If you have set up a website and you want to make money online, then you will need to ensure that your content is out there. Whatever your methods are to earn money online, be it by selling products or by advert placements, your website definitely needs traffic in order to be profitable. Good content comes in many forms be it content writing for businesses, social media posts, videos, etc. but they all do wonders for traffic and help you reach new audiences.
It is logical if you think about it. More traffic equals more readers of your content equals more potential leads equals more potential sales equals more money! If nobody knows about your website it is unlikely that it will have any traffic and with no traffic it is unlikely that it will earn any money and provide you with that passive income you are looking for!
There are many ways to generate more traffic for your website. Some are easy. Some are hard. Some are paid. Some are free.
In this article we offer 9 FREE ways to increase web traffic and make more money online.
1.) Optimise your website for the search engines to crawl
The search engines are the main sources for FREE traffic to your website and, therefore, your website should be optimised to take advantage of the traffic which they have to offer. FREE traffic to your website means that you do not need to pay anything. Your site appears on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and surfers click on the link and end up on your web page.
The main search engines that you will want to optimise your content for include Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Wiki.com, Twitter, CC Search, Gibiru, Internet Archive, Search Encrypt, Yandex, StartPage, Swisscows, Boardreader, SlideShare, and Ecosia.
Between each of these sites millions and millions of searches are conducted each day and if you optimise your website right with proven search engine optimisation techniques, you will encourage more traffic to your site.
For some people search engine optimisation is easy. For others search engine optimisation is an arduous task! There are many companies and agencies who have the knowledge and expertise to help you to optimise your website for certain keywords or phrases but they are not always cheap. Whilst basic search engine optimisation can be done without any financial investment, more advanced optimisation does take time so it may be worth talking to experts. If you decide to go down that road, ensure you spend time researching the agency and its reputation. It is essential that your seo uses approved techniques so that your site is not sandboxed permanently!
2.) Post valuable content regularly and ensure that your information is current
In order to generate lots of traffic your website needs lots of high quality content in various forms – text, photos, graphics, video. If you want people to visit your site and return regularly, you need to be posting large amounts of quality content on subjects and topics which readers find interesting. If you do not regularly update your content then it will become boring to the reader and they will not return to your website.
Your site could be about a specialised subject or it could be a general blog. For example, if you are a real estate agent and sell Spanish property, you may want to include property listings and information about local house prices and trends. If you are a techie who specialises in game development using the Unity Real-Time Development Platform, you may wish to include tutorials and code snippets. Or if you offer a general local news website, you will want to keep the content fresh by posting information about news, sport, and events which are happening in the local area.
3.) Leverage social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and more
You should consider building your web presence and boosting your social network presence on the main social media websites. These include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Pinterest. Each of these websites have huge audiences and having a strong social media presence is one of the best ways to ensure that your website generates plenty of traffic.
Social media often feeds into the “discovery” of freshly published content such as news stories, how to guides, and general information. “Discovery” is a search activity whereby people conduct searches on social media websites. Social media helps to build links as it sends of “indicators” to the main search engines which give them hints on how to present the information in their search results. If your content can generate “likes”, “shares”, and “comments”, this is a sure sign that it is relevant and this helps to raise it’s profile in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Positions) which, in turn, gives it better visibility and will lead to more organic traffic.
4.) Generate more backlinks from authority websites
Backlins are links that lead back to your website. Backlinks are very important for search engine optimisation and for increased traffic to your website. High quality backlinks to your homepage from high authority domains help to increase the Domain Authority of your own website. High quality backlinks to internal pages on your website from high authority domains and pages help to increase the Page Authority of the specific internal page. This, in turn, helps your homepage / root domain and / or your internal pages to rank higher for specific keywords and search terms in the SERPs. In addition, backlinks on existing high traffic websites can help to generate more clickthrough traffic for your own website.
Nofollow links are ok but dofollow links are better. In addition, backlinks from websites in your niche are also better as they are already likely to generate traffic from people who are already interested in the subject matter you are discussing. Search engines also value links from relevant sites and this also helps to improve your rankings in the SERPs.
There are many Backlink Builder Tools on the web which you can use to find out more about websites which exist in your niche. A word of warning, however. Be careful when exchanging links as there are some bad neighbourhoods out there and too many links from these bad neighbourhoods may cause the search engines to penalise your rankings in their search results.
5.) Sign up for Google News
Do you have a website which is packed full of current news and information? Is your website already established? In which case, you may be eligible t sign up for Google News.
Google News offers comprehensive up-to-date news coverage which it aggregates from millions of different sources. Google News allows readers to view different kinds of magazine, news, and video stories all in one place. The content is picked by a Google News algorithm which personalises the feed based on the user settings and the articles they have previously read.
It is not easy to get your website into Google News and it may be necessary to apply for entry several times. Often sites are simply rejected and no reason why is given the webmasters by the Google News team. Usually websites are rejected from Google News for having thin or low quality content but it websites may also be rejected if the layout and design is not appropriate or, more specifically, if the website contains to much advertising in relation to quality news content.
6.) Bookmark your homepage and content on social bookmarking websites
There are a number of social bookmarking websites out there on the internet. Examples of such websites include Digg and Delicious.
Social bookmarking websites already have a huge number of users who can be easily converted to become your loyal readers! Furthermore, these users are usually already categorised into their niches.
Register for a free account on these websites and begin strengthening your online presence by publishing links to the quality content on your website.
7.) Promote your website off-line
Off-line promotion can help greatly when you want to increase web traffic and there are many different ways in which you can promote your website off-line.
For example, you could include your website address on all marketing literature such as business cards, envelopes, letterheads, mugs, calendars, and many more. Or you could publish your website address on the side of a vehicle which is out and about all day long.
Consider setting up a QR code and including this on your marketing material. That way, users with smart phones can scan the code and be redirected to a high converting landing page!
Off-line methods of website promotion are often forgotten nowadays, but if combined with an effective on-line strategy, it will help to ensure that your brand and company information remain at the forefront of your reader’s minds.
8.) Offer a FREE product or service to your readers
One way of engaging your audience is to offer them something for free. Let’s face it, who doesn’t like free?
And it doesn’t have to cost you the earth. Imagine, for example, you are a website which offers information to expats about currency exchange or home insurance. You could offer property buyers and new homeowners a free PDF outlining all the things which they might wish to consider when investing in their new property. This may include local information such as schooling, healthcare, employment, and much more.
By offering a free product to your readers, you give yourself the opportunity of capturing their email address. With this you can be in constant contact with them and even send them links to newly uploaded articles and information which may be of interest to them.
9.) Add your website URL to your email signature
And last, but by no means least, add your website URL to your email signature. Let’s face it, you probably send out hundreds of emails each month where you engage users who are already interested in you and your business. Adding your site to your email signature will ensure that when they are looking for some information which you may offer, one of their first ports of call will be your homepage!
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is fair to say that there are plenty of ways to generate free traffic for your website. Be sure to use only whitehat techniques and take a long-term view. It isn’t easy but it is very possible to create a website with thousands of daily visitors and make money online!
9 FREE ways to increase web traffic and make more money online appeared first on Make Money Online by Internet Marketing.
