32 Insanely Easy Ways to Increase Website Traffic For Free (2019 Update)

Updated June 6, 2019. Today, I want to talk about ways to increase website traffic and get visible so that your blog gets found by thousands and all your hard work pays off.

Traffic is a biggie for any online business. If you want people to get to know and love your brand (and ultimately, become customers), they first have to know your business exists.

You need a signpost to draw their attention to your business, and in the blogosphere, traffic = signpost.

Truth is, blogging is a lot of work. When you see the rewards from it, you want to roll up your sleeves and keep the momentum going, no?

On the flip side, when your blog traffic plateaus or even goes down, it can kill your enthusiasm for blogging altogether. We don’t want that to happen.

In this post, I’m sharing strategies that have helped me increase my blog traffic so that you can increase the traffic to your website too.

Before I continue, I should tell you the one thing I did that made my traffic plummet.

Nothing.

Yep, I said it. I did nothing. Didn’t promote my posts after I published them. Just let them sit there. And my blog traffic dropped fast. I know this because my traffic was on the rise and I thought Good, I’m able to drive traffic to my website on autopilot now and I can ease up on content promotion. #LessonLearned

Ease up on content promotion = take down my signpost = no traffic. Which is pretty much the gist of it.

There’s a whole lot you can do to get blog traffic without spending thousands of dollars on advertising. You just need to understand the traffic sources available, coupled with these techniques to double and triple your page views every month.

Let’s dig in.

32 Insanely Easy Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic (For Free)

1) Build your following

Decide which social media sites you want to lean on and work to build a following on those platforms. Social media will be a huge source of blog traffic if you approach it right. Spend some time actively engaging on those sites and sharing other people’s content as well as your own.

I cover more on creating an effective social media strategy in this post.

2) Social media profiles

Give your website a boost in traffic by making sure you include your URL on all your social media profiles. You’ll be amazed at how much traffic this can drive to your website.

3) Post on social media regularly

I know you’re busy.

Still, posting regularly and frequently on social media is going to make a huge difference in your ability to build a following. Of course, we can’t be on social media 24/7, and scheduling tools will automate your posts.

You can look active without being active. Make sense?

My favorites are SmarterQueue, Tailwind, and Later.

4) Share content frequently

The more fresh content you share, the more blog traffic you can get from social media and search engines. Updating your blog regularly also helps readers get to know you and keeps them coming back for more.

Fresh content doesn’t always mean new blog posts. You can boost your blog traffic by updating older posts, especially those that are ranking on pages 2 or 3.

5) Focus on one audience

Still wondering how to get traffic to your blog?

Pick a lane and stay in it.

On the superhighway of blogging, it can be tempting to switch gears and write about many different topics. The more you can focus on one topic for one specific person, the easier it will be to build your audience and attract your ideal customers.

Focusing on one topic will also help Google understand what your business is about, which means your posts will appear in search results. This one’s a biggie. You want that when people look for important terms related to your business, you’re up there on page #1.

I find that by focusing on just one topic, I spend more time doing what I should be doing to build my business, and less time getting distracted and checking my junk email.

Related: How to Choose Your Blog’s Niche and Focus

6) Add social share buttons to your blog

Share buttons are what you see at the end of this post. Image share buttons are what you see when you hover over my blog post image. If you’re using WordPress, Social Warfare (that’s an affiliate link, but I only recommend products I love and use every day) is the plugin you want to use.

While you’re at it, add a “click to tweet” to your post to encourage people to share it with their followers. Comes with Social Warfare. Woo!

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Add a ‘click to tweet’ to your posts to encourage people to share it with their followers. ” quote=”Add a ‘click to tweet’ to your posts to encourage people to share it with their followers. “]

7) Use basic SEO

When people enter important terms into Google, you want them to see your blog post. Learning basic SEO will help you optimize your posts for search engines and improve your chances of ranking on page #1.

If you’re ready to up your SEO game, my SEO guide for bloggers is a great read.

