In order to have any success with a website, you need decent traffic of course. So, do I have to buy website traffic to start earning money online?
The short answer is: NO!
Before you start paying for your traffic, which you surely can do, take a look at my favorite ways of gaining traffic.
All of them are free and they work!
Please bear in mind, that those ways usually take a bit longer to see results, but they are super targeted and once you have done the work, you can take breaks without feeling guilty. The traffic will still come. The harder you work, though, the better your results.
…or keep on reading to learn all my trick:
My Top 4 Of Gaining Free Traffic
In the following sections, I want to talk about how I drive traffic to my sites. They are in order from most used to less used. If you are a beginner, I would focus on one way at a time, or it can become overwhelming quickly.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the best free way to get constant and targeted traffic to your site, hands down! It brings me thousands of visitors each and every month and they come to my site because they were looking for something on Google. Thanks to my SEO-improved website, Google ranks my posts very high in their search engine. So, people click on my site and that’s how the whole thing basically works.
Once they are on my site, my article (hopefully) will give them the solution to their problem and by doing that, I build trust with my readers.
This trust will make them come back and my audience starts to grow and earns me money down the line.
How SEO Works (Short Version)
Below is a general description of how SEO works. To get all the information you really need to know, check out my article about how SEO is done correctly.
- Find and choose GOOD keywords:
Keywords are the most important aspect of SEO. There are free and paid ways to find keywords. The free way is absolutely enough, but it won’t give you as many statistics as the paid ones. Still, we are trying to start out without spending too much money, so I will show you in my upcoming article, how you can
find good keywords for free!
- Place the keywords strategically:
Most important: Don’t spam your keywords!
Put your keyword in the title and in the first paragraph of your article. Then continue writing naturally! If the keyword appears then by itself it is absolutely ok. Only if you try and put it in as much as possible, will Google punish you.
Lastly, put your keyword in the last sentence or paragraph and you have done a great job!
- Test, check and optimize your SEO:
Don’t just leave it there, though. You should always check how your article is doing. How many visitors are coming to that article? How long are they staying? Do they leave your site quickly, or visit other pages?
Like with all the above, I will get into more detail soon!
2. Social Media Marketing
Everybody knows how powerful Facebook and other social media sites are. You can make a fortune when you use Facebook in the right way.
When you are starting out, you don’t need to worry too much about it.
- Create a group or fansite and get used to posting regularly! Don’t forget to link back to your site without being too spammy.
- Invite your friends to like your site.
- Join other similar groups and try to get people from there to like your site, too.
Do this naturally by joining discussions and when it feels right, give them a link to your Facebook page.
Facebook marketing can be slow in the beginning, especially when you don’t pay money to boost your posts.
That is absolutely ok, especially when your website is new, too. If you don’t already have a lot of content on your website, it wouldn’t help to drive loads of traffic from Facebook to your site.
You need something there first, or potential customers could get lost.
The great thing about Social Media Marketing is, that it is not difficult to do for most people. Almost everybody uses Facebook on a daily basis, so posting there is something you can just do quickly and it won’t feel like real work.
By now you might worry, that there are a lot of things you need to learn and know.
Don’t worry! Not only will I go into much more detail in my upcoming posts, you also can get directly in touch with me and get 1-on-1 training and advice.
I am part of a fantastic group and you can join me there.
3. YouTube Videos
YouTube! The place where people post funny cat videos and others just show how they play games. Why would a serious internet marketer waste his time on this platform, right?
WRONG!
YouTube is a fantastic source for high-quality traffic. Getting ranked there is even easier than on Google, and YouTube is used like a search engine by loads of people.
When people are looking for a solution for a problem, they very often go to YouTube to find answers there.
YouTube belongs to Google, so even when people search on Google, they will get YouTube results, if they match the search.
That makes it the perfect source for some extra traffic.
Are you afraid to create YouTube videos?
Don’t worry, you don’t actually have to film yourself if you want to use YouTube in internet marketing.
There are other ways, and I will talk about them shortly.
4. Backlinks
There is a lot of controversy about backlinks, but when used correctly, they will bring you that extra traffic you need.
Read a more detailed article about backlinks here.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are links to your posts or website from other sites on the internet. They can be a powerful tool and bring loads of traffic.
Imagine you have a link on a popular and trusted site with thousands of visitors. Many of those will click on your link and land on your site.
Of course, there are a few things you have to be aware of, or backlinking can actually hurt your site:
- Don’t spam:
Nobody likes spam. So just don’t do it! Only put your link on a site, a forum, etc. when it is really relevant.
- Help people without expecting anything in return:
I can’t stress this enough. If you really want to make it in the online world, you have to focus on helping people. Why should people come to your site, when they think, that you just want their money?
This is important for successful backlinks, too. The articles you link to, have to solve problems or be valuable to your readers. By posting links that are not helpful, people will flag you as a fraud and that can spread quickly on the site or forum you tried to install your backlinks.
- Don’t focus too much on backlinks:
That might sound weird, but is exactly what I do. I don’t spend much time for getting backlinks.
Once you have built some authority and trust, backlinks will come naturally. One of my sites, for example, gets a steady flow from Reddit. I never posted anything there myself. Those backlinks happened naturally. People who liked my articles posted links to them on Reddit.
Free traffic without doing anything for it!
Can I Buy Website Traffic?
You sure can, but if you are on a low budget, I would not recommend doing that. The only thing you could experiment with as a beginner is to boost some of your Facebook posts and see what happens.
This can be done very cheaply and you are in full control.
All other ways of paying for traffic is just not necessary.
What you want is high quality and targeted traffic. All the ways I mentioned above give you exactly the traffic you need.
It does take time and work, but if you are not willing to put in some effort, you can already forget about earning any real money with a website.
A business in real life doesn’t just “happen” in a day, either. You have to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and start hustling!
Stay Tuned For My In-Depth Guides
This post is a summary of my favorite ways of gaining free traffic.
You can find my more detailed articles here:
You can read more about SEO in my article here.
Here’s the guide to Social Media Marketing.
How to use YouTube correctly.
How to build backlinks.
I hope this has answered the question, Do I Have To Buy Website Traffic, for you.
The answer is clearly NO!
What do you think about my ways of getting traffic?
Are you doing the same? Or do you prefer other ways?
Let me know down in the comments and let’s discuss! Also, make sure to check out my post about how to create a website for free!
Your friend,
Moritz
