Driving quality targeted traffic to your blog or website is the most important part of any webmaster or bloggers job. With nobody visiting your site, even the greatest looking site with tons of great content isn’t going to make you any money. Making money from your blog/site requires sufficient amount of visitors. Of course no blog or site is born with thousands of visitors. In order to drive traffic to your site, you need to promote it. The more traffic you drive to your blog, the more money you will make.
There are many ways to drive quality traffic to your site, including paid advertising, which is one the most effective methods of getting quality traffic to your site, but not everyone has or wants to spend money on paid advertising, specially beginners like myself. Fortunately there are many free and easy ways to drive quality traffic to your site. Here are 61 easy and free ways you can generate quality targeted traffic for your blog or website.
Submit your site wherever you can!
1. submit your blog to directories in your niche.
2. submit your blog to all the free directory and search engines.
3. submit your site to free website review sites like coolsiteoftheday.
4. submit each and every post to social bookmarking sites using onlywire.
5. submit your articles to article directories like Ezine, article base and associated content.
Use web 2.0 and other resources to promote your site.
6. write related articles on WikiPedia with your blog url in it.
7. make a hubpage for your blog, with a little bit information about your blog.
8. make a wiki page for your blog.
9. make a squidoo lens or more with a link to your site.
10. sign up at 43things.com and write things related to your blog and what you want to accomplish.(you’d be surprise by the number of people, just reading other peoples list)
11. create a myspace page for your blog.
12. create a facebook page for your blog.
13. create a hi5 page for your blog.
14. join blogcatalog and do the same as with mybloglog.
15. use MyBlogLog to create a community around your blog. join other peoples community, so they do the same for you.
16. create an account with Technorati and with every new post, ping it.
17. post related how-to videos on you tube with your blog address on the bottom of the screen or at the end or beginning of the video.
18. use yahoo answers to answer questions related to your niche, leaving your link in the resource box. (believe it or not, 10% of my traffic comes from 20 minutes a week answering questions on yahoo answers)
19. create an account on stumbleupon, and stumble each and every article you write. (one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site for free)
20. join as many forums as possible, especially forums related to your niche
Take advantage of free tools and Plug-ins.
21. place a “digg it” button right after your post, to make it easy for your readers to digg your post.
22. use a comment notifying plug-in to let your readers know about new comments. believe it or not, most people read more of other peoples comment on your post, than your post itself.
23. use social bookmarking plug-ins to make it easy for your readers to submit your post to social bookmarking site
24. install “tell-a-friend” plug-in to make it easy for your readers to let others know about your post.
25. make use of “all in one SEO” plug-in to make your blog search engine friendly.
26. use a forum plug-in to create a forum for your blogs readers to talk and discuss related issues.
27. use a free keyword tool to find and use good ranking keywords in your niche.
28. use sites like vista print to make free business cards ($5 shipping for 250 free BC which is worth it) with your site url on it and pass it around.
29. make a free favicon to be easily found in your readers favorites file. (people like to find what they want fast. I myself sometimes give up finding a particular article or site in my huge favorite file, simply because i don’t want to spend 5 minuets to go through the whole list. A favicon is like big spot light focused on you between hundreds of other people!
30. use free press release services to gain visibility.
31. Use pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators.
32. use free advertising sources like craigslist and backpage to post ads about your articles or blog in related categories.
Other Bloggers Can Help Too!
33. talk about or if you can interview a trusted person in your niche
34. Leave comments on blogs in related niches or any niche for that matter.(don’t spam, leave genuine comment, as you would like others to do so for you)
35. make a banner ad for your blog and exchange with other interested bloggers.
36. use blogroll to link to other bloggers in your niche in exchange for a link to your blog on their blog roll.
37. ask other bloggers to write a review of your blog in exchange for a link to their site from your site.
38. dedicate a post about a top bloggers in your niche. it will catch their attention and they may link to you
39. whenever appropriate, link to other bloggers articles in your post. they will return the favor.
40. use your best articles to post on other peoples blog as a guest writer (it’ll gain you visibility and new audience)
41. another blogger to post on your blog as guest (while he enjoys some new readers, it will brings his readers to your site as well)
Use your site as a tool to attract and keep visitors.
42. provide freebies, like free ebooks, free downloads and etc, to your readers.
43. once in a while run a contest related to your niche and encourage visitors to participate for a prize, and do give a prize to the winner, no matter how small. it will help to establish your persona as a trusted blogger, and once people see you as a trustworthy person, not only they will keep coming back to you, but they will bring other visitors as well.
