List of 18 Free Traffic Sources You Need to Be Using

If you need to attract more traffic to your website or online store and can’t afford the paid sources, no need to worry. Here is a wonderful list of some free traffic sources you can use.

When it comes to traffic, no one hates to have it organically. For startups or small companies who can’t afford a paid source of traffic, they rely on free sources to get their brands known. Well, although free traffic sources will cost you nothing in terms of money, you still have to put in enough effort.

There are numerous sources of free traffic you can utilize. However, since everyone has access to them, they tend to offer varying level of effectiveness. One has to research on and master multiple of them in order to succeed.

Today, we will explore on 18 of the best free traffic sources to help you drive more traffic to your website.

At the end of the article, you will have established which source is best for you and which can help your online business to grow.

What Are Free Traffic Sources Online

A traffic source is a place where you get visitors for your website. In other words, it is where the visitors to your website come from, which can either be free or paid for. Therefore, free traffic sources online are online platforms which you can use for free to drive your target audience to your website.

Here is a list of some of the best methods on how to drive consistent traffic from free sources.

1. Search Engines (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is probably the best, as well as the largest source of free traffic. Being ranked for a great and competitive keyword will have a considerable effect on your website or blog. Top ranking by search engines means that your website will have more visitors, and this is positive for your business.

However, for you to be top-ranked, you have to work hard for it. You will have to ensure that you meet all the requirements of the search engine process. Your content should be unique and of high quality, for it to rank higher on the various search engines.

One advantage of using SEO as a source of free traffic source is that the visitors are highly targeted unlike those from ads. For example, people visiting your site from google are already interested in what your website offers.

2. Email Marketing

Email marketing is typically the process whereby you send emails to a list of a targeted audience, intending to lead them back to your site or blog. This is one of the most effective ways of getting repeat visitors to your site. Email marketing is a highly converting method which is also among the most targeted sources of free traffic.

When it comes to email marketing, it is a fast way of bringing visitors to new sites and blogs since all you need is to send emails. Any time you need traffic, simply write an email and forward it to your list of targeted customers.

MailChimp is one of the big players in the market that offers such free services, and you definitely should check them out.

3. Social Media

In the current era of people always available on social media platforms, social media has become an excellent source of free traffic to your site. A considerable number of people spends hours and hours on social media every day. Therefore, if you require some free traffic for your blog, this is an excellent place to start from.

It is an excellent platform where small business owners and marketers, can interact with their target customers for free. Again, there are numerous social media platforms out there like Facebook, Twitter, and more, which means you have a wide variety to choose from. However, you should concentrate on one that you know most of your target customers use.

This means that it is essential that you first understand your customers behavior patterns to know which platform they most likely would use.

4. Direct Traffic

When analyzing the sources of traffic to your site using google analytics, you might see the term direct or none. A direct/ none source of traffic is where the people that visit your site do it by entering a URL or through a bookmark to access your site directly. They don’t need to go through the search engine as they already know your site or are familiar with its content.

Since they already know your sites name, they write it in their browsers and accesses your website directly. However, to ensure that you get direct traffic, you must have a blog name that is easy to remember by many people. In addition, your website must be able to offer significant value to the visitors to ensure repeat visits.

5. Guest Blogging on other Websites

Although this might sound off for some people, I assure you that it is an effective way of getting free traffic. Guest blogging means that you write and post on someone else’s website or blog. How this works is by giving you a link back to your website where your post is published.

By giving you the backlinks, it means that people visiting that website may also visit your blog by clicking on the links. The effect of this is more traffic to your website. Also, the people who visit your site through the links are most probably interested in your content and might lead to more conversion.

Also, the more backlinks you have, the more chances you have to become an authority, particularly in that niche. When you are an authority, you not only get better rankings, but you also get more audience which might, in turn, lead to more sales.

6. YouTube

YouTube is another wonderful and useful source of free traffic for your website or eCommerce store. It is one of the highly frequented websites on the world of internet, and internet marketers widely use it.

If you are a blogger, YouTube can be an excellent source of free traffic for your website.

Although YouTube may not be a source of instant traffic, it is a great platform where you can market anything for free. Moreover, people can view content from YouTube using their smartphones, which opens more opportunities for marketers and website owners.

When you consider the rate at which the online video is growing, it outweighs the hassle required in preparing the video content. Therefore, online video must be part of your brand marketing strategy.

7. Post on Reddit

Posting on Reddit is yet another great way to get free traffic for your blog. Reddit can provide you with a massive amount of free website traffic if used well.  The platform consists of an extensive community of people seeking and sharing various pieces of information to enable them to grow their businesses.

