Getting website traffic is a top goal for every marketer. Still, it is the most difficult work for the newbie marketer who does not know all of the best strategies to obtain visitors and does not have a large advertising budget.
In our industry, I know that there are a lot of new marketers out there who have developed their websites or had websites constructed for them, and many of these are excellent websites that would be profitable if they could only get enough high-quality, focused traffic to them.
The following are five traffic creation tactics that novices can utilize to generate a steady stream of traffic.
At the beginning of your online career, it is unrealistic to expect a server-melting tsunami of traffic (no matter how much hype is put on the sales page) to arrive with a single click. Every marketer begins with little amounts of traffic and eventually increases traffic volume. That is true regardless of whether they purchase traffic or receive free traffic.
Generally speaking, think that you are a spider weaving a web to attract more traffic. You begin by building one strand at a time. After many strands, you have a large web through which people can reach your site.
In far too many cases, a rookie may experiment with an approach, garner a few clicks and perhaps even a few subscribers, but then abandon ship because the results are not pouring in quickly enough for their satisfaction. Continue to be patient and keep in mind the spider’s web-building analogy!
1. Facebook pages and groups
If you have a blog on rose gardening, you should consider joining rose gardening clubs. Find and join organizations focused on the same niche issue as your website or your niche topic. You see where I’m going with this.
After being accepted into the group(s), the first step is to actively participate in the discussions. The goal at the outset is to establish yourself as a known entity and become a familiar face. If you begin posting your links on the first day of the group, you will have very little time remaining in the group.
After a specific length of time, if you can give relevant information on the subject, you will establish a reputation and, perhaps, even some authority. Once you’ve established some credibility, you should begin contributing to the group’s blog. Make posts directly on the Facebook group’s feed. Then, after you believe you have gained a substantial following in the group, you can begin posting links to content on your website.
If you become somewhat well-known and gain some power in such groups, you may be able to form your own Facebook group and eventually become the star of your own Facebook show.
2. Videos on YouTube that are not identifiable by their faces.
Most novices feel uncomfortable speaking in front of a camera, but you are not required to do so because there are numerous films you may create without displaying your face or speaking in front of the camera.
Explainer videos are possibly the most straightforward to create. Consider some “How To” subjects relevant to your area of expertise. You can use Google Keyword planner to generate a list of some how-to keyword suggestions that you may use in your video title creation process. These keyword suggestions can also give you an idea of what kinds of things people are looking for. For best results, strive to employ popular keyword terms for your video titles to acquire a reasonable number of views, likes, and other interactions.
Creating a PowerPoint slideshow covering your “7 Steps To Body Transformation” (or whatever title you select) and recording it with your screen-capture software such as Camtasia or the free OBS studio are your next steps. Purchase some royalty-free images to include in your slideshow, as well as some music to accompany your slideshow to liven it up a touch. It is not even necessary for you to speak on the video. People can read.
That’s all there is to it!
You’ve finished editing your first video and are ready to upload it to YouTube. While uploading your video, include a link to your website in the description box beneath it. At the conclusion of your video, it is also wise to include a call to action, alerting viewers that they can discover extra information by visiting your site.
3. Make use of Instagram as a source of traffic.
Instagram can be a fantastic source of traffic for personal use and businesses. Plus, it’s a lot of fun. Using Instagram for free marketing does not necessarily involve the creation of original content or the posting of selfies.
Make a new account specifically for your niche. Give your account a catch-all, general name like “Golfers Worldwide” or “Gym Addicts” because you’ll be publishing a collection/mish-mash/ of other people’s work (which is fine as long as you tag and mention the original creator). The first step is to personalize your Instagram account page. You should design your logo or get someone to do it for you for $5 on Fiverr. Incorporate a link to your website within your profile description.
Find the most popular accounts and influencers in your niche and begin following them right away. Your feed will begin to become extremely crowded! Then it’s just a matter of re-posting the most popular posts with proper credit given to the original author. That can be accomplished by screenshotting the post and manually completing the process. If you want to save time, you can download the Re-post app for your smartphone, which makes the process of re-posting much, much easier. As previously said, this will be a long-term plan, and it will be a numbers game. The bigger the number of posts you make on a regular basis, the greater the number of followers you will gain. The most effective way to get the most out of your postings is to include upto 30 relevant hashtags in each one. Don’t be afraid to use all 30 it’s permissible. Instagram allows for a total of 30 hashtags per post, so don’t be scared to use all of them all at once. Just make sure they’re relevant to what you’re posting.