44. use common questions related to your niche for the title of your article.
45. use keywords in the title of your post. keywords in title is one of the easiest and most important techniques of search engine optimization.
46. use a small place on your blog to have your blogs complete url ready for those who wish to link to your blog.
47. keep your blog clean and easily navigable.(how many times you have left a site, because you weren’t able to find what you came for?)
48. use numbered list for your informative posts, like “5 ways to…”. people tend to like these kinds of post.
49. shocking and surprising articles will draw people to your site.
50. be on the look out for new developments and news related to your niche, the first person breaking a new story, gets the most traffic.
51. videos are increasingly becoming popular, use them on your blog to your advantage.
52. use tags for your post, as its becoming a very popular way of finding related content.
53. Post frequently. search engines and readers like fresh content.
54. if you have any other blog or site, place a link to your site. (you can even create a blog to talk about your journey with your blog/site).
55. read and respond to your readers comment.(if i feel that what i say is important to the writer, i am more likely to came back for more and encourage others to do the same)
Extra!
56. Put your blog URL in your forum signatures.
57. use your blog name for your user name in forums and when leaving comment on other blogs.
58. ask your friends and family to Digg and stumble your posts. a post with more diggs or stumble, means more visibility.
59. put your blogs name and url on a bumper sticker or something like that, and attach it to your car. big corporations pay people to place their ads on their car, you don’t have to pay anyone, use your own car and also give some stickers to your friends and family and ask them to stick it on back bumper.
60. make flyers with your blogs name and a short captivating headline style description and pass it in the mall or parking lots. if you use a good headline, at least 60-70% of the people will visit your blog out of curiosity, and who knows how many will become your die-hard fans!(readers).
61. and last but not least, be patient and give it some time. no one goes from 20/30 visitors a day to hundreds and thousands of visitors, over night.
Some of the above mentioned traffic generating methods can be done in under 5 minutes, and some may take longer. But one thing is certain, if you put enough time and effort into using these methods, you will see great results, and you will succeed in driving massive amounts of quality traffic to your site. Use these free and easy traffic generating methods, combined with fresh quality content, and you are sure to see a huge increase of traffic to your blog or website.
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This is by far the most comprehensive list I have found on the matter that is so well put together. But I have a question though.
Have you had much luck with Wikipedia? I know one site I run gets a lot of traffic from there, but it is not really a site to try to turn a profit (It is a NPO). On the other hand, my sites that can show ads and so forth seem to often be topics that I cannot come up with a way to get a link onto Wikipedia without it being basically spam. Do you have any ideas about this? Should I try to look for articles that are related to my site, add content to them, and use my site as a source for it? Or should I more or less just drop the link into the additional information list? Would those not be removed as spam frequently though?
i don’t know why your having trouble with WikiPedia, i never have that problem. anyway, i can tell you that the best way would be write about a subject and put your links in the resource box or you can edit others, and put your link in resource box, next to the old links.(this way it wont be spam), but try to not over do it. good luck.
Great tips. Its the most complete list for getting traffic i have ever seen.This is one of my favorite articles already. Thank you so much.
This post convinced me to finally try out stumble upon. Can submitting your own posts actually drive traffic? I tried that on Digg and got little to nothing out of it.
yes it dose help. but if get more people stumbling it or digg it in case of digg.com, you will have more chances of getting bigger traffic, as more diggs and votes, will get your post shown on the first page, and that brings you traffic like no other.
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for to add to my site, http://flyersxpress.net/FreeGuide2MakingMoney/ I’ve spent months collecting data on increasing web traffic to add to my Free Guide To Making Money Online, but nothing goes into as much detail. Thanks for the post, your blog link is getting added to my site.
I’m only getting 10,000 unq. visitors a month right now, but this post will really help them out.
I am glad its helpful. i wish you best of luck with your blog and thank you for adding blogstash link on your blog.
Great tips. Your tips is very useful to me as a beginner and by following the steps of the tips could be increasing the unique visitor onto my blog. Thank you very much and good luck for you!
Forza Milan´s last blog ..AC Milan news
thank you for the kind words Forza, and good luck to you as well.
great tips…i learn from it a lot/thanks
your welcome ,i am glad it was helpful to you. hope to see you around more often.
