How To Drive Traffic To Your Website

Regardless of the type of business you have, you will always need to know how to drive traffic to your website. New marketing strategies and websites are popping up all the time and you will need to stay current.

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When you are first starting out, you might opt for ways to get traffic to your website for free and move to some paid options later.  If your budget allows, you can do both in the beginning.

This post will be discussing some effective marketing strategies to drive traffic to your website for free.

I get asked a lot of questions about how to do something or will you teach me how to ______.  I encourage you to get into the habit of using YouTube, Google or another good search engine to get more information on a particular topic.  The more you can do or understand, the better.  Don’t expect anyone to hold your hand when learning something new.  The level of effort you put forth when learning something is indication of how much effort you will put forth in making your business successful.  I don’t want to turn anyone off, but I feel the need to state now because so many people want to make money online, but they don’t want to work hard or put forth the necessary time and effort.

>>>Affiliate Disclaimer: Some of the links/banners on this page are affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link/banners, you will be taken to the merchant’s website. If you decide to purchase that product or join the website, I stand to make a commission on the sale/lead.

 

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I want to stress the importance of following the Terms & Services for each website you utilize for your marketing strategies and avoid ‘Black Hat’ methods.  Black Hat simply means unethical behavior or strategies.  Some Black Hat methods might be acceptable to some, but I do not recommend doing anything that can be considered ‘questionable’.  In order to built a following, people must trust you and you will need to gain their trust by being transparent and forthright.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is simply writing articles about a particular subject or niche.  The article can also be about a product that you recently purchased.  Within the article, you will have keywords that people are actively searching for on Google, Bing, etc.  Be mindful of search engine optimization or SEO.  I won’t go into that for this article, but I do encourage you to learn as much about it as possible.  It is a crucial element of any article and website.  YouTube tutorials are a great learning tool for SEO.

Make sure you have links within your article.  They can drive traffic to your site, or other sections of your site or affiliate marketing links you might be promoting.

Audio/Podcasts

This is an under utilized marketing strategy.  I plan to implement this more on my website. Some people like to read, some like to listen and others like to watch videos.  Including an audio version or a podcast of your article can be a useful means of driving traffic to your website.  Audacity is free audio application that allows you to record your voice.

Directory Submissions

You want to submit your website to directories.  This is a very easy task to perform.  Do a Google or Bing search for website directories and numerous options will appear.  There are some paid options, but I only use the free options.  I also recommend submitting your articles or posts to search engines like Google and Bing so they get indexed.

Document Sharing

Document sharing websites allow you to upload articles and other types of files like PowerPoint Presentations.  You want to make sure you have links directing the readers back to your site. Do a search for document sharing sites and you will see some very good options.

eMail Marketing

eMail marketing is a great tool for building a following of loyal visitors.  Make sure you understand the guidelines for email marketing.  You do not want to SPAM people with unwanted emails.  That’s just looking for trouble.  There a several good websites with free and paid options.  Mailchimp is great for beginners and it has a free option.  Aweber, GetResponse, or Constant Contact for a few of the paid options if your budget allows it.  There are a lot tutorials and courses, both free and paid related to email marketing and email list building.  I utilize Udemy a lot when I want to learn something.  I do not recommend purchasing an email list because you know know if the emails are still active or if the person is even interested in your niche’

 

Free Blogs

Blogspot.com, Weebly, WordPress, Blogger, or Wix.com are just a few options for having a free website or blog.  I use one of the free options for the purposes of linking back to my paid domain website.  Keep in mind that the free options will be a sub domain, for example www.wix.com/yoursite.  If your budget allows, you might consider purchasing a domain name for your free website.  LifeDomains.net offers .com domains for as little as $10.00 a year.  I would stay away from the specials that some sites like GoDaddy offers.  The initial offer is very tempting, but they make up for it after the first year.  I learned that the hard way.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is another good option to get links back to your website, but your content must be well written.  Some websites welcome quest blogging for certain subjects.  Start by simply asking a website owner if they offer guest blogging.  If they say no, move on to the next one.

Niche’ Related Forum Marketing

Forum marketing involves joining forums and posting on forum boards.  It is important to follow the forum rules so you don’t get banned.  Do a search for forums related to your niche’.

 

Online Classifieds

Online classifieds are plentiful and are a useful tool to drive traffic back to your website.  Most allow links, but make sure you read the rules or your ad can be flagged and removed.

Old School Marketing Methods

Direct Mail, Cold Calling, and Local Networking some still effective ways to get traffic to your website.  They are more time consuming and will require an investment so make sure you are getting good results and a return on your investment (ROI).  Cold calling will require a ‘time’ investment, while Direct Mail and Networking will be a monetary investment.

>>>>Affiliate Disclaimer:  Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link, you will be taken to the merchant’s website. If you decide to purchase that product, I stand to make a commission on the sale.

Press Releases

Press releases are notifications that let people know about your website or business.  They need to be well written and descriptive. 

Q&A Sites

Quora and Yahoo Answers are two popular sites that allow members to ask and answer questions on just about any topic.  Once you have established your reputation by offering good answers, you will be able to include links in your signature.

RSS Submissions

RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication.  RSS feeds are popular with blogs and social media.  This is an example of an RSS feed.

Social Bookmarking

StumleUpon, Redditt, Digg are just a few of the popular social bookmarking websites.  Whenever you publish a post or article, you can submit it to these sites to get more exposure and traffic.

Social Media

Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are some of more popular sites with a high membership.  Your pages can be customized for branding purposes.  Post good content and welcome feedback or comments to build a following and add links back to your website.  If you are interested in finding more social media websites, do a google search.  There are more, but most do not have the high membership volume like the one listed above.

Squidoo.com or HubPages.com

These are still useful sources to generate traffic to your website.  The content be be good and usually requires approval.  Be sure to utilize the tools and tutorials to make sure you meet the requirements.  If you want to find more sites like these, do a google search for ‘sites like Squidoo or Hubpages.

 

Video Marketing

Video marketing is one of my favorites and is another strategy under utilized by many.  The reason for this is because people are intimidated by the thought of being on front of a camera.  The only way to overcome that is to jump into it and just do it.  You might be pleasantly surprised with the response like I was.  Remember, haters and trolls are always going to be there, but there are actions to you can take to limit them.  YouTube allows you to moderate your comments and block users.

This is my YouTube channel:  How To Make Money Online Ethically

Conclusion

So, there you have many options for free and a few paid ways to get traffic to your website.  Effective marketing strategies are crucial and must be utilized on a consistent basis to get your desired results.  I am always looking for information about how to drive traffic to your website and I highly recommend that you make it a routine activity for your website or business.

I could have easily made this post much longer, but I want you to be curious and utilize the search engines to find more information about each of the topics I discussed. 

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