Get More Website Traffic Than You Can Handle

It used to be so easy to get free website traffic to your blog. All you had to do was fill out a few meta tags and made sure you used relevant keywords in your content. Now everyone is on the internet trying to make money, get their message out, or just plain connect to other people with like interests and the competition for attention has gotten fierce. Getting free targeted traffic to your website is a lot more challenging.

But with consistent action and these seven tips, you can drive traffic to your website without having to spend money on hit or miss advertising.

1. Increase Website Traffic by Getting Involved

Get involved in the internet via forums, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs. This accomplishes several things. First of all you are meeting people and making contacts. By helping out on a forum in your niche, you are increasing the perception of you as an expert and because most forums and blogs allow you to link to your website, you are also improving your search rankings with back links and getting targeted website traffic from both the sites and the search engines.

2. Generate Free Website Traffic with Guest Blogging

Submit posts to other sites in your niche or just outside your niche. The major benefit of guest blogging is that you are tapping into an already established audience who is ready and waiting to hear what you have to say. The best way to take advantage of this is to submit unique and useful content to avoid the duplicate content trap and to maintain the reader’s trust in their favorite blogger.

3. Submit Articles Directly to Websites and Newsletters

If you have a stable of articles that you want to distribute, consider submitting them directly to the source rather than using article directories. This provides you with control over where your content shows up as well as the ability to confirm whether or not the site has a reader base.

4. Generate Free Traffic to Your Website with Blog Carnivals

A blog carnival is a roundup of posts from the blogosphere that are centered on a main theme. You submit a link to a post on your blog that fits the theme of the carnival. The host will usually review your article and, if it fits, will add the link to a list that they then post on their own blog for their readers to peruse. You will gain both relevant links and targeted traffic from this. A well known blog carnival is Thursday Thirteen. However, a search on the internet for blog carnivals will turn up more.

5. Increase Online Website Traffic by Offering Freebies

People love free stuff especially if it helps them solve a problem or be more effective in their business and life. Another good marketing technique is to provide useful freebies that people can only get from your site. This could be anything from a WordPress template to a plugin that helps with the functionality of software to an e-book that provides valuable information. In addition to getting more people visiting and reading your blog, you can also build a mailing list if you set things up right.

6. Join a Social Marketing Group or Blog Network

A good way to increase website traffic free is to form a social marketing group or become a part of a network. A social marketing group is a group that promotes each other. This could be anything from highlighting each other’s posts to giving each other a boost on social networking sites like Digg.

A network is a group of websites owned by one individual that span a variety of topics. Most of the networks on the internet have been around for awhile, have quite a number of blogs, and use an internal link and marketing structure to drive traffic throughout the network. Blogging for a network helps you gain a good amount of credibility as an expert as well as exposure for your other projects.

7. Increase Exposure and Traffic with an Interview

Get interviewed by other bloggers or interview others in your niche/market. Doing interviews is probably one of the most effective marketing techniques that you can use. As the interviewee, you get to sell your business and yourself by letting your potential customers get to know you better. People like to do business with those they know and interviews go a long way towards making them comfortable with you.

As the interviewer, this is a great way to make contacts in the blogosphere. People like to talk about themselves which is evidenced by the popularity of blogging. So if you do an interview about someone, most likely they will send readers to your site earning you both traffic and links.

Generating free website traffic takes commitment and drive because it is not an instantaneous fix. However, you can get targeted traffic to your blog using these tips. Just keep your eye on the prize and you’ll have a popular website in short order.

Possibly Related Articles:

1. Article Marketing: Is It Worth the Effort?
2. Making the Most of Your Article Marketing
3. Google’s Farmer Update Kicked My Site Off the Search Engine
4. Product Review: Feedburner
5. Thirteen Memes

7 Responses to “Get More Website Traffic Than You Can Handle”

1. Wayne Smallman says:

   September 6, 2007 at 10:58 pm

   Hi Daria, this is good stuff. And it’s really accessible, too. Especially for those new to ‘blogging.

   I got an interview on Peopleized, which is a good place to get some exposure. Plus, you can use the interview as a reference source for yourself.

   I know a lot has been said about Social Networks and Social Media (you’re on Pownce like myself) but there’s a lot of value in being vocal and active on the likes of Pownce, StumbleUpon et cetera.

   Thanks for a good read…
2. Daria Black says:

   September 7, 2007 at 5:29 am

   Thanks for stopping by Wayne and for the Stumble. You are awesome. I just saw a lot of people recommending the article marketing route and while that does have is place in marketing, I just don’t think it is as effective as it used to be. I just thought of some things that I could do (as a marketing newbie) and what others have done and basically compiled the list. Hopefully it helps other people.

   I probably will either use your interview or send you one through Peopleized if that’s okay
3. Wayne Smallman says:

   September 7, 2007 at 5:50 am

   Hi Daria, I’ve written articles, which I’ve published over on Ezine Articles.

   My personal experiences aren’t great. Indirectly, there might be peripheral benefits, but I’ve not seen any traffic come in.

   What I have seen is my articles ending up as content scrape fodder!

   But I do know people who drive lots of traffic and use their articles to build a lot of trust value to their services (white papers et cetera).

   By all means, do what you want with my interview. I’ll be more than happy to oblige….
4. Daria Black says:

   September 7, 2007 at 6:03 pm

   Sweet!

   The fact that my articles ended up on spam sites is the biggest thing that turned me off of article marketing. Every once in awhile I’ll get a click or two from one of my articles but I haven’t really seen a whole lot of benefits either.

   Someone once said that you had to publish like 50 articles on 20 sites or something before you started seeing any value. I just think that’s time better spent doing something that will get real results
5. Wayne Smallman says:

   September 7, 2007 at 11:39 pm

   I think if you’re going to dedicate the time to writing strong content, it’s as well to publish it on your ‘blog, too.

   That’s what I’ve done with most of the articles I’ve written…
6. Lisa Karasic says:

   November 5, 2007 at 5:37 am

   A friend shared your tips with me. I am a marketing veteran, but new to Internet-based marketing, through blogs, social networks, permission-based marketing, etc. Specifically I was hoping you could advise me on how to learn all about this stuff, how much time it takes to do it for one client, how much I should charge to do it for a client, etc. Thanks, Lisa — by the way, I’m not even sure how you will respond to me since I don’t know how to get back onto your site or blog. Just in case you’re inclined, feel free to email me at [Removed for commenter's protection]. Thanks.
7. Daria Black says:

   November 6, 2007 at 5:37 am

   Hi Lisa,

   I’ll email you within the next day or so with the information you are looking for. Talk to you soon!