There’s some free tools to increase website traffic which anyone can use. I use Yoast SEO which I believe is one of the best tools for free traffic. It helps you write SEO friendly content on your blog which is one of the best ways to build up your readership. Checkout my post on how to find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
Long tail keywords are much less competitive than shorter terms. So if you use them and the Yoast SEO tool to help you write SEO friendly content, that’s one way to increase your traffic.
Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic – Autoresponder
If you don’t already have one, you should definitely use an autoresponder to collect emails and bring subscribers back to your content. Get a free account with up to 500 subscribers here.
The power of an autoresponder is immense. Most of your website visitors won’t return unless you capture their details and add them to your email list. Once you do, you have your own traffic supply. Most people don’t buy immediately on their first website visit either. Most will need multiple touch points before they become a customer, email marketing is a great way to do this. By sending out useful and informative emails, you can link back to new content on your website as you publish it.
Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic – Google Keyword Planner
As I mentioned above, writing content targeting long chains of keywords can give you a greater chance of getting a ranking on Google. Short tail keywords are super competitive in most niches. But long chains of keywords on a given topic in your niche can give you a nice stream of traffic if you can rank on the first page of the SERPS – search engine results pages.
To find these little goldmines you can use Google’s free keyword planner tool. You’ll need an Adwords account to use it but it’s completely free. Type your main keyword into the planner and browse for long tail keywords which offer lower SEO difficulty on Google.
Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic – Push Engage
Push engage offers a superb option for getting more traffic to your website. It lets your website visitors opt in to receive updates on your latest posts. They will then get “push” notifications when you publish new content which brings them back to your site.
You can get a free account here which gives you up to 200 subscribers.
Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic – Icegram
Icegram is another favourite tool of mine which is completely free and gives your visitors more options to opt in to your email list. You can use Icegram for popups, drop down banners and other form types on your website.
The more options someone has to opt in to your email list, or notice your giveaway offer, the more likely they are to do so. On this website I have a couple of options to join my email list. There’s a form, a drop down banner and a popup form – annoying I know but they work and give visitors more chance of opting in! Once on your email list you can bring them back to your site through your email marketing campaigns! Hey presto more traffic!
Free Tools To Increase Website Traffic – Revive Old Posts
While it takes some time to create content which is share worthy, it’s also a very good idea to promote your content as you publish it. This can be a vital step which is often neglected by bloggers. I was never very good at promoting my posts until I found a plugin which automated the process called Revive Old Posts.
This plugin lets you automate the sharing of your new and older posts on your blog. It’s a no brainer if you’re a blogger! There’s also other plugins which do a similar job such as Postplanner.
Social Media Share Buttons & Feeds
Social media share buttons are definitely a good idea if you want to encourage more people to visit your website. You’re going to be working hard to get people to your site, and in crafting your content! So if you give visitors the option of easily sharing your posts to social media, why would you miss this important step! There’s many social media share plugins but here’s one I use called Ultimate Social Media Share Icons.
Social media share feeds can also be a good idea and help with your SEO. They connect your social media account with your blog and give you more social proof that you’re an active site.
Cloudflare – Web Speed Optimisation
There’s various plugins you can find which will speed up your website. Google loves speed! Many website visitors will click away if your website doesn’t load quickly enough. If this happens on your website, Google will notice and start to downgrade your content on their search algorithm accordingly. It doesn’t want to send people to slow websites which take ages to load!
With sites getting ever faster to load, it pays to keep yours optimised. Cloudflare’s plugin lets you optimise your site for speed automatically.
Quality Content
While many of these tools will help you either bring back visitors to your site or get your visitors sharing content, they won’t do that unless you are offering some genuine value in your content. Google’s algorithm is pretty intelligent and they will know if your visitors are clicking away, sharing and linking to your blog posts. They won’t do it if they first can’t find it or if they don’t see your content as valuable or helpful. So the first place to start is with creating some awesome high quality content on your site.
The tools listed here will help you bring back visitors or get your content found. Building a lot of quality content is a good idea first, since that’s the foundation of what you’re building on a website.
As you build more and more quality content, it should start getting found on the search engines. But don’t rely on this, especially if your website is new. Build an email list, drive traffic through social media and pay for traffic too if you can. With multiple streams and sources for your traffic, you’re less likely to get caught out if something dramatic changes using only one strategy!
Many a website owner has lost much of their traffic overnight when Google changes their algorithm and downgrades their site. So diversify your traffic sources and build quality content!
