Driving Traffic To Your Website: How To Use Free Online Traffic Methods
If you have an online presence, you know the value of site traffic. Traffic is the lifeblood of any site. The more site traffic you gain, the higher visibility and overall status within your niche. This could lead to more backlinks. Your site will improve in its overall search engine ranking with more people linking to it and increasing its apparent value. The ultimate goal, profitability, will also improve.
There are several simple ways to generate free traffic to your site.
Facebook has the honorable distinction of being the social media website with the most visitors. Facebook works by linking people to their friends and enabling online conversations. Each conversation takes place on a user’s wall, and may include links, updates, or even photos and videos. Others can view what you say if you grant them access. By allowing a wide viewership of your posts, you enable others to view and share your links and posts with their friend lists. If you maintain an interactive Facebook presence, the items you post could potentially reach a nearly unlimited audience. Savvy online marketers use Facebook to extend their reach and attract people to their sites through appealing links and promotions.
Twitter is another free online tool that helps you reach a large number of people. As a Twitter user, your follower base is not as intimate as your Facebook friend base. It is based more on numbers and connecting with strangers. This too has a viral nature. Every post you tweet goes into your followers’ feed. They can send the same note out to their followers who will then all see your name. If someone replies to your tweets, that person’s followers can see your name. It is an effective way to raise an element of interest in your site.
Social bookmarking sites are not as powerful for generating traffic, but they can have an effect. Many people use social bookmarking sites to build backlinks to their sites and thus improve their standing on search engines. Although not as powerful as they once were, the links will increase your search engine visibility. The original intention behind social bookmarking sites was establishing a means by which people could tag sites that interested them and share them with others. By properly tagging your links, you will undoubtedly obtain some interested searchers. If you consistently post highly relevant, interesting links, other social bookmark users may follow you and check out your link postings.
Article directories are a way of getting your name and link in the public eye. You are able to post your site link in an author box after each article, which is a good way to get noticed. When people find your content useful, they tend to refer your work or your website to others. As an added bonus, many article sites pay for articles or share ad revenue with writers.
Commenting on other people’s blogs will help get your name out, although only among a handful of people at a time. Commenting on blogs creates enough interest from the blog owner that they will generally check out your site. Other readers who find your comment interesting may also click through your link to your site.
Discussion boards or forums are a great way to connect within your niche. By contributing your time and knowledge to forum conversations, you will establish a name for yourself and encourage others to seek more of your expertise on your website. Naturally, if you are a spammer or promote yourself obsessively, you will rapidly earn a reputation as a self-seeking opportunist. You have to keep it real.
Through social outlets, writing opportunities, and online conversations, you can drive masses of free traffic to your website. Free traffic will require effort and creativity, but anything worth having is worth the hard work. It is time to get busy making a name for yourself and bringing in the visitors.
