Wondering how to drive traffic to your blog for free in 2024?
Sick of not getting visitors to read the content you spent hours or days creating?
Want proven and “tried-and-true” ways to drive more traffic to your blog for free?
Tired of not seeing any results of your hard work?
If yes, you are in the right place.
In this blog post, I will show you not only my tried-and-true ways to drive traffic to your blog or website for free but also how to monetize it on the go.
In case you didn’t create your blog yet, check out my step-by-step guide on how to start a blog with Bluehost to get started.
If you already have your blog up and running, then stick with me until the end.
Here below is what I will be covering in this post. Since it is an in-depth guide, jump on the section that interests you.
Before I show you how to drive traffic to your blog or website or my top best ways to drive traffic to your website, let me show you how to optimize it for a better conversion rate first.
How to optimize your blog for a better conversion rate?
As a blogger or affiliate marketer, your main goal is to make money from your blog.
Right?
So before you start sending traffic to your blog, you need to optimize it for a better conversion rate.
But…
First off, let’s understand what a conversion means before we move on.
A conversion is when visitors of your website end up taking the desired action you have set. This action can be checking your YouTube channel link and subscribing, getting them to follow you on one of your social media profiles, joining your mailing list, buying your offer, etc.
As a blogger or affiliate marketing, your main focus must be to acquiring leads or to converting your site visitors into leads.
This is what will help you build the “know-like-trust” factor with them and then convert them into lifetime buyers.
And once you have built such a factor, converting your leads into customers or buyers becomes easy.
So how can you optimize your site in order to convert your website visitors into leads and then buyers?
Know your audience
Determine the type of people you want to drive to your website and then figure out their pain points, struggle, or problems they are facing.
In other words, determine your ideal buyers’ persona: their gender, age, location, pain points, monthly revenue, etc.
Choose a good product to promote to your audience
The next step is to find a winning and good product or service that can help your audience solve the problem they are facing right now to promote.
No matter your niche you can find a product or service that can help your audience. I emphasize on the product that helps your audience meet their need because if you recommend a product that is not a solution to your audience’s problems, it will be difficult to sell it to your audience.
Build an affiliate marketing funnel designed to promote your affiliate offer
The next step to optimizing your website for a better conversion rate is to create an affiliate marketing funnel.
In case you don’t know what an affiliate marketing funnel is let me explain it a bit to you…
An affiliate marketing funnel is a defined path that your consumer takes before purchasing the product or service you are promoting as an affiliate.
It includes different steps your potential customers must take starting at the stage they discover your blog, your offer to the stage where they are ready to buy your affiliate offer – that is your overall goal.
And here is what you need to put in place practically in order to get your website visitors to come up to your overall goal (purchasing your affiliate offer):
- You need to create a landing page or opt-in page to collect their email address first before you send them to your affiliate link.
This is very important for 2 reasons:
- 1. An email list is an asset you own
If after you get their contact they buy your offer, you have a qualified prospect.
If they don’t buy you have the option to nurture your leads, showcase your product benefits to remove any doubt, and then convert your leads into buyers.
If they don’t buy, you also have the option to promote related products or services to them.
Expert export that for $1 spent in a lead, you can make up to $23.5 from that lead.
- 2. An email list helps to increase brand awareness
Know that as an affiliate marketer or blogger, you don’t promote your own products or services. You promote other people’s products or services for a commission.
That means you are sending your website visitors to someone else brand or company. Not yours!
Right?
But do you know your blog or website is also a brand and you too want to increase your brand awareness, build a loyal customer base?
If you don’t know that maybe you are blogging for a hobby – not for a business.
Companies like Copyblogger, SemRush, BackLincko, just to name a few started as simple websites or blogs.
Possessing a website visitor or prospect’s email address means one thing: they showed a level of interest in your business.
Why not use email marketing to increase that interest level, that brand awareness, by staying top of mind?
Pro tip: In order to entice your landing page or opt-in page visitors, you must use a lead magnet. It can be an eBook, a mini-course, a gift card, etc. Make sure to create a lead magnet that is relevant to your offer (product or service you are promoting).
Lead generation is not about getting people’s email addresses but getting qualified leads.
- Set up email series designed to build a “know-like-trust” factor and then send promotional emails to your leads
After you got your website visitors’ emails, you have to stay in touch with them.
Thankfully there are email marketing tools like Aweber, Moosend, Getresponse, etc allow you to build “set and forget” emails campaigns that will be delivered automatically and based on a time frame you set.
Want me to create a complete affiliate marketing funnel for your offer?
Now you have an idea on how to optimize your website for a better conversion rate, let’s jump into the 20 best ways to drive traffic to your website and then make money from it.
How to drive traffic to your blog for free (10 proven ways to flood your site with visitors)
1. Use Facebook
Facebook is the leading social media platform where most of your targeted audience already is.
As a blogger or business owner, you can use it to engage your audience, build brand awareness, raving fans and followers.