8) Set aside time to promote your posts

I know it takes what seems like forever to write posts, and if you’re like me, you’re tempted to call it a day once you hit publish.

Please, friend, don’t be like me! As I mentioned above, promoting your posts consistently is what’s going to help you get more eyes on them.

After pouring your heart into your content, you owe it to yourself to put it in front of your audience.

I cover content promotion strategies in the next steps, but for now just know that in the same way you set aside time to write your posts, you need to set aside time to let the universe know about them. If you write your posts on Mondays and Thursdays, set aside time to promote them on Wednesdays.

Related: How to Get a Massive Amount of Stuff Done Each Day

Get Traffic to Your Website After You Hit Publish

Ok, now for the good stuff. The steps I’m listing here are a checklist of things to do after you publish your posts to drive traffic to them.

Here are the steps I’m covering here:

• First, share them on social media
• Next, schedule additional shares, tweets, and posts
• Then, add them to bookmarking sites
• Then, add to content curation sites
• And finally, try paid promotions (they work)

Let’s walk through each of these.

I. FIRST, SHARE THEM ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The first thing to do once you publish your post is to share it to all your social media accounts.

As a rule of thumb, I have accounts on most platforms, but I am not active on all of them. That would be humanly impossible! Still, more social media accounts means more eyes are on your content, so it makes sense to create profiles on as many as possible.

9) Pinterest

Pinterest is my #1 traffic source of blog traffic. What many people don’t realize is that Pinterest is more than a social media platform, it’s also a search engine.

If you want more people to find your content, make sure you pin it to Pinterest first.

Because Pinterest can be a powerful source of traffic, let’s take a look at some things you can do to give your posts an extra boost:

Make sure you create a pinnable image, which is a fancy way of saying create a vertical blog post image that includes your brand elements (logo, icon, URL) and the title of your post. This pinnable image is what people will see in their feed and the image that will be pinned when people share your post from your website.

Add a description to your pin image so that when people share it, the description is there with it. The description should include the title of your blog post plus any other descriptive keywords that people might use to search for your pin. And of course, a call-to-action.

10) Twitter

Twitter has helped me increase website traffic so I spend a lot of time on this platform. It’s my #2 source of traffic, right behind Pinterest.

With Twitter, you can load up on the tweets. Tweet a link to your post right after you publish it. Then use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule more tweets throughout the day and coming week. Make sure you include hashtags and create multiple variations of tweet text. Twitter’s latest algorithm update will red flag duplicate tweets.

Related: 6 Insider Secrets to Getting Free Traffic from Twitter

11) Facebook

You may be using your personal profile for updates, or you may have a branded business page.

Either way, make sure you share content on Facebook and work to build your following. Even though organic reach is down, Facebook is my #3 source of traffic and I have only a handful of fans. There must be something to it.

12) Facebook Groups

Groups are Facebook’s secret sauce, so join some and share, share, share!

Don’t be spammy and share only links to your blog. There’s an etiquette to Facebook groups. The best ones encourage sharing, Q&A, and genuine conversations.

Join a few that you can contribute to and learn from. Then, if you see an opportunity to share a post or answer a question, leave a comment and include a link to a relevant post.

Always check the group rules. The group admin will provide guidelines and let you know when and if it’s okay to share promotional links.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”There’s an etiquette to Facebook groups – the best ones encourage sharing and live interaction. Make sure you check the group rules before sharing links.” quote=”There’s an etiquette to Facebook groups – the best ones encourage sharing and live interaction. Make sure you check the group rules before sharing links.”]

Psst…Join my Facebook group and network with other bloggers, professionals, and entrepreneurs. You’ll have access to exclusive videos and training from me, plus multiple opportunities to promote your business.

Related: How to Start and Grow a Facebook Group to Make Sales

13) Instagram

Instagram is the best platform to engage and interact with potential customers, but you can’t share the same content as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

You can, of course…

But to really get results, you’ll need to encourage conversations. Make sure you share a mix of engaging posts (quotes and funny memes work well), blog posts and promotional posts.

