How Do I Get Traffic to My Blog For Free? (5 Simple Methods)

Every blog owner wants to know how they can drive more targeted traffic to their website but without having to invest any money in paid advertising.

There are various ways that I generate traffic to my blog for free that I’d like to share with you today.

In fact, some of my highest converting traffic is free traffic.

The only downside to this is that you will have to invest your time and be persistent in your efforts in order to grow your blog traffic.

It definitely takes patience as well!

However, learning the necessary skills to generate free traffic can radically benefit your blog in the long-run and produce a steady flow of visitors to your website overtime.

Although some of these methods may sound common or even obvious, many bloggers are not utilizing them at all or to their fullest potential.

Below are the exact methods I am using to generate targeted traffic to my blog for free each and every month.

How I Get Traffic to My Blog For Free

1.) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Truly my bread and butter to drive free organic traffic to my website is through search engine optimization (SEO). Making sure your blog posts are optimized with SEO best practices is crucial if you want to grow your readership and organic reach within the major search engines. Do not underestimate SEO, it can be incredibly powerful. Just ranking highly for the right keyword with a single blog post can bring in a tremendous amount of organic traffic to your website. Imagine ranking for dozens or even hundreds of keywords with your blog content?

The sky is the limit here when it comes to SEO and really should be a primary focus for any and every blogger. SEO is also a skill that you can really fine tune and get better at overtime. Please keep in mind though that just like blogging, SEO is a long-term game. You need to be willing to put in the work on an on-going basis and remain patient before seeing any measurable results. If you’re interested in learning more about how to implement proper SEO on your website, check out my SEO coaching services here.

2.) Quality & Valuable Content

Producing high-quality and engaging content encourages visitors to comment, share, and spread the word about your articles/website. Some of your blog posts can literally be promoted for you by others (via social media, word of mouth etc.) just from them sharing your content. Talk about easy and free traffic. If you focus on creating as much value as possible and continue to solve problems, answer questions and provide solutions, it’s only a matter of time until people start sharing your content. Of course not every blog post you write will be a home run but crafting quality content on a consistent basis allows you to really stand out from the crowd. By publishing comprehensive and helpful content for others to enjoy, you are truly creating online assets that do the heavy lifting/promotion for you (and potentially for years to come).

3.) Posting on Relevant Forums

An old school method for getting traffic to your blog for free is through posting on relevant forums. Try to find a few reputable and highly active forums within your niche that you can become a contributor on. Just like step #2 above, focus on quality here. You will want to identify threads where people are asking questions and provide informative/valuable answers by sharing your knowledge and expertise. Depending on the forum, sometimes you are allowed a link within your signature back to your website. Now we’re not really too concerned about the backlink for SEO purposes as most forums nowadays will add a “no-follow” tag to signature URLs. But we are interested in people clicking on your link which in return will generate more referral traffic for your website (again this is free blog traffic). If a particular forum does not allow you to add a signature, see if you are able to place your website URL within your profile area. If you’re providing enough value, overtime people will most likely click on your avatar and check out your profile/visit your website. To help drive home this example, below is a screenshot of a thread I responded to on WarriorForum (this also got “thanked” by other members which helps boost my credibility and reputation).

What’s excellent about forum threads in general is that they have the potential to get ranked highly in Google. These “question and answer” type threads really tend to perform well in the search engines, which is why you should try to contribute to them. This step is NOT about spamming forums in your niche by posting numerous and low quality responses. Instead try to focus on 2-3 forums very relevant to your niche with the intent of helping people find answers/solutions to their questions. Try to participate weekly in different threads and stay consistent for the best results.

4.) Creating YouTube Videos

YouTube is hot right now and if you’re not utilizing it to cross promote your blog, then you’re missing out on some serious traffic. I’ve seen really good results with adding links in my YouTube video descriptions pointing to specific blog articles of mine. Make sure in your video to mention that you’ve “left a link in the video description” so people are encouraged to click-though to your blog for more information. I’ve captured many quality leads and have attracted new consulting clients and readers this way. Every so often you should also create a blog post and video around the same topic to give yourself the best possible chance of ranking in the search engines. Remember, YouTube videos can be ranked on page #1 of Google as well and this just adds more ammunition to your traffic generation efforts. In my experience, YouTube produces some of the highest quality traffic for my blogging business and with uncapped potential. If you’re camera shy, feel free to experiment with screen share videos, animation videos, PowerPoint presentations (with voice over) or outsource this work for someone else to create. Below is an example of a video description that contains a link to a specific blog post of mine:

5.) Guest Posting on Other Blogs

Guest posting on other websites in your niche can be a great technique to increase the referral traffic coming into your website. Unlike step #3 (forum posting), most guest post opportunities will actually provide you with a “do-follow” backlink which is beneficial to your overall SEO and can also help increase your domain authority as well. Not only do you get the benefit of building a quality backlink (which will help improve your search engine rankings) but you will also have people clicking over to your website from links placed within your guest posts. Oftentimes you are allowed to create an author bio which is a great way to showcase a head shot of yourself, a short description, any social media links and your website URL. You can see an example of this in the screenshot below:

If you really focus on this strategy on a on-going monthly basis, it can really explode your website traffic (both organic and referral). This will take some time to gain momentum, but can be done without having to invest any money in advertising!

6.) Sharing Blog Posts on Social Media

Last but certainly not least is to share all of your blog posts on your social media platforms. I know this sounds like common sense, but many bloggers forget to tackle this step. This can be a great way to almost instantly promote your blog content and at no additional cost. Many times your followers on social media are waiting for you to post your latest and greatest content. This may even be the way they stay up to date with your blog to begin with. Make sure your social media posts/shares are engaging and provide your followers with a sneak preview of your content. Sometimes this is just what you need to give your blog traffic a needed boost and to increase the overall exposure of your website.

Conclusion

There’s no better feeling than generating loads of free traffic to your website from work you’ve done months or even years ago. With some of the methods I’ve laid out above, you should be able to increase your blog readership and overall reach moving forward. There’s no need to tackle all of these tactics at once. Heck, you can even just start with and master one single traffic technique to get your feet wet. I think the most important takeaway here is to be consistent and also patient in your approach. Although these are free strategies to increase your blog traffic, they will indeed take time and effort to see results with. Stick with it, remain persistent and replicate what works!