Now you may be wondering how you can use Facebook to drive traffic to your website.
Alright.
There are 2 main ways to direct your friends on Facebook to your website.
Create and optimize a Facebook business profile for your website
Here below is an example of an optimized Facebook profile.
Instead of using your personal Facebook profile for business, you must create a business profile for your business.
That will help you keep your account in good standing and gives you the freedom to post, advertise, and focus your content around your business.
And when it comes to Facebook profile optimization you can add your website address or link in your bio.
And in order to get click on your website link, after you have optimized your profile, you have to be active: post relevant content to your business, and engage with your audience when they like or comment on your posts,
Your business must also have a social presence: A Facebook fan page. It also allows you to get clicks on your website.
Create a FB group
Another way to drive traffic from Facebook to your website is to create a Facebook group where you invite your engaged audience to join. By providing value to your group members, you can drive traffic to your website or funnels easily.
Recommended: How to generate leads on Facebook for free.
2. Use Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual search engine and a social media platform where you can drive quality traffic to your website if you master the art of Pinterest SEO.
But…
Like any social media platform, you have to be active on the platform to get the best of it.
Follow my step-by-step guide on how to use Pinterest to grow your business here.
3. Use Instagram
Just like Pinterest, Instagram is a visual search engine where you can share images and videos with your audience.
The platform has over 300 million monthly active users. That means most of your audience is there.
Now how can use drive traffic to your website with Instagram?
Unlike Pinterest where the images you share can be linked with your blog posts and people can click and get directed to your blog post or articles, Instagram doesn’t offer a way to drive traffic to your site from your shared image or videos.
It only offers an option to add your website address in your bio and this is where you can get clicks on your links.
So if you want to drive traffic from Instagram to your blog, you have to share interesting and valuable content related to your niche with the community.
That way you will attract people toward your bio where they can find out what you are doing.
You can use Linktree if you have more than 1 or 2 links to add to your Pinterest bio.
PS: While there is no way to drive traffic from your shared materials to your site or links, you can add your site name or address in your shared materials and leverage comments to drive traffic to your site.
4. Use YouTube
YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google and it has more than 2 billion active users worldwide.
How to drive traffic to your website with YouTube?
Create a video related to your niche or business. It can be products or services reviews, tutorials, informational videos, etc.
You can as a blogger repurpose your content on Youtube and drive extra traffic to your website.
In the description of your video, add your website link or blog page link and invite your audience to check it out if they want to learn more about the subject you cover in your video.
You have also the option to mention your brand name in your videos. People will memorize your brand name easily, and then visit your site any time they have the need.
5. Use Q&A (Quora)
Quora is a Q&A site with over 300 million monthly active users you can leverage to drive traffic to your website.
You can drive traffic from it in 3 ways :
Answer questions related to your niche and link back to a relevant article on your site (do it with moderation)
You can also use Quora to find long-tail keywords you can use to write content.
Long-tail keywords mean keywords with over 4 words. They are low search volume but are easy to rank.
The more articles you get ranked on search engines, the more visitors will you get.
The best part, this kind of keyword convert better than short-term keywords.
You can learn how to use Quora to grow your business here.
6. Publish SEO-friendly and quality content
Organic traffic is my main traffic source the best traffic source every blogger must focus on. It is a hands-free traffic source where you can drive targeted and angry buyers to your website.
And the best part organic traffic tends to convert better than any source of traffic.
But in order to drive organic traffic to your website, you have to master the art of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
This is where most bloggers struggle and end up to abandoned their dream of making money online blogging.
To help you create SEO-friendly content, follow these steps below:
- 1. Do keyword research to find long-tail keywords that are easy to rank
A rookie mistake most bloggers make is targeting any keywords that come to their minds without doing proper keywords research.
A good SEO practice starts with keyword research. You have to know how many people are searching for the keyword idea you have, what is the competition level, and the SEO score before you start writing for it.
If you target high competition level keywords, even if your content is quality and interesting enough, it will be difficult to climb up on top of the SERP. The reason is obvious! Google likes unique and quality content, but there are other ranking factors that come into play when it comes to ranking higher on the SERP.
Fortunately, there are free keyword research tools like Ubersuggest out there you can use to perform keyword research.
The downside is that like any free tool there are some limitations and if you want to take your business to the next level you will need to go with a premium keyword research tool like Jaaxy (the one I use myself) or Long-tail keyword.
Here below is an example of a search with the search term “indoor garden planters” with my preferred keyword research tool.
- 2. Include your keyword within the title of your blog post (preferred in the beginning)
- 3. Include it at least one time in the headline and sub-headlines
- 4. Include your keyword within your content
- 5. Avoid keyword stuffing – just add them naturally and don’t go over 0,5 density.
Add images and properly use an image tag to helo search engines understand what they are.
Keep in mind – Google has an image search option where your images can show up if well-optimized.
An image worth thousands of words.
See the image below on how to optimize your images for SEO.
