Get Free Traffic

Posts Tagged ‘free traffic’

You’ve had it beaten into your head since your earliest days.  Nothing is free.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  There’s always a catch.

So, when people talk about free traffic, you begin looking for the hidden price tag.

And it’s not hard to find.  Free traffic isn’t free.  You just pay for it with time and effort instead of money.  Instead of pouring cash into your site’s promotion, you pour sweat equity into the venture.  You must consider the value of your time instead of thinking of it as truly “free”.  After all, your time has value, right?  Of course it does.

Free traffic isn’t really free.

But that doesn’t mean it’s overpriced.  There are several cash-free ways to drive traffic that produce results that more than justify the time expenditure involved in their implementation.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but “free” traffic generation techniques come about as close as you can get when you’re using the right ones in the right ways.

You likely read a dozen articles and blogs a day right? If you’re like a lot of people, you have a lot to say about what you read. Beyond sitting and shaking your head and either nodding in agreement or silently thinking “no that’s not right,” you could be adding value to what you read and bringing direct traffic back to your site by commenting on the blogs you read every day.

Blog commenting gives you opportunities to not only share your opinion on what you read but it also introduces other readers and the blog owner to you and your own website. The best part of this introduction is that whether people agree with your comments or not, you’ve given them the key they need to visit your site and bring you new and unique traffic.

By visiting multiple blogs and leaving comments, you share valuable information and thoughts with a whole community of people. You may find them coming to your site simply to say thank you for the comments while other people may let you know that they found your site through a comment you left on another blog. Every person who reads your comment is potential free traffic to your website.

You can use Facebook for social networking to drive free traffic to your website. Facebook has taken over where MySpace failed. It has many features that make your marketing strategies pay off. You can use the notes feature to write a short blurb about your website and post a link back to it. This is a good way for every one of your friends to see it and pass it along to their friends.

Do status updates periodically daily to direct traffic to your website. You can make as many updates as you want and keep everyone updated with your latest news. You can also use the application from Twitter to post your tweets if you don’t want to spend time posting on each one separately. You do have to make friends, but fortunately, Facebook has a search feature for finding people that is so much easier to use than MySpace.

You can browse people in your area or make friends in one of the hundreds of groups. Join the groups and get you will find hundreds of groups that you can join. All it takes is a little time from you to make friends, get your voice heard and get free traffic to your website.

Forums that are in your same niche area are great places to mingle and state your intentions. If you join in conversations and become known for what you have to say, people are going to follow any link you supply. Of course, this takes some time because people need to get to know you first. However, links to your website will stay visible for everyone to see. You can drive traffic to your website by becoming a force in your niche area.

If you have a wealth of information about catfish fishing and you have an e-book to sell, you want to join a forum with other anglers. The forums should be populated with real people. May sure, before you join the forum to check the areas of interest to make sure that there are recent entries. You want a forum with at least five digits in followers.

After you join, you can add your website link in your signature. This allows anyone to click it and land on your website. After time, you can talk about your knowledge and what you might have for sale or for the readers to enjoy. Free marketing is always the best way to make money and get traffic.

Twitter is a way to drive free traffic to your website by getting followers and following others. You can use your web link in your profile so others can check it out. You can also post any new articles and updates to your website on Twitter in 140 characters or less. Twitter has taken the world by storm and everyone is cashing in the on the free traffic. You can join groups on Twitter and send even more traffic to your website. There is no limit to what Twitter can do for you.

Using Twitter as a marketing tool can only help increase your traffic. You can use the many free resources that Twitter offers and other applications to meet the demand in traffic that you are looking for without much work on your part. You do of course, have to participate and visit others and communicate for people to recognize you as a person of interest.

Having over three million users and growing daily, Twitter is a sure fire way to get free traffic to your website with even with less than an hour of your time a day. All you have to do is sign up and start getting followers.

Article marketing is a big trend in internet marketing currently. Research has shown that the majority of consumers looking for products or services online are first looking for information on their planned purchases. Therefore it makes sense for those offering their products online to also provide that information–together in one location–so that consumers can go from reading to purchasing in one convenient seamless step.

One way to get this information to consumers is through the use of free article directories. Submitting articles relevant to the product or service you are offering is simple and quite effective. If you’re selling hardwood flooring, for instance, you can submit a short article about different types of hardwood. At the end of the article, simply insert links to your site with an invitation to the reader to visit.

These articles often turn up at the top of search engine rankings because of their keyword density, giving you added exposure. While you may need to pay a professional writer to churn out a few articles for you–depending on your writing ability–there is no fee to submit your articles to these directories. Consider writing one or two, and see how much traffic you can gain through the free incoming links.

A great way to get your site noticed by people who are specifically looking for information relevant to your site is by listing the URL in a niche directory. A niche is a specific area of interest or demand. If you are selling a tangible product, different niches can include books, movies, cleaning supplies, food, and much more.

Your site’s area of interest may be very specific or extremely broad, but either way you are sure to find a niche directory where you can be listed. A simple search of your product type may bring up locations where you can list your website. More than likely however, you’ll just bring up competitor’s websites. Try a search using your product and “listing directory”.

The main advantage to using niche directories to add a listing is that you are already reaching your target market. Advertise your barbeque business in the “Memphis Area BBQ You Can’t Miss” directory, and you know your URL is going to be seen by people ready and wanting to try your barbeque.

It takes little time and no expense to list your website in directories, so there’s no reason not to take this simple step to free marketing. It’s like listing your business in the yellow pages–for free.

If you haven’t yet jumped on the social networking bandwagon, do so now! If you think that networking through being social and having fun isn’t beneficial to doing business–think again.

Social networking has quickly become one of the most efficient ways to get the word out about what businesses have to offer. Whether it’s through Twitter or Facebook, many are enjoying the benefits of a large audience centered in one small location–at the same time.

One of the newest trends in social networking is participation in parties that are hosted in real time on Twitter. A website’s equivalent to a “housewarming” party, these gatherings bring thousands of social networkers together in a chat room type atmosphere. For anywhere from one to several hours, the marketing hosts talk about and spread the benefits of your website, product, and/or services.

Another new trend is the creation of “fan pages” on Facebook. Individual companies are creating pages (the web’s equivalent to an individual website). As each user marks your page as a favorite, their entire list of contacts is notified. So essentially for each fan you gain of your website, you can receive up to thousands of free referrals to your page.

It’s not too late to use social networking to your advantage. Begin participating in these sites today and you’ll be on your way to driving free traffic to your website without much effort.

If you’re looking for a quick way to bring more traffic to your site than you’ve had in a long time, running contests is the way to go. You might think that you need an expensive item to give away, but people really are happy to get anything that’s free. Offer a book, a small gift basket, or a free sample of whatever product or service you sell through your website. Gift certificates work well too, and are cheap to mail to the winners.

Once you’ve decided what to give away, put up a post on your company blog with the parameters of the contest. Give yourself a few weeks before the deadline to enter if you want to maximize the number of entries. The longer the contest runs the more exposure you’ll get as readers pass the link along to others who may be interested in entering.

Besides the traditional “shout outs” through social networking, you can also now advertise your contest through websites such as Prizey. These contest-listing sites are usually free, and you reach thousands of people already interested in entering a contest. Of those, even if 3% of them visit your site and enter your contest, you’re doing quite well.

Remember, you’re marketing yourself just by running the contests, even if the product you are offering is unrelated to your site. It helps to offer a product or service that is relevant though, so that entrants will have a reason to return to your site–even when you aren’t having a giveaway.