effective if they are on your niche.
That’s what I’ve heard as well, but I doubt that links outside of your niche will hurt anything.
Really? I hadn’t thought of that – it might be worth looking to see if there are questions posted to Yahoo in my niche.
Yes Josh, Yahoo Answers works well, you just need to be patient in answering a couple of questions.
I really haven’t observed any increase. How comes that, “to be patient”?
Great tips Herbert …
Agree with you, actively participating in forums and other communities brings good traffic. Also sending periodic newsletters and article submission works fine. Only thing I don’t encourage is exchanging links.
Hello Salman, do you mind sharing us why you dont encourage that?
Not a particular reason to discourage it …. just I don’t see any benefits of exchanging links instead I’d prefer quality one-way links
Nice points, I like forums and other communities. They do contribute towards lot of my traffic. One think which I avoid is link exchanges, it can be bad for SEO if not done correctly (Google like natural link building rather than artificial).
Agree with you Sanjeev.
Good post what do you plan to do with google+?
Since it is new what is your plan to get traffic from there?
Hi Herbert , these are most comprehensive and simplest ways to drive traffic , I have tried many of them and have only a little success but I am sure will get success with great amount of traffic…
Just continue working on it Vimal, things don’t happen in a blink of an eye, it’s an on going process. Everything will surely paid off if you did it perfectly
Hey Herbert,
There are so many things that might work for a blogger for get traffic to one’s blog. Effective networking is probably the most important. What also has worked for me personally is guest posting. It introduces me to a whole new set of audience, and I love the interactions that follow. The sense of community is totally understood when you get out there and check out just how many are to be interacted with and make your best effort to be in touch with most.. so that they shall be in touch with you, to support your blog and your endeavors and to help spread the word out!
Hi Hajra, thank you for sharing a very engaging thought. I really believe that interacting is a good way to get attention out of your fellow readers.
Hi Herbert..
Thanks for sharing usefull tips.This is a good way to drive traffic and its helpfull.
Your welcome Asad
Your tips prove that as long as you have something valuable to add to a current discussion within a certain topic, you will be drawing attention to your site and you won’t have to work as hard for traffic. Something that has worked for me is to talk to other bloggers and comment on their blogs. That way you will always check out their latest posts and they will check out yours. Plus they will gladly put a link to you on their blog and you will get some of their visitors interested in your blog.
Contributing and sharing thoughts on a discussion is a very effective way to drive readers to your blog. Good point Erica
I remember my early days of blogging, I was over the moon with a few hits a day 😆 but now-a-days it’s all changed and I’ve been putting in to practice many of what you have mentioned above. In the 3-4 years that I started it all payed off and now, I get stacks of traffic from lots of places.
Which all goes to prove that you have to get the word out there, otherwise who will know your site even exists 😉
Hi Karen, you are truly right, we just need to mix the right ingredients in order to attain what we wanted.If we can’t make things right at the beginning, we will surely fail on the long run.
Your advice is straight on. I have heard that reciprocal link exchange is not very good. I have been told to only get one way text links back into my website. Please keep in mind that I have gotten so much advice that my head is spinning. I have been using just about all of the resources you mentioned in your post. One last question, where do I place link on my site if I do decide to do a link exchange.
Thanks,
Dori
On most blogs/sites Dori, they place links on their sidebars or on footers.
Herbert, thanks for getting back on that ?, Do you suggest that the link be highly relative to my niche. I have a company I have been working with that tells me it does not matter. Only the page rank and page authority matters. I have also heard that more than 5 links on a home page will dilute my link juice.
Thanks,
Dori
Hey Herbert thanks for the post. I totally agree with the points that you have stated I believe content is absolutely supreme in getting traffic to your website.
I agree with you Sandy. Thanks
Hey Herbert is link exchange such a good idea when it comes to building back links for your website ? Please reply
It still works Deep but try doing it naturally
I’d also add guest blogging – an opportunity to add value and share your expertise with a new network of people who don’t know who you are but match your ideal client profile or target market is a great way to attract new subscribers, readers, and clients to your site.
Hi Jennifer, thank you for the addition. Yes guest blogging is also a good way of acquiring free website traffic
I haven’t had much luck with directories, but I’ve gotten great results from StumbleUpon. I’ve also gotten some traffic from Reddit, but the Reddit crowd is so nasty that it’s distasteful to post there. Thanks for the tips!
