7 of the Best Free Traffic Sources for Bloggers
Do you have a blog you need to promote? If so, you need to locate the best traffic sources to help you get the word out about your blog. There are many ways that you can do this. But you don’t want to spend too much on paid traffic until you have some of the free traffic methods in place.
You may be able to use some of the free methods to increase your quality traffic so that you can improve your ROI and engagement levels without breaking the bank to do so.
7 Free Traffic Sources for Bloggers
Below, we have highlighted seven unique methods for increasing your blog traffic without spending money to do it through paid traffic. Look at each one and decide which ones are the best for you to try while planning your online marketing strategies.
Blog Commenting
Have you ever thought about the power of a comment? Well, you should because it is one of the best ways to generate traffic to your blog. Remember that when you post something online, it is immediately placed in the search engines, primarily Google and Bing. It may take a few days to show up, but the act of creating a blog will create a new web property that will be searchable. However, it takes more than merely creating a blog or a blog post to gain the attention of your target audience.
When you have comments that others post on your blog entries, you will increase your visibility and possible interaction with your other readers. The search engines will also pick up the extra activity which will help with the popularity of your blog.
To encourage comments, make sure you enable comments on your blog after creating a post. Most blog platforms allow you to allow all comments or individual comments. You can always turn off this feature later if you want. If you deal with a controversial topic that you think will encourage negative comments, you can set your blog to filter remarks or fix it to where you must approve all comments before they go on your blog. on will avoid having derogatory comments that might hurt your reputation with others while viewing the comments before allowing them on your page.
Whatever action you choose, it’s a good idea to allow comments as this can raise your visibility in the searches while increasing the level of interaction and social engagement. It also gives you a chance to speak directly to your fans and people who are interested in your content. It may also give you an idea of what they like and help you improve the customer experience.
YouTube Integration
It’s the wise blogger who decides to include YouTube on their blog. You do this by creating original video content and then embedding it in your blog. This is easy to do once you have created and uploaded video content. YouTube allows you to create the video in virtually any type of format and it will convert it to the correct specs for YouTube. Bloggers should have regular video content as this increases both traffic and audience interest level, as studies show.
Guest Blogging
Some bloggers and site owners are afraid to use guest posts due to some former criticisms by Google of overdoing this technique. But if you research some of the reasons that bloggers were penalized for this, it was not because they used guest posting. It was rather that some of the guest posts were not relevant to the content of the referring blog. Relevance is important to Google. They want searchers to find relevant content when searching and this includes when they click on links to take them to other sites. So make sure that your guests are posting high-quality posts that are relevant to your content. Also, make sure to include a short biography on your guest bloggers to add credibility.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to promote your content on your blog. Millions of people are on social media each day sharing information with others. This includes videos, podcasts, shopping suggestions and blog posts. You can also immediately share your blog posts with your various social media audience immediately after posting, so it makes it easy to share with your target audience.
When looking for a blog hosting solution, see if the one you are considering offers quick posting to social media. If it doesn’t, that’s okay. You can always copy and paste your URL at the top of your blog post on your Facebook or Twitter to link it to your social media. Your job is more likely to be found by your essential audience if you post it on social media.
Additionally, if you create a particularly great post, you may want to go ahead and boost the potential of that post by using paid ads through Facebook. But, for purposes of this article, we are only reviewing free traffic sources. So focus on using the free Facebook posting capability first. Then move to paid ads if you think you need some extra engagement efforts that you are willing to pay for through a PPC campaign.
Infographics
Have you ever tried using infographics to boost your blog? If not, why not? Infographics are a great type of digital media that you can use to illustrate a visual concept with very few words. Just by creating a few visual images to include in your infographic, you can create a compelling digital asset that can be used over and over and increase your search results with your target audience.
Original Photos or Graphics
In addition to infographics advertising your brand, include original photos and other graphics that complement your brand and help you to improve the image you have with your target audience. Social media platforms like Instagram are ideal for promoting images, but you can also use some other tools to focus on digital media that will grab the attention of your target audience.
Offer coupons
One nifty trick is to offer coupons on other sites that you can use to refer back to your site or blog. When you create coupons that are off-site, you are improving your reach and putting your message out in another way. Offering discounts via coupons will encourage traffic among people who may not know what your site is but who have an interest in what you have to offer. Many companies successfully do this all of the time and manage to increase their traffic greatly using this method.
Many people look online for coupons on their favorite items or brands so make sure and do your research to find out what type of coupon site you should use to promote your brand and blog.
Don’t forget to use the most obvious method and blog about your brand yourself. Include links to some coupons within your blog, announcing that you are offering a discount on some of your best items or products within your blog. Providing a link to your coupon page will suffice in increasing your reach for those who are interested in what you have to offer. Also, coupons are often the best way to introduce people to your content. If they purchase something through a coupon, they may be back later to purchase again, even when the item is not on sale.
How do visual images increase search results?
To understand this process, it is important to have an understanding of how Google works. First, Google ranks pages according to their value. This includes some factors such as the number of words in a post, the keywords, links, and backlinks, and general popularity with users.
In addition to this, your ranking includes various aspects of your page, as well. This includes images, videos, and other elements. When people do a Google search on Google’s main search page, they will be presented with a choice of “all,” “video,” “images,” “news,” “shopping,” or more, which includes a bunch of other options.
Most people don’t get this specific when they search online, but they might do so if they are looking for a particular kind of media such as video or photographs. Keep this in mind when you are creating your content and be sure to include as many different types of media and digital assets as possible to increase the amount of activity on your blog as well as to improve your standing in the rankings.
Best Blogging Practices
There are some different ways to find free traffic sources. Use the above tips to start, then make a list of other ideas you get on your own. With a little imagination, you can come up with plenty of other ideas to use for your blog promotion.
Developing an email newsletter in which you include a link to your blog is also an excellent way to have free advertising. It doesn’t cost anything to send an email (other than your standard monthly charges) so use this whenever you have something you want to send to several people at once.
By creating a newsletter that people can opt into, you’ll create an automatic marketing list that you can market to with whatever you want to tell them about.
Make sure and include a way to opt into your blog updates on your blog, as well as your main website if you have one.
Get a website
Of course, you know that you need a blogging platform to create a blog. But you should also have a homepage website to send people to for them to find out more about what you do. This is especially true if you sell online products or services or if you plan to expand your blogging into a monetary pursuit. Then link out to your blog from your site and also put a link to your site from your blog to increase traffic.
About Bluehost Hosting Plans for Bloggers
Creating a sales funnel using your blog is a great way to create a digital trail to success for your web properties. Start by finding the best blog platform and website solution. Check out bluehost.com for a great deal on a web hosting plan. Then start sharing your great digital content with the world!