Website Traffic – Fundamental Methods For Driving Free Traffic!

By Devin | 24 comments

FREE TRAFFIC : Let’s examine that phrase. Technically, there is no such thing as free traffic, it’s going to cost you your time. Many of the tasks involved in driving free traffic are very repetitive and boring, and the results don’t happen instantly. However, they DO work and over time will help expand your online business!

So as you can see in the table above, each method of traffic has its own pros and cons. Besides the benefit of having no cost or risk, many of the free traffic methods also have the benefit of longevity. For instance, when you post and publish online articles, the content and links back to your site will be out there forever, continuously pointing people to your site. On the other hand, when you purchase some PayPerClick traffic, you get exactly the number of clicks that you paid for and then your ad is gone.

Many of the highly successful  internet marketers I’ve met use both free AND paid methods for driving web traffic because they do not want to leave anything on the table. However, they are already making a significant income and can afford the investment and risk associated with paid traffic. The majority of them started out by building their online business with free traffic first, and then eventually adding the paid methods to their business when the time was right.

OK, SO HOW DO I DRIVE FREE WEB TRAFFIC?

I’m glad you asked. There are hundreds of ways to drive traffic, and each of them requires varying amounts of time as well as varying results. One of the common obstacles I see that hinders many new internet marketers is that they try to focus on way too many things at once. The key here is to pick one or two methods and focus on doing them every single day! It’s better to be an expert at a couple things than to be mediocre at many things. Rather than overwhelm you with too many choice, I’ll provide just a few of the most basic and popular ways to drive free traffic to your site

• Article Submission : Tried and true, this staple of free traffic continues to be very effective. Simply write short but informative articles (like the one you are reading now) about topics that are relevant to your website and also your target audience. Remember to use your keywords multiple times and include links back to your site! There are numerous article websites that you can submit to, but it does take time. When you are ready to spend a bit of money on this task, I can show you how to automate this process to multiple sites at once.

• Social Media : Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. We all know how much traffic these networks get and how easy it is to share information. Join groups, invite new friends, and update daily or even more frequently if you can. The more people you can get on your lists, the more people you can share your sites with! Just make sure not to overdo it. Spamming your links over and over without any real interaction is the quickest way to get deleted from my list.

• Submit Your Product to Affiliate Marketplaces : Let other marketers do the work for you! If you have a product that you want to sell, submit it to the major affiliate networks such as PayDotCom and Clickbank . That gives other marketers an opportunity to see your product and promote it for you to earn a cut of the commission, and therefore drive traffic to your site!

• Blog Comments : Interact and comment on all the blogs that you follow. Not only can this be informative for yourself, but you can meet other marketers or people with similar interests. Each post has an area for you to put in your name, and most importantly your website URL when you make a comment. The search engines see these links from other popular sites back to yours and that can help your ranking as well.

• Messageboards / Forums : If you aren’t already a member of any forums, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity! By actively participating in forums that are relevant to your target market you can stay on top of what’s hot and up-to-date. In addition, most forums will allow a link in your signature that can point right back to your page. That signature link will show up every time you post and be seen by all the readers. The more you post, the more people see your link, and eventually the more free traffic that comes your way! Not all forums allow certain types of links, so be sure to read their terms.

• Youtube : Just about everyone has a webcam these days, or even a full camcorder. Even easier to use are the new pocket size HD video cameras like the Flip and Vado. A funny or well made video can easily go viral, and it is free to make and upload your video. The free video software that comes with most computers these days makes simple enough to add your website URL to your video, and you can add the URL again in the video description. Youtube is the most popular, but there many streaming video sites you can upload to for free, but you have to do it one by one. When you can afford it, you can automate the process with a program like TrafficGeyser which can submit your video to multiple stream sites at once.

• Classified Ads : Often overlooked, this method is still free and can certainly earn you traffic that you otherwise would not have received. There are countless places to place free classified ads, obviously Craigslist being the most well known. This is a great way to promote your site in your geographic region, especially if you are marketing for a brick and mortar business!

• URL Submission : Simply submit your URL to the major search engines. This is a simple step that is easy to forget! The indexing robots of the major search engines will eventually visit your site, but you might as well speed up the process and ensure it happens by manually submitting your URL to them. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc all have a form on their page where you can manually submit your URL to be indexed.

NOW YOU KNOW SOME OF THE BASICS, GET TO WORK!

This is the hard part, actually DOING THE WORK! It’s easy to research it, but just knowing these methods doesn’t get you traffic, you actually have to do them! Pick one or two methods and focus on them as often as you can. I know it is easy to get excited and want to try everything, but you run the risk of being overwhelmed with too much to do and too much to learn if you try to do it all at once. Once you have a couple methods down and it’s easy for you, keep them up and move on to a new one!

I hope you enjoyed this information, and most importantly I hope you learned something!

- devinchipman.com

Published by Devin in article marketing, blog comments, free traffic, Marketing Tips, paid traffic, social media, website traffic