Free Traffic to your Site – 20 tips to try today!

Are you an affiliate marketer?  Then you know how important it is to get traffic to your site.  More traffic means the better chance of people viewing and clicking your affiliate advertisements.  Own a business website?  Then you know that the more traffic the better chance of making money you’ll have.  Beginning a blog?   Then you should know how important it will be to develop a large loyal audience.  One that once you begin to monetize your blog your readers will hopefully trust your opinion on the products – making you Affiliate dollars.

There are many other important facets to keep in mind with your traffic, but this post is specifically about getting eyeballs to your affiliate blog or website.  It’s so hard not to talk about: consistency of posting relevant content, what happens when the traffic gets to your site to win them over, and even some of the paid ways to get traffic to your site. No this is specifically about just getting the reader to your site, in the most economical way possible. You may find that I couldn’t help myself and may have broken the “ONLY TRAFFIC TIPS” rule a little – but only when necessary.  My intention is for you to use this mainly as a checklist.  I’ll follow-up with detailed posts about each traffic driving source in the days to come as part of a series. Enjoy!

1. Social Media

• Twitter  – This will be a great forum for you to engage your followers and post relevant content for your brand.
• Pinterest – You know I don’t have a lot of personal experience with this site, but am seeing more and more news about how to drive traffic to your site with this service.  Do not underestimate its power. A quick google search will set you in the right path. We found this search: “how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog” on google blog search to result in 5,000 articles just this week!
• Facebook  – Please don’t be offended if you’ve never, ever used Facebook, but for most – this is pretty self-explanatory.  Set up a Facebook fan page for your brand.  Continually update with fresh content.
• Google+ – This can be a little gem. Most social media services stress engagement over the number of followers.  This is one source where your number of followers matters.  Get popular!
• LinkedIn – more snazzier than you thought!  Did you know you can add your blog posts to your profile?  Don’t forget to list your current website as a business either.

2. Engagement

• Begin commenting on other industry targeted blogs to begin.
• Link back to relevant blogs from your blog.  You stand a chance that they will consider linking back to you.
• Go to industry specific events.  Also try hosting webinars or joining MeetUp.  Great way to pair with like-minded individuals.  If the traffic doesn’t come from these events, it’s a great way to motivate you to keep going!
• Make sure to have RSS feed and allow for email subscriptions to your blog or website updates.  Try an email newsletter for both your website and blog.  If you need help with how to develop one – check out this handy, dandy post: Anatomy of a Weekly Email Newsletter
• Guest post! Great way to get noticed by writing a relevant post on someone elses blog.  In the same vein, encourage others to write a guest post for you.  If they have a strong following their readers may become interested in you as well.
• Check out the Social Sharing (Reddit, stumbleupon, etc) as well as Forums. Just like commenting on other blogs, begin participating here as well as sharing your content in the social sharing sites.

3. Google

• Google AdWords/KeyWords – Perform research on relevant keywords to your industry/topic.  Then develop content and titles relevant to what people are already interested in.  Once you get them to your page, make sure your content gives a unique perspective on the keywords they dig.
• Google Analytics – Helps to identify where your traffic sources are coming from as well as identify opportunities.  Next step is to develop and encourage these sources.
• Google BlogSearch is a fantastic tool in the same vein as Keywords to help you see what other bloggers are writing about.  You can sort the results by time frame for the most relevant up to date posts.  View these posts.  The ones with the most comments are hot topics.
• Along with Google BlogSearch, give Google Reader a try – you’ll be able to see the number of subscribers to each site displayed in the search results.  Then employ your engagement tactics from our Engagement section to those with high viewership for maximum impact.

4. SEO (just the basics)

IN CONCLUSION:

You’ll find that as you participate in these steps you get rewards.  Celebrate your rewards, no matter how small, and keep charging.  Some of these ideas may seem painful, especially if you are not familiar with Pinterest or Google Analytics seems daunting.  But learn them and push through.  DON’T. GIVE. UP.  It takes a while to build viewership, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. As you keep consistent and build traffic, things do get easier and your followers begin to do some of the heavy lifting naturally for you.  Keep on blogging my friend!  (or websiting!)

Check back as we detail the Social Media tactics for FREE traffic to your site.  Until then, got any free methods that you’ve tried with success?  I wanted to list the most obvious for immediate impact but I may have left out a goody or two. 🙂