Traffic is one of the most important factor to having a successful online business. Without traffic, your website or squeeze page will not have conversions and will not command a high advertising rate. In short, it will not be profitable. In order to get traffic, you must work on the getting real people to visit your website. Preferably, targeted traffic as they are the people who will most likely purchase, link to your website or recommend it by word of mouth.
Below is a list of free traffic sources that will help your online business gain momentum and eventually become really successful. Do note that even though these are free traffic sources, they do require time and effort to produce results and this time equates to a trade-off as it can be spent on other facets of your business.
Free Traffic
1. Forum Marketing – Going to forums and answering questions or helping to solve other people’s problems is a great way to bring traffic to your site. As many forums allow the inclusion of a signature and live link at the bottom of your post, this will help drive traffic to your site. This is especially effective when you are posting in a forum that is the same niche as your website. Also, by giving extremely good answers, it positions you as an authority and someone who is very knowledgeable in the topic and visitors are more likely to click on the link in your signature.
2. Blog Commenting – There are millions of blogs on the internet in every imaginable niche. If you were to pick the most trafficked blogs in your niche and make comments on their latest posts, this will drive their visitors to your site, provided you are allowed to leave your website link in the comment (or in your name field). Again, this is most effective when the blog is in the same niche as your site and the comments that you provide set you up as a knowledgeable person in that topic.
3. Article Marketing – You can write articles and post them in the top article directories. This not only lets visitors to the article directories read your articles, but also provide the opportunity for publishers to publish your articles for free on their sites and bring you a wider audience.
4. Social Media Marketing – Social sites are an extremely large part of the internet and our daily lives nowadays. They also provide a free platform on which we can utilize to drive traffic. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon etc. are free to use and can let you build a large community of interested people in your business.
5. Web 2.0 Sites – Web 2.0 sites such as HubPages and Squidoo allow you to publish content under their terms. They also have a very authoritative and large presence on Google. By providing content on their platform, it is possible to build an audience around their community.
6. SEO -
7. Video Marketing -
8. Answer Sites -
9. Classified Sites -
10. Guest Blogging -
11. Image Sharing Sites -
12. Social Bookmarking Sites -