Keep your own content to a minimum until you have a substantial audience. Make sure to notify your readers that your link is in your profile because, as you may be aware, you cannot publish clickable links on Instagram. However, you can run a paid ad that has a clickable link. Plus, if you have a business account with at least 10,000 followers you can use Instagram’s swipe-up feature. But if you have less than 10,000 followers, just use an @mention sticker with your logo on top, add your username and link it to your story.
This same fundamental strategy may be applied to other social media platforms such as Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. If you try to accomplish this on all social media sites, you’ll be busy. So consider limiting your posts to one or two per day, or consider hiring a virtual assistant to aid you in keeping up with the publishing schedule.
4. Blogging and Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, sometimes known as SEO, is a word that refers to the process of optimizing your website so that its pages appear high on the Google search results pages. As a result, if your website were ranked first on Google for the term “how to make money online,” you would receive thousands of visitors to your site each month. Every month, between 10K and 100K people search for that term (thanks, Google Keyword Planner :D). And those guests would be entirely free! Isn’t that amazing? Don’t dismiss SEO because Google search traffic is among the highest-quality traffic available anywhere on the internet.
I strongly advise you to utilize WordPress to operate any form of blog or content-rich website. You can choose from a vast number of plugins and themes and WordPress specialists who are capable of working with WordPress that it is almost certain to be the best option for you. Here’s how to optimize your website for search engines.
After you’ve installed WordPress on your domain, go over the following SEO for WordPress checklist:
- Provide lightning-fast hosting.
- Install a theme that is mobile-responsive.
- Make use of an SEO plugin (i.e., Yoast or All in One SEO plugin).
- Configure HTTPS on your website’s selected domain (You can get a free SSL cert through Cloudflare).
- In the WordPress settings, enable SEO-friendly permalinks.
- Verify your site’s status with Google Search Console and submit your XML sitemap to Google.
- Conduct a keyword search. Keyword suggestions are available through Google’s Keyword Planner.
- When you make a new post to your website, create custom URLs for the pages and articles (by default, WordPress will use your blog post title as the URL).
- Include page headings that are optimized in your post (e.g., subheadings).
- Make use of internal linking (link to other posts on your blog from within your post).
- Make use of image file names optimized for search engines.
The first seven phases are concerned with the basic setup. Steps 8 through 11 are the procedures to be followed each time you publish new content on your website. Of course, you may conduct keyword research at any time if you run out of ideas or want a fresh set of phrases to work with.
After you get your site up and running with solid content, Google should begin indexing your pages, and the traffic should begin to pour into your site. Maintaining your website’s content and adding fresh content on a regular basis will inform Google that your site is active and receiving new content.
Next, you should seek to get backlinks to your website. For those of you who have social media profiles, these are the best places to start. Another way is to do link exchanges with other site owners, which is the following method:
5. Link trading with other marketers.
Link trading is an old strategy that is still effective in getting the most bang for your buck in free traffic. It’s a ten-minute job that can result in long-term traffic for your website. I recommend that you have a blog or another form of website with a lot of material if you want this to function well. Here’s how to set up link exchanges on your website:
Join as many newsletters (email lists) as possible in industries that are related to yours. You should read these emails and make an effort to establish relationships with the recipients. Respond to their emails, and if you really want to go all out, make a purchase from them! As a result, you’re able to collaborate with them to help grow your company.
Once you’ve established a network of contacts and become acquainted with a few marketers, inquire as to whether they would be interested in exchanging website connections. You must ensure that your website is of high quality, as they will not connect to a site that is utterly unworthy of their time. For example, you might include their website URL on your site and vice versa. If they say yes, that’s fantastic! You can gain a link on their website that will drive visitors to your site and also aid with your SEO efforts, given that their website is not in poor condition.
The true gold here, though, is that you’ve made a contact and a partner with whom you may be able to collaborate on additional projects in the future. Whether it’s blog post exchanges, banner ad exchanges, or email ad swaps, the possibilities are endless and advantageous to all parties involved.
Although the internet is excellent for quickly interacting with others, we sometimes neglect the need to develop genuine, meaningful, and personal relationships while using it. We’re all so preoccupied with doing our own thing to stay one step ahead of the competition to recognize that collaborating with others might be beneficial as well.
Closing Thoughts
In sum, here are 5 of the most effective free strategies for increasing website traffic, even if you’re just getting started. These are doable by everybody, regardless of their skill level. There is nothing overly complicated about this. As stated previously, traffic will come in small increments over time, so don’t get disheartened if you don’t receive thousands of visitors on your first day. If you stick to only one of these approaches, you will see that traffic begins to build up.
What strategies do you employ to increase visitors to your website? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
Great content! Keep up the good work!