It is a common fact that in order for a website to be successful, on any kind of scale, you need blog traffic! It does not matter if you have the best looking website on the planet, or you have the best offers or indeed the best advice. If nobody knows about it or it cannot be found, then it may as well not exist!

If you are like me, you would have come across countless opportunities on the web for paid blog traffic. The internet is full of opportunists and let me tell you from experience that most of these services are not worth the money. Think about it, if a company offers you 10,000 or 500,000 blog traffic hits guaranteed – is that actual people? I doubt it, how can they guarantee that? How can they send people to your site? Or, even if by some miracle they can, will they be interested in what you have to offer? I doubt it.

Let me tell you about my personal experience with this. Around three years ago, I setup a Solar Panel website (it’s still running now and does OK), but for a long time I struggled with blog traffic, so I purchased some. Easy, right?

Well it was, I purchased 10,000 hits over a one month period and it cost me around $20. I was very naive and did not really know much about this at the time. My website was ranked on Page 1 of Google for certain keywords, but not many. After I purchased this blog traffic it completely disappeared from the search engines! For the whole month I went from making a couple of sales here and there to completely zero! It was the purchased traffic that Google did not like and the site got punished! So, be warned!

There are many techniques that not only shape up your personal marketing skills, but also do not cost you a thing. Here are three proven techniques for you:

How To Drive Free Blog Traffic

Blog Commenting

Very easy one this. You may think that you are the King or Queen of your niche, but I have news for you, you’re probably not alone – but this is not a bad thing. Go onto someone else’s blog and start to interact with it. You see, every time you make a comment you can add a link back to your website. If your comment hits the spot with another reader they will click your link back to your site and see what you have to say. Google loves backlinks so this will help your ranking too. Another undervalued benefit of this method is that you get to mix with other people in your niche, this could open the doors to some joint ventures, guest posts or interviews which in turn will also drive more blog traffic to your site.

Guest Posting

Another great way to get traffic to your site is by guest posting. This is a fantastic way to also ‘get yourself out there’. What you effectively do is trade an article for a backlink to your site. You see, the website owner will gladly accept an article, providing the content is good and suitable for that particular sites niche.

It’s a win-win for both parties, the site gets some fresh new content and you also get a ‘bio’ backlink to your site so you also get some quality free blog traffic. But, this is not the only benefit. I feel that a bigger benefit of this technique is the interaction afterwards, well-natured guest posters should hang around after their post is launched to respond to people’s comments personally. This, in turn, will also generate more confidence in you and people will appreciate this. If your post gets several comments then you may even find your article in the ‘most popular’ section of the blog which will lead to a longer sustained period of free traffic. A little tip on this last sentence – sometimes controversy wins more comments. People like to be challenged, not everyone agrees with everything people say, this is what makes us human!

Social Media Groups

This is another superb free blog traffic source and a great way of interacting with other people in your niche or interested in it. The fantastic benefit of this is you already have your target audience. Currently I use as many as I can, but I think we all know who the main players are. I have found the most success from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – in that order.

With Facebook, for example, you can guarantee that there will be a page or group dedicated to your niche, in many cases you will find more than one. Enter in the search bar your niche and you will find some. Go into the group and see if you can post on it, if you can great! Make a post about that free product you are offering or the discount you are running for new members. Another useful way is to help people, quite often in these groups or pages you will find people asking questions or advice. Now is your chance, help them and don’t forget to add a link to your site at the bottom. If they like the solution, then they will no doubt visit your site, and if they are really impressed it may even make it on to their bookmarked favourites menu.

You can use the same techniques with LinkedIn, and you will see results. With Twitter you can send out ‘tweets’ or a message of no more than 140 characters. The beauty of twitter is one message goes out to your mass audience. You can even get programs that auto tweet for you (like TweetAdder); in fact my twitter promotions are running now – each one with a link to the website. Try not to overdo this though as people don’t want their entire Twitter feed full with your promotions!

It has to be said though, for me it does not have as much success as Facebook and LinkedIn.

So there we have it, Blog Commenting, Guest Posting and Social Media Groups. With just these three techniques, you will be able to drive free blog traffic to your site and with the many other social media platforms around now, your toolbox for free traffic is ever expanding!

But what do you think? Do you use any of these methods to drive blog traffic to your site?  Do you use any alternative methods to get free blog traffic?  Let us know by leaving a comment below!