As long as you find a suitable community for your niche, Reddit can be beneficial in bringing traffic to your blog. It is one of the widely used free traffic sources for affiliate marketing. Join the community, share valuable content, grow your reputation, and drive more traffic to your website.

However, be sure not to post links anyhow as you can easily get blocked.

8. Posting on Quora

Similar to Reddit, Quora is also a question and answer platform where people share and seek information on various topics. It is a community where everyone in the platform contributes to offer value to others. With Quora, their links somehow rank higher in search engines and therefore they guarantee you more traffic.

For example, whenever you type a question on Google, Quora posts are most likely to appear on the first page. Join the community and take advantage of this great community to increase your website’s traffic.

9. Use of Forum Marketing

Although most people are now turning too social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, forums are still an effective method of driving traffic. Forum marketing is the process by which you market your brand on forums which are somehow related to what you offer.

For example, if you sell camping gear, you should look for communities focused on outdoor activities.

Getting the right forum, which has enough postings, and members can significantly change the level of visitors on your website. You should choose well as there are numerous online forums which may sometimes prove hard to get the right one. At the end of your post, you are allowed to leave a link where interested people may click to follow your content.

10. Invite Guest Post to Your Blog

Just like in guest blogging, you can also invite other bloggers in your niche to post on your website. By doing this, the bloggers will most likely share the post on social media pages, which is a way of promoting your website. Also, they are probably going to link back the post from their blogs.

If you get people who provide quality content, you can be sure to receive more audience to your website. If you do it well, this method can prove to be one of the best free traffic sources for you.

11. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is where you share your content on social bookmarking sites. There are various such sites which include Digg, Pinterest, Slashdot, and Delicious, among others.

This method can be an excellent avenue to share your content and attract traffic to your site through backlinks building.

12. Write an E-book

An e-book is something that will only require your intellect and time. If you know you are good at it and can produce valuable content, then an e-book is a smart way to bring traffic to your blog for free. Writing an e-book will cost you nothing, but if done right, it can be a long-term solution to your website’s needs.

One advantage with e-books is that the traffic they attract can easily be converted since most of them already like what you offer.

13. Referring Sites

This method offers a good source of free traffic, but you need to do enough work to get there. For people to refer traffic to your website, your content must be very valuable and of high quality. In addition, you must have done a lot of networking with other websites to convince them to refer traffic to yours.

If you want people to mention you in their blogs, be sure that your content must be considered valuable.

14. Blog Commenting

Do you want a great way to network? Well, commenting on other peoples’ blogs in your niche offers just that. The wide your network is, the more backlinks you will get back to your website. This can be said to be among the most favorite methods that marketers and bloggers use to rank in search engines, as well as build backlinks.

The method is popular since it’s easy to start and it offers a great avenue for free traffic.

15. Use of Tools Like BuzzSumo

Some tools like BuzzSumo are a great method through which you can use to rank your competition. These tools help you to spy on what your competitors are up to, as well as help you figure out how to beat them. The tools offer both free and paid plans, but if even with the free one, you can attract considerable traffic if you use it well.

However, you must create excellent content for you to gain the traffic you desire. You need to understand the topmost topics that have most shares and make use of their keywords. This way, your content may rank higher.

16. Article Marketing

What article marketing simply means, is submitting your articles to various article directories. It is a division of content marketing whereby you can write articles and distribute them to multiple outlets. These outlets include newsletters publishers, forums, and article banks, among others.

Some of these article directories that you can use include EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, and SearchWarp.com, among others. And, although they are no longer as popular as they were some years back, these platforms can still help you a great deal.

17. Use of Social Influencers

Influencers can be a person, a company, or a group of people with social authority in the same niche as you. Usually, these influencers command sizeable online following and are able to capture an audience’s attention and easily create engagement on their sites.

With influencer marketing, it entails partnering with such influencers who in turn promote your website or online business. In exchange for them promoting your brand, you can offer them things like free samples or still, mention them on your platform such as social media. However, this has to be mutually beneficial for both parties, and therefore, you also must have a certain level of influence.

18. Publishing a Press Release

Press releases refer to written communications that report brief but precise information about certain occurrences. These press release not only generates the traffic for you, but it also provides your website with quality backlinks. Therefore, this is a great and free way of channeling traffic to your website.

A press release could be anything unique and catchy from your business or store. It may be about the launch of a new product, promotional offers, special prices, and more.

Conclusion on Free Traffic Sources

If you are new int this game, or you are already into it and was wondering how you can bring in more traffic to your site, there you have it. I hope this piece of content provides you with all you require to know about free traffic sources, and how to maximize them.

Do you think free traffic sources are effective? Kindly share your comments with us on the comments section.