For a new brand on a small budget, generating free website traffic is key. Even for larger brands that have larger budgets, getting free website traffic can be a great addition to their marketing strategy. With a few simple changes, you can start bringing in free website traffic to your website and grow your brand organically.
How Do I Generate Free Website Traffic?
Let’s face it, everyone loves free website traffic (unless it crashes the server). We all want our brands to be so polished and optimized that traffic just pores in. But many brands will not describe their site as completely optimized to the point that it generates free website traffic.
So, how can you get started? I’ll start with the first step…
Choose the Right Channel
Different social media channels will reap different benefits. You’ll need to consider the demographic factors of your target audience like age, gender, and income before making a decision about which channel to use.
Asking questions like what they would like, what would be useful for them, and what channel is already widely used will also give you a good idea of what direction to begin.
Backlinks
Backlinks will bring in a lot of new traffic seemingly organically. However, there is still some work that has to go into it. You need to build Facebook and Twitter accounts that are synced with your blog.
Links to your posts are automatically created on your social media profile. Naturally, this will make it easy for others to backlink you.
You will need to be mindful of what you post though. If you post images, infographics, or videos you’ll be much more likely to be attractive enough for others to link back to your website.
SEE ALSO: 8 Link Building Strategies To Enhance Your Digital Brand
Engage Followers
Creating great content that engages with your readers is very important. You’ll want to find out what interests your readers. Ask them to tell you their most pressing issues. Then you can give them useful information that they actually want and need.
Your content will then be irresistible to your target audience. Additionally, this will lead to more shares and increased traffic to your website.
Engaging your followers can be as simple as creating a video that addresses one of their main concerns and links back to additional articles about the issue.
Your video will pull them in and engage them, but your content will keep them around.
Connect With Your Audience
Using surveys, questionnaires, and contests can help you to connect with your audience. If you show them that you already want to listen to them right from the beginning, they will be more interested in connecting with you.
If you happen to choose to do a giveaway, you’ll want to make sure that you include a call to action. This call to action will make sure that your audience doesn’t just enter your giveaway and leave.
Give them a reason to get involved with your brand.
Be Expressive
Being expressive makes you feel real and can increase your traffic. This is especially true if you include a sharing button.
Make sure that this button is prominent, and you can ask your readers to share your articles if they like your content.
You can say things like ‘don’t forget to share this post and let your friends know what you’re reading’ or ‘find more articles like this at (your website)’.
Know When to Post
You’ll want to post your content when the usage rate is high. Trial and error can sometimes be the best way to figure out the right time for posting, however, there are many brands that are willing to share what they’ve found in their own experiments with you so that you can avoid some of their mistakes.
You’ll also want to follow a posting schedule. This will also make it clearer what will work for your business and what doesn’t.
SEE ALSO: The Best Times To Post To Facebook, Twitter, Google+ & Others [Infographic]
Refrain From Spamming
It’s important to be mindful of the frequencies of your posts. No one likes to be spammed, so you should also refrain from doing it.
You’ll want to share content that is fresh and shareable. There is a certain number of times you can post on various social media platforms in a day.
Making sure that you follow this unspoken rule will make sure that your brand remains likable and interesting to your target audience.
Make Changes
You should never just post the same thing on all the social media platforms. You’ll want to make changes to that your target audience doesn’t just keep seeing the same posts from you in all the media that they use.
This may mean becoming more innovative. However, you will benefit in the long run because your target audience will not feel oversaturated and bored by your content.
Join Groups
If there are already groups on social media that are related to your brand then you should join them. If you find that there aren’t, then you should create groups with people who have similar likes and interests to your brand.
This will increase your website traffic because it will create a feeling of community spirit.
For the best success here, you should join groups that are not as popular. This will help you to gain a competitive advantage.
Think big fish in a small pond.
It will also increase the odds of being on top when the group grows.
Strike a Nerve
The best way to get people talking about your brand is to create a topic that will resonate and connect with your audience.
You’ll want to communicate with your target audience on a verbal, visual, and metaphoric level. Push out content that will really hit your target audience.
Write content that won’t be easily forgotten by your readers.
Striking a nerve is what will make people want to share your content without being asked to, so the cost of this type of traffic is simply the time you put into your content.
Create Action with Your Story
If your story is good enough, you may not need a call to action.
Your story will create the need for action within your readers without you having to tell them to move. Creating a story that catches their attention and provides relevant messages to your target customers can be a great way to do this.
https://youtu.be/ylGkT5iRJ24
JetBlue does a great job of this idea. They take the complaints that they’ve heard about their competitors and use it to create content that will drive their target audience to action, and towards their brand.
Find an Influencer
Influencers can be a great way to drive traffic to your website. They might not always be considered free website traffic, but if you have the right brand or ideology, they might actually work for you for free.
You’ll want to find an influencer that matches the thoughts behind your brand. Usually, you would choose someone small for your first influencer, but that doesn’t have to be the case.
Influencers can reach a larger audience right away. Plus their followers have already developed a trust with them that you can use for your own brand.
It also usually helps your interactions with them if you offer to give them some free advertising on your website as well.
Offer to feature them, and they might just feature you as well.
SEE ALSO: How To Use Influencers To Build Your Digital Brand
Be Worth Their Time
Don’t try to succeed on poorly thought out content. Your brand needs to be memorable and bold. You want to be worth your target audience’s time and attention so that they want to be a part of your brand all on their own.
You can use subtle marketing techniques, but you want to turn your marketing into simple memorable content. Your content should inform, enlighten, and entertain your target audience all at the same time. Without these features, no matter how much you push your content, your target audience won’t have an interest in it.
Final Thoughts
It will take a little extra time and thought on your part, but it is possible to generate free website traffic. If your content is done well, this job becomes a lot easier too.
Make sure that you have content people will want to be interested in, and work on developing relationships with influencers and your target audience to make them interested in sharing and backlinking you to their own sites. It all starts with your material.
If the foundation is good, you’ll be able to find an audience.
Is free website traffic a good thing? Is there a way it can be harmful to your site?