Note that like within your content you must not overuse your keyword in image tags.
7. Outreach to other bloggers for guest posting
Guest posting is another great way to drive targeted traffic to your blog or website.
The concept is simple.
You reach out to other bloggers within your niche, writing content for them in exchange for a link back to your website.
It is a win-win situation because the guest host gets content for free he or she can publish.
On the other hand, you get extra visitors from that blogger for free.
The best part, since this is from a blog within your niche, it means that people you will be getting have an interest in what you are offering on your website.
You are now wondering where to find a guest post opportunity?
Alright!
You have 2 options:
- Use search engines to find people who offer such services, or
- Reach out to bloggers you know in your niche to pitch them.
To find guest post opportunities in your niche, you can tape on Google your “niche name + guest post” or “niche name + write for us”.
Google will bring up all the pages that match your query for you to browse and find the one that fits your business.
Here is an example with the search term “smartwatch guest posts”
As you can see there are people who are looking for contributors. And what you have to do is to reach out to them and propose your article idea.
8. Get the best of launch jacking
Launch Jacking is the process of profiting off the buzz around new a launched product or service by creating a piece of content (such as reviews, tutorials)
around that product that is launching.
The idea is to find products that are launching in your niche and then create content around these products.
They are easy to rank as the product is just being released and most people don’t know about their launch
And when you get ranked for these kinds of products, you can easily drive targeted traffic to your blog or website.
The best part these products have affiliate programs you can join and then promote them for a commission.
Now you are wondering where to find newly launched products to promote.
Right?
Let me show you some resources:
If you are in the make money online niche, you can join affiliate networks like JVzoo, Warrior Plus, ClickBank, etc. Within these platforms, each has a section where you can find newly launched products. You can also use Muncheye.
If you are another niche different than the one mentioned above (an example – the tech niche), and you are promoting Amazon’s products, you can go to the new release tab on Amazon.
Another way to find products that are launching in your niche is to join Facebook groups or forums related to your niche.
9. Leverage manual traffic exchange site
Manual traffic exchange sites are also a way to drive traffic to your website. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can drive hundreds of visitors to your website.
But it must be done wisely. If not you can harm your SEO.
In fact, people in traffic exchange sites just surf other ads to get visitors on their own ads. That means most will not stay on your site for more than a time frame set by the platform.
That lead to higher bounce and bad signal to Google.
So instead of driving traffic from traffic exchange sites to your blog post, I suggest you use a landing page or squeegee page to build an email list.
You can then introduce your subscribers to your website.
That leads us to our last way to driving traffic to your blog.
Related post: How to use traffic exchange site efficiently.
10. Do email marketing
Learning how to do email marketing is also learning how to drive traffic to your blog for free.
As a blogger or affiliate marketer, if you are not building an email list you are missing an opportunity.
Email marketing is an effective way to connect with your subscribers, build a trust relationship and then convert them into lifetime buyers. This is the overall purpose of email marketing.
But that is not all.
With email marketing, your prospects and customers can receive your new blog posts directly on their mailbox.
It can be a great way to build engaged and loyal readers. That helps increase brand awareness.
I have covered a bit this topic in the beginning. So I will not spend my time in this section again.
Recommended: Top Best email marketing tools for small businesses.
Conclusion on ways to drive traffic to your website or blog for free
Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. No traffic, to sales. So no commission or ways to make money with your blog.
If you are just starting out or looking to increase your website traffic, here are my top best ways to drive traffic to your blog for free:
- Use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest,…
- Use YouTube, the second biggest search engine,
- Use Quora, the popular Q&A site in the world,
- Leverage SEO to drive organic traffic to your website,
- Use Guest blogging,
- Leverage launch jacking,
- Use manual traffic exchange sites, and
- Use email marketing.
I am sure by using these traffic sources, you will be able to get your first 1000 readers or increase your site traffic faster.
That being said, I hope you found my guide on how to drive traffic to your blog without spending money on ads helpful.
Do you have a question? Don’t hesitate to let me know in the comment section. I will respond to you ASAP!
Tell me which traffic source are you using right now or your favored traffic source. Mine is organic traffic from Search engines like Google.
Be an ACTION taker, SOW YOUR SEED TODAY!
To your success!
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How Much Does It Cost To Start A Blog In 2022 – [Self-hosted WordPress website]
Thanks for sharing your expertise! I’ll definitely be implementing some of these strategies for Digital marketing in Dubai
You are most welcome Olivia.
Thank you for stopping by!
This post helps us unlocking new possibilities and driving innovation across various sectors.
Such a nice and helpful piece of information. I’m so happy that you shared this helpful information with us
That was a really good write-up there Christian. You hit the right words to say to your audience. In addition to that, I just want to say that keeping a good anchor text that is relevant to a blog is really helpful for SEO and for your business. Cause it keeps your audience on your website.
Hi, Tala
Glad to hear you found this article useful.
And yes, using the right anchor text is also useful.
Thank you for stopping by.