Increase Your Website Traffic for Free

You’ve just built a website (or had one built), so now you have a brand new, shiny website. It looks great, it has good SEO, and it has all the information anyone could ask for…but no one is visiting your site. Why not? Getting new website traffic is not just a matter of building a site. And while good SEO is very important, and can help increase traffic over the long term, it won’t be a fast solution to gain your site new traffic at the start. But don’t fret – there are ways to jump start your site’s traffic right now, and better yet, a lot of them are free!

Here are 5 ways to drive traffic to your site for free

1. Get Some Backlinks

Backlinks are links on other sites that go to your site. There are two reasons why this works: first, it gets your website in front of a larger audience through the backlink itself. Second, it can increase Google’s trust in your site, which also increases your search engine rankings. When Google sees your link on other trusted sites, it increases the trust of your site, hence increasing your Google ranking and then your website traffic. Here are some of our favorite ways to build backlinks to your site.

Write testimonials for the products or services you have used or are using. Once you purchase a product or service and have had some time to utilize it, visit the product/service website and write a testimonial about it. Be honest, but remember, this is also for your benefit, so be polite and courteous. Once you’ve written the testimonial, sign it with your name and a link back to your website.
Ask to be interviewed. There are plenty of websites that specialize in providing expert interviews. Once you do enough of them and are established as an expert in your field, you’ll be asked to do interviews. Until then, you will need to go looking for them. Using Google (or another search engine), search for websites that run interviews and let them know you’re interested in participating in an interview in your area of expertise.
Check out this article from Position Digital for more about the options above and many other ways to build backlinks on your site.

2. Get Involved Online

Join social media groups, discussion boards, and websites that are relevant to your industry, then get involved. Comment on posts, answer questions, and join in on the conversations that people are having about your industry – and don’t forget to include a link back to your website! The more you post and interact, the more backlinks you get and the more you are seen as an expert in your field. As an added bonus, you get to help people in your industry!

3. Start Blogging

We know, we know, this is the recommendation everyone gives for increasing website traffic. Do you know why that is? Because it works. Blogging not only helps to improve your status as an expert in your industry, but it also gives search engines new content to review. The more new content you have, the more search engines like your site. Once you’ve written some blogs, use some of the ideas under the Backlinks section above to provide other sites more options for where to backlink.

4. Post to Social Media

If you don’t already have profiles on at least Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, go sign up for them now. Go on…we’ll wait. Once you have social media profiles, start scheduling posts that are interesting to your target audience. You don’t have to create all the content you post, instead, you can post articles from other websites in your industry. The goal here is to be the place where your target audience turns when they’re looking for information. Check out our article on powering up your social media for more ways to improve your social media game.

5. Add your business to online directories

Online directories are a great resource for people looking for products or services online. Some examples of online directories are Google My Business, Yelp, Angie’s List, and Foursquare. When you add your business to these directories, you not only increase your chances of being found by potential customers who are looking for your services, but you’re also adding backlinks to your site!