Sorry to hear that Doug but Reddit and StumbleUpon are not just your choices, there are still a lot of related sites that you can try
Absolutely! I already have, and like I said, the only one that’s given worthwhile results is StumbleUpon. Frankly, I think my time is better spent creating good content and working on backlinking. In my view, the effectiveness of social-media sites for traffic generation is overblown.
Even with StumbleUpon, which has driven amazing traffic to my blog, the long-term results are questionable. The only traffic that really counts is that which desires to be there, which means that the visitor specifically searched for the topic. The only way a visitor will return is if the site fulfilled or surpassed the expectations of the visit. Most of the StumbleUpon-driven traffic does not repeat. Thanks for responding!
Any advice for any website owner on how to get more traffic is a good thing. Thanks for sharing this! Participating on forums and article directories are my 2 favs.
These are good help I have to admit in raising traffic to our website, before I never knew about this all I know that we can raise traffic by back linking strategy, you have given me a great info I can instill in my mind.thanks for your help.
Backlinking works Kate but it is not just search engines that we need to consider since there are other ways that we can traffic like what I have mentioned above.
Hope this helps Kate.
Thanks for the useful information you have shared Herbert.you have given me a great idea which I can adopt specially that i am just starting my home business.
I enjoy your blog so wanted to come check out this post. You sure bring in some interesting tips. Would never have thought to relate my blog. Sharing personal stories does make for a more interesting post and I have found even as a newbie to blogging that is how I seem to be connecting with my visitors and other members of the blogging community. Will have to try one of your suggestions about how to capture attention with interesting introduction that will draw in the reader. Great job!
Thank Carlos, Coming up with an engaging content intro will allow readers to read further.
Hi Robert,
Thank you for you free tips. However, I have a few questions for you.
There are so many forums to paticipate on, what’s the best way to manage them?
In exchange links, Do you just publish a comment include a blog link for who requested to trade?
Finding targeted keywods are not easy and as well there are so many types of keyword to choose from, such as Most Searches, Competition…
Hi Ferb, I think its the best way that you will participate in online communities that are related to your niche, in that way you will get the most out of it.
I am working on almost all. But I haven’t participated in any forum related to my blog.
Keywords, keywords, keywords… learning keyword strategy.
Thank for informative tips.
Hi Abhi, bet you should consider participating on forums.
Definitely! Surely, I will
Herbert, I’d be so grateful if you’d read the post linked below and, if you enjoyed it, leave a comment to let me know!
Very good post. I’ll be retweeting today. I would add obviously links from your Tweets, Facebook and a big one Google+.
Thank you Carel. That would be great
Dear friends,
You’ll be able to engage a article author regarding community posting, blog site creating, internet marketing, selling your business, creating essays, dissertations, article marketing and many more. This is such kind of site that helps you a lot.
Thanks
I do leave comments on blogs. Is it worth it? Do you think commenting on blogs with high page ranks like this one really helps your blog build its ranking? What do you think?
Blog commenting is one of the top ways to build quality back links. Especially on blogs like this one with comment luv and links are do-follow. Although, it does take some time to build a good amount of them. I first started visiting blogs only for back links and now I’ve grown to love some of them and really enjoy the content. This site being one of them.
Hi Kee, Yes it helps a lot. Not just you gain a link back to your site but you are also getting new visitors to your blog.
Herbert, this article could be better if you deeper describe it. Almost all of the method you proposed are affecting site’s position in search engine rankings, and if proper used it will get much more free traffic from organic SE results than from all of the forums, article directories and exchanging links all together. I am sure you are familar with SEO and could make this article much more helpful and informative it will help you get more readers for sure! Best wishes to you!
Getting more traffic is kind a feeling frustrated. But knowing how to implement in the right way is a good traffic.I’m glad that I found your blog, and I believe it is a great resource. Thank you so much for the advice!
really nice article ! Keep on going ! Iam always intressted in reading articles about how to get more traffic
Great thought, Sanjay. I’ll keep that in my book of traffic generator.
Oh, and Herbert! Thank you for great tips.
There really are many ways to get traffic.
One of them is by submitting short, relevant articles, where you can add a link to your website…
I totally agree with you sir
You’re welcome Adeline, let us know by then and good luck with it
Thanks Reima, thanks for the tip
I found another way to get free traffic by submitting my posts in pdf form to document sharing sites like DocStoc. I first found out about this on a webinar and then tested it out and sure enough it produces traffic due to the fact that most document sharing sites have big PR and they allow you to add relevant tags to your submissions which get picked up not only by the sites natural visitors but also from search engines.