I recommend saving the bulk of your promotions for Stories, though. Grammers don’t respond well to overly promotional feeds.

Remember, you only have one link to work with (the one in your bio), so you want to make it count. Linktree will house all of the content you want to drive followers to and it a great way to optimize Instagram traffic. You can create buttons for recent blog posts, free offers, courses, events, webinars, and so on.

Note: If use Later to schedule Instagram content, you can do the same thing with Linkin.bio.

With Later, you can create and share posts and stories from your desktop instead of your phone. This means you can use Photoshop or Canva to create your content, which is helpful if you share custom content rather than photos from your camera.

The key to getting traffic from Instagram is to use hashtags strategically and post consistently. Start out with once a day and gradually move up to 2-3 times a day. Stories are getting more traction lately, so if you’re pressed for time, I’d share one post a day to your feed and one story.

Related: How to Grow Your Instagram Following Organically

Psst… If you’re not sure what to share and how to streamline your Instagram posting schedule, you may be interested in my new program, Instagram Content System. I show you how to create a super simple posting library that will save you dozens of hours each week. You’ll even have pre-made Instagram templates that you can customize and share in minutes. Click here to learn more about Instagram Content System.

14) LinkedIn

If your audience is on LinkedIn and you have a decent following, you’ll want to share your posts there too. It’s not a huge traffic-driver for me, but it all adds up!

I’ve toyed around with the idea of republishing content on LinkedIn but don’t recommend it. Due to higher site authority, there’s a good possibility that the LinkedIn post could outrank your original content in search results.

If you decide to repurpose your article on Linkedin, make sure you wait at least two weeks so that Google can index your post. Also, don’t share the entire article. Share an excerpt with a link back to your original article.

15) LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has groups where you can share your posts, much like Facebook groups. If your people are on LinkedIn, make sure you leverage them.

It used to be easy to share to groups – all you had to do was post your update, select Share to Groups, and choose the groups. Now you have to manually navigate to each group’s page and share your post, which takes more work.

Who said promoting a blog was easy?!

II. NEXT, SCHEDULE YOUR POSTS

16) SmarterQueue

I’ve been using SmarterQueue for the past few months in a quest to find the perfect scheduling tool. I use it to share evergreen posts to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. My organic traffic has noticeably increased since I started using it. The price is perfect at $20 a month for up to 4 social accounts.

Want to know more about SmarterQueue? Check out this post.

17) Buffer

After I share my tweet in step #10, I’ll use Buffer to schedule fifteen additional tweets during the first week to give them an initial spike in traffic.

Note: I was hoping to replace Buffer with SmarterQueue, but alas, not yet! I’m hangin’ in with Buffer because I share other people’s content via Feedly and IFTTT, and Buffer integrates seamlessly with both of these.

18) Tailwind

No doubt about it, Tailwind is a must for Pinterest. It’s also the only scheduling tool on the block now that BoardBooster is no longer with us 🙁

Tailwind is Pinterest-approved, so you can schedule pins all day long and not worry about your account being suspended, which is HUGE.

I’m amazed at how Tailwind continues to offer time-saving features, such as:

• The Scheduler – this is the core of Tailwind and works similar to other scheduling tools
• Content Discovery – a biggie if you want to find popular content and see pin counts of other people’s pins
• Tribes – like groups, only on steroids (the accountability feature is what makes tribes work)
• The SmartLoop – an easy way to automating sharing and recycle older pins so they’re always in rotation.

Related: How to Skyrocket Your Traffic with Tailwind Tribes

Bonus: If you want, you can use the Tailwind Tribes Cheat Sheet I created to help you get started with Tribes. It list over 150 active tribes categorized by niche so you know which tribes to join and how to join them. Click on the image below to access.