Very interesting! I’m going to try some of them! Thanks!
gbvaz´s last blog ..Nasa ‘Ecstatic’ After LCROSS Impact Reveals Water on Moon
gbvaz,if you do put the effort inot these methods, they will work for you. feel free to contant me if you need any help. good luck
Wow I can’t even imagine how long it took you to put together a list of 61 tips like this, I constantly tell myself I am going to do a post like this an end up doing maybe 20 max.
Great job and I have a lot of respect for the time you must have put into this.
Extreme John´s last blog ..5 Ways Our Small Business is Going Green
hey john, thanks fo stopping by, yeah it took a long time, but i think its worth it, i hope its helpful to people though. i sometimes come back to this post my self as refrence point, when i forget what else i can do.
This is far more the best list i have seen since the beginning of my blog, i saw your post from Extreme John and by suggesting your site coming from him, you did make a pretty good job. I may not be able to do all those tips above but it will be a great reference like what you have said. retweets and shares for you… well done… I may not be a good blogger but now i am thinking some change on my site…
sernan´s last blog ..34th..
hey sernan, i am glad you stopped by and happy to hear you liked the list. yeah no body can do all of these, plus some ways works better form some people than others depending on how they do it.
i am very thankful to extream john, i didnot know him until the othr day that i was looking at my traffic and saw many came for his blog, so i went over and saw he had a link to my post since he liked it, so i thanked him for that, he found the post on blogengage which i use a lot. any way i wish you the best of luck with your blog. feel free to ask any question you may have. we all can learn from each other. hope to see you around more often.
Hi I am a new reader of your blog and find this post really valuable. This information can really help for new blogger for develop their blogs. We should have to use all strategy for get traffic and backlink to our blog.
chandan´s last blog ..15 most effective twitter tools
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What a long list. But some are not easy, at all
But I’ll do some for my blog.
Thanks a lot.
Dave´s last blog ..Herbal Cure for Bleeding Hemorrhoids
I found this post extreeeeeemely useful and started on a couple of your tips as soon as I read them
Thank you so much for sharing them. Good Karma will find you.
Take care…
MissEb´s last blog ..My Poetry Blog Experiment – Part 2: MONETISATION…
Your welcome MissEb, I am glad these tips were helpful to you. I wish you best of luck.
I know its long, but this way at least more people can find a way that they can actually use to drive traffic to their site, since not one way is going to work for all. I wish you good luck.
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Thanks for the excellent information from a new dude!
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Awesome stuff! Twitter and Youtube and Ebay are the best sources of traffic to my blog!
Mike´s last blog ..Free Sports Picks Coming Soon
Thanks Mike. Glad you like the post. Twitter and youtube are some of the best places to get traffic which most people can easily use it. Glad its working for you. Good luck.
Now that’s a comprehensive list! Thanks.
Your welcome Chris, I am glad you like the list and I hope it will be helpful.
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This is my first comment on your blog. I’ve just created my blog about Various Topics (Creating Web Site/Blog, Programming, Social Media….) and I think getting traffic needs some patient.
Thank you for leaving your first comment Tech talk. I hope you find my blog useful and informative, and I hope that you will continue to post your comments here. I wish you the best of luck with your new Tech blog.
this website very good article,i like very much,i get much knowlage that i never tought befor,i am doing affiliate marketing ,traffic is the best thing for website ,no matter best website you have if no traffic, who will know,right…
thank for sharing look forward when new tips be add
Thank you ComeSeeMe, I hope this information cane help you improve your blog’s traffic.
This is an awesome list of actions to take to drive massive quality traffic to blog. It requires our commitment and determination to practise all 61 ways all the time to receive more quality traffic. Thank you for sharing!
[Delighting Lifestyle] Best Buy and Idea | Blog and Store
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Altis Lo (Beaulife)´s last blog ..Free E-Book: 10 Ways To Make More Money Online & Enhance Your Business!
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Excellent advice. I know how important it is to comment on other blogs. This article made me realize how much more important it really is! I’ve been doing forum comment but only see minimal traffic with that technique. I think blog comment is a much better approach. I start to give it a try. Crossing my figers for better results!
Ben´s last blog ..Technology and Gadget Trends For 2010
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Thank you so muh for this great list. I just made my first blog and this list can certainly help me drive some much needed traffic to my blog. Thank you.
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thanks for the in depth list…really helping my seo efforts
SEO Vancouver´s last blog ..What are IMG alt tags On Page Optimization Explained
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