Of course you have to be able to convert your posts into pdf form and for that I use a free plugin called post2pdf converter…you can see it in action right above my posts in the link that says “Download this page in PDF format” with the Acrobat reader symbol in front 😉
I have been implementing the advice you have given on your blog and also creating link wheels for our site. On the hardest keywords to conquer for us – dog clothes uk – we have been blitzung the search results lately moving from page 14 to page 2. I think the main advice is “keep on hacking away at it and it will work”. Thanks again
i found that it will be very helpful to the newbie in blogging as the new blog doesn’t have much traffic..
Although they can go for link building services to get backlinks and at last i feel that the article is very helpful to me..
thanks for awesome article.
Good point. I have made facebook fan page to announce product reviews and specifications. Creating a web traffic is hard but work hard, there’s no impossible.
I’ve heard that article directories are not the way to go today, especially after Google last year began giving them less importance in search rankings. I can’t say for sure this is the case, but what I’ve read numerous times. I find online communities and those don’t always have to be message boards or forums, but could also be blogging communities, tend to help a lot in getting traffic for my sites. I’ve tried traditional forums, but would rather spend my time visiting blogging communities more.
You said Send Newsletters, OK then where to get a list of active email addresses to send this?
Thanks for your nice info, because my site doesnt have much traffic
All the tips are perfectly realistic and will try them all with my travel blog, there are two things I am not yet certain about though. The first is how to attract more people to my blog – I am quite the beginner you see and the other one is how to inspire them to subscribe to my newsletter… But the rest s clear and am really grateful for it.
Posting on forums is something that I recommend very highly. I will post around 10 times a day on a popular forum like Digital Point and it will earn me a good couple of thousand visitors a month.
I would not suggest trying to exchange links though, in my experience people try and cheat by removing your link from their site.
I appreciate the advice to interact with others in forums. It is so easy to get focused on one aspect of building traffic at the expense of other equally valuable types of traffic. I learned a lot reading through the comments as well, I like the idea of submitting pages to Stumbleupon, haven’t tried that yet. Thanks for the article.
I agree with all those methods. I have been concentrating on my site speed because I know Google pays attention to this. I got my site real fast right now. I ran webpagetest.org and my site registered .39 seconds, now that is fast.
Great tips! My favorite is certainly getting on chats and forums. I love the interaction and, while it’s might not be as effective, it’s more natural and fun in my opinion.
I found this ideas interesting, thanks a lot for posting this article. How does one get to know the best sites for traffic?
Wow interesting to know many new thing about getting a loads of traffic for a blog..
This can be very helpful for a beginner and others too thanks a lot!!!
Enjoyed your Article very much was not aware of the Trade & Exchange Links will look into that area a little more.
Thanks Again
Great tips. Participating on fora and blogs is a great way to get yourself and your site out there and share your knowledge, and at the same time learn some new things as well.
Submitting articles in article directories is a great method as well, you get free traffic and with some article directories you can get a nice backlink to your site as well.
Don’t forget Guest-blogging as a great source for free traffic as well. 🙂
I have traded links in the past but recent changes in Google’s algorithm supposedly have now made two way links a lot less favorable as Google now looks at them as being a less reliable source of authority.
Mainly because it has become such common practice to exchange links with others to manipulate the system.
Not really sure if I will continue now.
Also spend more time on activities that give you double benefits – seo improvement and direct traffic. For example guest posting can give you good direct traffic and also can greatly improve your seo, which will also increase your traffic from search engines. Social media sites can also have double effect. First of all facebook and twitter are considered an SEO factor and in the same time can give huge traffic. Another thing about social media is popular sites with dofollow links. They improve SEO and can also give some direct traffic.
You have given very valuable points here. Thanks for sharing your experience. I to like share that blogging can assist very much to get more traffic for your website, I read your blog and got many good tips.
Hi Herbert,
Nice list of tips. I haven’t tried yet the link exchange and the article directories.
To tell you the truth I am a new blogger and I am afraid of asking people to exchange links, I don’t know the way. I think it is better to initially build an audience and then go to the next step of link exchange.
As far as article directories, yes it is in my list of goals for the next three months.
Thank you for sharing with us.
I’m little confuse about link exchange, should I exchange dofollow links or nofollow links?