III. SHARE TO BOOKMARKING SITES

Create accounts on these free web submission sites to get traffic to your content:

19) Reddit

Bloggers beware! Reddit is one seriously intimidating platform. What I mean by this is that Redditors can smell spam a thousand miles away. Your account will quickly get banned if you don’t adhere to subreddit rules, so please be careful here. They can also be very direct (aka: school of hard knocks) with their comments. You need to be thick-skinned, but we’re fearless bloggers, so we got this…

Curious about subreddits? They’re just like Facebook groups. No biggie there.

The real question is Can Reddit really help boost blog traffic?

I’ve seen amazing blog traffic, and I’ve seen crickets. I’ve also been banned from some subreddits. So while I’m on the fence about it, the boost in blog traffic is noticeable and makes a difference. Reddit traffic tends to convert pretty well.

Just be careful about how you add links. Best practice is to approach subreddits the same way you would approach Facebook groups. When you come across a post or a question where you can provide value, include a link to your post within the comment.

20) BizSugar

I’ve been using BizSugar for two years and have gotten enough traffic to keep using it. Like any other platform, the more you share, the more visible you become. That’s when the magic starts happening.

21) Hacker News

If you blog about entrepreneurship, Hacker News will get you traffic. Plus, it’s so easy to submit your posts. Just share the link and a title, and you’re done!

22) Growth Hackers

If your blog has anything to do with growth hacking, startups, or tech, Growth Hackers is another place you can share your posts.

23) Scoop.it

What can I say about Scoop.it? First, it integrates with Twitter. If you have a following on Twitter, you can hit the ground running with a decent number of followers on Scoop.it.

To add content, either set up an RSS feed or add your posts manually, which is what I prefer to do. This way I can add specific tags to each one.

24) Flipboard

This is my new fav…don’t ask me why! It probably has to do with the design of  the feed. I like hanging out on Flipboard, which is how you should approach the channels you choose.

If you love a particular site, dig in.

Keep in mind that you have to give each one a solid try before you decide if it’s working for you.

For instance, I originally thought BizSugar was a waste of time. Then I started getting comments and traffic.

With any platform, make sure you hang in long enough to evaluate the performance.

No doubt Flipboard is a keeper for me. I get blog traffic from it already and enjoy spending time on it. Win, win.

IV. FORUMS + CONTENT SHARING SITES

25) Quora

Quora is a powerful way to increase website traffic, when you use it right. Quora is a Q+A forum where people can ask and answer questions on any topic.

The key is to search for questions with at least 1,000 followers and only a handful of answers. Don’t worry if you can’t find the perfect criteria, though. In most cases, the number of followers and answers will be somewhere in between.

When you answer questions, make sure you provide detailed description with a link to a relevant post. That’s what will help you increase website traffic. I’ve received traffic and a number of clients using this method.

26) Tumblr

I love the layout of Tubmlr. I’ve noticed more and more blog comments coming from Tumblr users, which means it’s driving a decent amount of traffic.

27) Medium

Medium is a blogging platform, like WordPress or Blogger, where you share stories (on Medium, stories are posts). I haven’t tapped into how to increase website traffic yet, but I’m working on it!

Medium is designed to be a standalone blogging platform, and like LinkedIn, it’s best to republish an excerpt rather than your entire post. For instance, you can share the first paragraph or two. By only including a small portion of your post, you’re encouraging readers to click through to the article on your blog.

Make sure you use Medium’s import tool so that you get credited as the original source of the article. According to Medium:

Medium’s official tools for cross-posting (including the Import tool) add the source it is importing from as the canonical link automatically.

All you have to do is paste the article’s link into the tool and select import.

Once the story is a draft, you can delete unwanted sections. The import tool will automatically add a link at the bottom of the post identifying that it was originally published on your website.

28) Bloglovin’

Create an RSS feed and add your blog to Bloglovin’. This is another one I’m on the fence with, but it’s easy enough to add your feed to Bloglovin’ so might as well do it.

Make sure your post images include an enticing description, which I’m sure you’re doing already for Pinterest. Just note that your featured image description is the one that will be added to Bloglovin’.

