Driving Free Traffic to Your Website or Blog - By: Kathy Dobson

You've worked hard. You've done your homework, chosen a hot niche/topic for your website or blog, ordered a very cool banner/header, chosen a theme if required and now your website or blog is live online.

You add valuable content, affiliate links to high converting products, your own product links...but there is a problem. You have no traffic. Without traffic, there is no one to appreciate your hard work and awesome content.

Without traffic, you are a nobody in the cyber world. Traffic is what gets the search engine Gods to notice you. There is no one to click your affiliate links without traffic.

But, it can get expensive driving traffic to your site if you use some of the paid methods such as PPC.
There are however some very valid traffic producing methods that you can employ for free.

Let's examine a few:

1) Forum Marketing: The worst think you can do is show up on forums and start dropping one liners with your "signature" and a link back to you blog. This is considered spam and the only thing it will do for you is to get you banned. But, forums are an excellent place to get noticed with when you add great valuable content.

Obviously you want to choose forums that focus on your particular topic or niche. Forums are a condensed concentration of the people that are interested in your niche...all located in one spot. Make sure with each post, you leave your signature with a link to your product, website and or blog.

If you establish yourself as a valued contributor then you will eventually be perceived as an expert and people will navigate to your blog or website to find out more.

2) Article marketing: There is a hungry audience waiting for excellent articles to use on their own websites or blog and article directories is where they go looking. With articles, you don't want to fill the article with your links but use the author resource/bio box provided to leave your signature and links.

You can employ the use of article directories to get your article listed in hundreds of article directories. Additionally, many directories also submit to newsletter publishers.

It's always a good idea to track your articles by using Google Alerts. If someone is routinely publishing your material, you may want to contact them and offer to submit your articles directly to them whenever you write a new one.

3) Sign up on sites like MyBlogLog and use their widget on your site. You can befriend other bloggers and build your own community of followers with MyBlogLog...a social community that you can tap into and get a consistent flow of traffic.

4) If you have an opt in form on your site, make sure to send an email out every time you create a new post. These people have already shown an interest by signing up to your blog...keep them informed and coming back.

5) Let's not forget the basics...blog posting. You need to stay on top of your website or blog and keep it fresh with new content including using your keywords for SEO purposes. Ideally, your keywords should be in the title, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. But, only if it makes sense to do so.

6) Yahoo answers is an excellent way to get traffic and show off your expert knowledge. Look for questions in your area of expertise and provide valuable answers. It's important that you add your link for reference.

7) Getting free traffic can be as easy as guest blogging on some high-ranking blogs but only if you can write intelligent, interesting, value filled posts that will benefit them. Your link will then be added to your post and can bring lots of free traffic your way.

8) Twitter: Let's not forget Twitter. Twitter is here to stay and has become an invaluable source of free traffic, so if you haven't already, it's time you took a hard look at it. In fact, every time you submit an article to Ezine the reader can tweet the title and link to it.

Once again, don't go on Twitter and start spamming with links, links, links. That is what you will become known for. Instead, build up a stream of targeted followers by providing interesting tweets.

9) Build a Squidoo Lense: Squidoo pages are the perfect avenue to get 1-way links to your blog. You can get direct traffic to your Squidoo lense if you use your long-tail keywords. Google loves Squidoo pages and using this method will often get you ranked in the top ten.

10) Video: Create and distribute a video that includes a link back to your blog or website. Videos have taken over the Internet as most people would rather watch a video than read a screen. People love them.

This by no means a comprehensive list as there are many more ways to drive free traffic. But, these are some of the most important ones and will get you started.

Don't be discouraged easily. It takes time for people to discover your new blog or website. You must be patient and consistently work towards your goal and if you do, I promise that you will reap the benefits.

Combine persistent and consistent action with patience and before you know it you will have your own thriving list of subscribers hungry to learn from you.

About the Author

Kathy Dobson is a free spirited business owner and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others achieve financial and personal freedom through Internet marketing with an emphasis on membership sites. Learn more about membership sites please visit: http://www.crazycashmembershipsites.com For further tips and resources visit: http://www.kathydobson.com

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Kathy-Dobson/57628

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