Introduction
As a blogger or Internet entrepreneur, you need traffic. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it simply means people going to your website or blog. Just like all of the people you encounter in their vehicles when you are driving to work constitute real world vehicular traffic, everyone surfing the web at any given time is a part of Internet traffic.
There are two ways to get traffic to your site.
- 1) You pay for traffic.
- 2) You get traffic for free.
However, paid traffic can cost you a lot of money, delivering little to no results, if you don't know what you are doing. Even if you do eventually develop a successful paid traffic marketing plan, it doesn't happen overnight. You have to pump a lot of revenue into buying traffic each and every day, spend your time and testing and retesting, and there are no guarantees that you will get the results you're looking for.
The "Sexiest" Thing About Free Traffic - If you think the reference to free traffic as being "sexy" is a little overboard, you are incorrect. Free traffic is beautiful, sexy, attractive and desirable. Why is this so? The answer is simple... because it's FREE!
In many cases this doesn't just mean being free financially. A lot of methods you are about to learn require a little bit of your time on the front end, but then they just continue to deliver free, targeted traffic to your site or blog with little to no upkeep on your part.
Other methods will require regular input by you, but since your financial outlay is zero, and the Internet never sleeps, you can employ these free traffic methods anytime of the night or day, whenever you have a few minutes or hours of spare time.
Some of the free traffic sources are:
Start Building a List - You absolutely, positively must be building a list. This is true if your business is off-line or on, and technology makes it easy to do so when you have a blog or website. To build your list you need a freebie - Lists of resources work well here. A short PDF that answers one big problem your audience has is another winner.
Social Media - Social media can provide a lot of free traffic. However, there are so many worthwhile social media websites out there, you have to be careful not to spend the bulk of your time chasing this low-converting traffic. Regardless what social media "gurus" will tell you, the return on your time investment trying to get people from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn back to your website to join your list is not very high.
People go to social media sites to hang out. They are socializing. Make sure you approach them in a social manner. Don't ever attempt to sell on Facebook or the other social media sites. The Best Times to Post on Social Media - HubSpot studied tens of thousands of posts and updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites. They discovered the best possible times for you to engage your audience. Those times are listed below (as of June 2016).
Facebook:
- 3 o'clock to 4:00 PM on Wednesdays
- 1 o'clock to 4:00 PM on Thursdays and Fridays
- Noon to 1 o'clock PM on Saturdays and Sundays
- Noon to 3:00 PM on Mondays through Fridays
- 5 o'clock to 6:00 PM on Wednesdays
- 7:30 o'clock to 8:30 o'clock a.m., noon, and 5 o'clock to 6:00 PM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
- 10 o'clock to 11:00 o'clock AM on Tuesdays
- Evening hours every day
- 2 o'clock to 4:00 o'clock AM every day
- 5:00 PM on Fridays
- 8 o'clock to 11:00 o'clock PM on Saturdays
* Understand that multiple factors will influence whether your content is shared, liked, commented on and develops engagement. However, if you stick to the times just mentioned, you give yourself the best possible chance of driving a lot of free traffic to your blog or website.
Mobile - In late 2015 mobile searches passed desktop searches on the Internet. Experts say that now (in 2017) more than 60% of all web searches are on mobile devices. This means several things. First off, most people are searching from their smart phones. This display is tiny compared to your laptop, your desktop and even your tablet
Build A Mobile Application: Don't worry; you don't need to be a web designer or app developer. You can head over to Fiverr.com or UpWork and have a freelancer create a mobile application for your business inexpensively. This can be as simple as a checklist or list of resources, or some other helpful piece of information.
On-Page SEO - You are probably groaning at the 3 letter acronym SEO. In case you don't know, that stands for search engine optimization. This means making your website, content and webpages attractive to Google and the other search engines. If you have fallen prey to so-called experts that promised to deliver search engine rankings by offering their SEO services, it is understood that search engine optimization is a topic you would like to avoid.
Blogging - Guest blogging doesn't provide the big traffic boost that it used to. However, it is still a great way to reach a large audience. Contact the owners of the biggest blogs relevant to your niche or market. Offer to write an original, high-value blog post for their site. In return you ask for a link back to your website.
Answer Questions on Q and A Websites - There are sites which allow web surfers to post questions about anything and everything. Online marketers like yourself answer those questions, and the question that gets the most positive feedback is chosen as the top answer.
Start a Podcast - This may seem daunting at first. However, all you really need to start a podcast is a decent microphone and a computer. Odds are you have a blog. There is a pretty good chance that your competitor has a website or blog as well. On the other hand, podcasts are few and far between, which makes them the perfect free traffic source that sets you apart from your competition.
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