Not only does it help your SEO, but if it is actually on another site that is similar to yours, then you will most likely have some traffic trickle in from it.
Hope the tips/methods/suggestions listed here will help me to get more free traffic to my site.
Nice article…!
I agree with Fabrizio. Article sites are not that useful anymore. Forums and blog still seem to be though. Another great way is google+. Google+ can really increase your organic traffic. If you are not familiar with google+ or how you can use it to get free traffic check out this article.
http://www.profitworks.ca/blog/918-search-engine-optimization/308-use-google-plus-to-bring-traffic-to-your-website
Thanks for this wonderful article. I am feeling some changes after implimenting your ideas for my website traffic. Thanks a lot
Great writing Herbert. I love writing article and sharing it to a larger audience. Thus article marketing is one the I can recommend to bloggers who want to get free traffic for free. Joining forums is also a nice way to mingle with the community and at the same time build your back links.
Hi, I have commented on this post before, I keep tuning in because I get such great tips from your replies. I was wondering if you could give me your take on Hub Pages. I stopped doing them for a while and then went in right after the new year and revamped all my hubs along with my links. I found that I got a huge rush of traffic and made a few good sales. Someone told me that they don’t carry much rank these days and Google down graded them. What say you? I was also hoping that Ileane would comment to me as well.
Thanks,
Dori
You’re right. These are pretty simple. I just have to make time to hang on forums. Thanks for sharing these.
I love getting free web traffic. What you have written in this article is valid. Participating in forums will help to get you free traffic. Commenting, guest blogging and also the use of social media.
Wonderful post, keep up the good writing!
I am trying to drive traffic to my site so these tips will hopefully come in useful
Did I use this right?
Now I’ve put in the right link (I think) so that my blog shows up
Thanks
I’ve been looking for tips on getting people to my blog – this looks like great advice
I think that the comment luv feature is great – I’ve only just come across this. I will look out for it again
Thanks for your great advice, I will try it out this week
This is a great article. Thanks for sharing. I do have one question when you say ‘trade and share links’ I am in the school of thought that some links can be bad while others are great. So I am little reluctant just to trade links with anyone because I believe it might hurt my ranking. What is you thought on this? I look forward to your answer.
thanks and great article!
I always try to leverage all the methods at once so the results are maxed. If a visitor sees a lot of comments and a discussion i think he is more likely to join it.
Thanks for the tips, I’ll try your suggestions and I hope i’ll get traffic to my blog.
Forums have been my number way to get traffic to my website. I have found that warrior forum and digital point forum is giving some great traffic.
Hi Herbert,
Thanks for the Free information about basic blog tips. Although, I use paid strategies it’s good to know the free strategies so I can train a beginner with no budget. It’s also great to see other like minded people. I look forward to reading more post from your site. Keep up the great work.
Dave Steffensmeier
Is there a way to do a short post on how to comment on forums. I am not sure what to do to establish a valuable link and traffic back to my site. I have signed up for accounts, but then I am lost. Please do a short step by step if possible, I am sure there are others that would like to learn as well.
Dori
Forums are such a fantastic way to get new eyes to your site and connect with like-minded people. I’ve canceled paid memberships to sites, because I’ve received more value from the LinkedIn and Facebook groups I belong too. In fact, I recently joined a Yahoo group that has been invaluable in my Life’s Abundance (pet food and products) business.
This is a fantastic list; everything is easy to do and valuable for new bloggers.
Thanks
Forums are a really good way to get some traffic without spending any money.
I like digital point the best.
When I started blogging I didn’t get enough traffic. Then I started forum posting & adding my site link in signature. I also comment in different posts in forums & try to give suggestions. Then I saw my site’s traffic increased rapidly. Some bloggers think forum posting is a wastage of time. But I agree with your tips. This post will be a bench mark for new bloggers
You have shared some excellent tips here. I think that the most important one that you have mentioned is the participation in forums.
This brings you both potential customers as well as improves your standing within the community as an “expert”.
Interesting post, thanks.
Hi I have read this post before, but have come back again to get other tips about free traffic to my sites. I enjoy reading other comments for new advice. Thanks again for all the help Ileane 🙂
Excellent tips Herbert. I believe Trade and Exchange Links and sending Newsletters can be very helpful when getting free website traffic.
I like your point – newsletters. I feel that exactly is the point I need to have a look on. Thanks for the post.
Forums like Digital Point really help generating meaningful traffic of ppl intereste in a particular niche.
Thanks for the post BTW