You may want to consider using excerpts and directing people to read the full post on your website. (In WordPress: Settings/Reading/Summary).

29) Triberr

If I’m being honest, I have a Triberr account but haven’t used it. Every time I login, I’m immediately overwhelmed and hit the back button, quick like.

Having said that, Triberr seems like a good platform. It’s based on “tribes” of people with similar interests, niches, and expertise who form groups to promote and share each other’s content.

Hmmm, sounds like Tailwind Tribes (#19 above).

Yep, same deal here. Only difference is that Triberr folks share content on Twitter.

Now if I can only get my head around Triberr long enough to try it…

30) Zest

If you blog about marketing, business, or entrepreneurship, Zest can be a powerful method to promote new blog posts.

It’s a high-quality content streaming site that works through the Chrome extension.

Once you install the extension, you’ll see a stream of hand-picked content on your dashboard. Don’t get distracted by all those juicy posts, friend!

The real juice comes when you “suggest a post” and submit your own content.

I’ve submitted six posts and receive 30-250 clicks a post. Not bad for free traffic, right?

Looks like Zest needs to go on our blog promotion tracking sheet.

31) Snip.ly

This one’s a wildcard, friends. I’m not sure where to add Snip.ly in this list, or if I SHOULD include it at all.

Here’s why:

Sniply is one of those tools that enables you “hijack” another person’s hard-earned content with your own. Because of this, it’s sparked serious debate among content creators.

When you “sniply” a post, you add a widget to it that links to YOUR post.

(Widgets look like call-to-action buttons and are hard to miss. Hence, the big debate.)

Let’s say you find a piece of content that is perfect for your audience. You create a sniply for it with a link to your post and share to, say Twitter.

Someone sees your tweet, clicks on it, and reads the post. Then they click on your sniply. Bam. Now they’re over on YOUR site.

If you’re clever, your sniply will include call to action copy, such as Grab your daily marketing checklist here.

Done well, a sniply can seem like logical next step to take after reading the shared post.

V. PAID PLATFORMS

Still want to know how to get more traffic? Time to pull out your wallet, friend.

If you start small, limit your daily budget, and test ad copy, images, and landing pages, you can drive a decent amount of traffic for less than $10 a day.

32) Facebook Ads

Yes, they’re worth it.

Before you start with Facebook ads, you need a rock-solid strategy. In other words, make sure the post you’re promoting includes a content upgrade or CTA to encourage sign-ups. Or, run your ad to a landing page with your freebie, challenge or email course . . . you get the gist.

If you’re a superhero, which of course you are, you’ll include an option to purchase something in your delivery sequence (say, a $7 mini-offer). Take that income and reinvest in your ads and you’ll wind up spending little to nothing. Now who’s a game-changer?

Related: Create a Killer Facebook Ad Strategy for Your Email List and Products

33) Pinterest Ads

Pinterest ads are my secret weapon for traffic. They give new pins a boost in visibility while you wait for organic repinning to take over as more people see your content. Once you have some repins, you can ease up on advertising. The best part: You can get great results with an ad spend of only $5 a day.

34) Reddit Ads

Redditors can be so tough. Still, the traffic you can get is no joke, so I recommend giving ads a try. Again, you don’t have to spend much to test them out. I’d wait until you have a course or paid offer to promote because I think that’s where the magic really happens.

With Reddit ads you can choose to block or show comments. I suggest showing them because Redditors are all about being social. When in Rome, right?

35) Quuu Promote

Quuu Promote is a new platform I discovered where people share each other’s posts to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Think of it as a community of sharers.

I’ve used Quuu Promote to promote posts and have received a decent amount of blog traffic. Looks like their pricing structure has changed to credits. Somehow, I’ve been given five free credits and haven’t had to pay yet. I’m sure that will change soon!

How well does Quuu Promote traffic convert? Jury’s out on this one . . . I will keep you posted. 🙂

Any other ways to increase website traffic? Let me know what you’ve got and I’ll add it to the list!