How to Get Traffic to your Website… for Free!
Posted on February 13, 2008
Filed Under Online Marketing
If you are looking for a few online marketing tricks that can help improve your site’s traffic using little or no money at all, you should definitely read this article.
Most small businesses have very limited budgets during the first months they begin operations. This is why a determined business owner will try to save some money by doing a few things herself (or himself). I will suggest a few basic techniques you can use to get some traffic to your website; and it’s all free!
Google Local
Google has created a directory for local business called Google Local. It uses mapping technology and proximity search engines to display results based on the city or zip code you are searching in. First thing you should do as a business owner who is familiar with the Internet, is create an account in www.google.com/local/add. Once you have that set up, you should enter your business name, address, phone number and website. Verify the information with a postcard or telephone call. In a few weeks you will get a map listing of your company name and town.
Yahoo Local
Yahoo also has a local directory organized by categories and geographic location. You can get a basic listing in for free at local.yahoo.com.
YellowPages.com
These guys have a very popular brand and name recognition; a lot of people use them still today. They offer free listings you can get by just registering (top right corner of the homepage).
Press Releases
If you are feeling a little creative, try writing stories that the Media would like. Develop press releases that can benefit your business and publish them via PRleap.com. It doesn’t cost anything and you may have a shot for some local/internet media exposure, getting a few clicks to your site in the process.
Email Signatures
You should set up a signature in your mail client such as MS Outlook or Outlook Express that includes your website. This is a very good technique when you are sending emails back and forward. It develops some URL/name recognition and people usually click through to see what your business or company is about.
Articles
If you have good writing skills you should write about your fields of expertise which I assume will be the industry of your business. Post your articles on EzineArticles.com. This website offers free distribution of your content. Make sure you include a link to your website so you can get extra visits.
Blogs
This one is my favorite because blogs help you attract search engines spiders as you accumulate fresh content on a regular basis. When you frequently post on a Blog, search engines like Google or Yahoo tend to crawl it more often than other sites because their BOTS are lured by new content on the net. Depending on the relevancy of your posts, your Blog will start getting indexed and ranked among search results. This will add value to your site and give you additional traffic too. You could also develop some loyalty from your readers which will come back to your site regularly to check for new stuff. I recommend using Wordpress.com. I also recommend you install it on your own server and domain. Another good tool is blogger.com from Google; just make sure you have plenty of visible links that go to your site so you can directly benefit from its traffic.
Well don’t wait any longer and try implementing these suggestions as soon as possible. It will definitely help you if you do things right and it won’t cost you much. Anyhow, if you are serious about getting action on your site you can always use paid search (if you have the budget available) or even some search engine optimization to improve your rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.
