Today I want to discuss a topic that every single person has the moment they launch a new website. And that is, “How do I get traffic?” Actually, I should rephrase that to, “How do I get free google traffic?”
Without traffic, a website is utterly useless. Without traffic nobody will see the products or service you offer and without that there is a zero probability of you making money. Anyone can fire up a Facebook ads campaign and drive traffic but that costs money and there is a steep learning curve.
It seems like every blog post I see these days about launching a new online business suggests running Facebook ads. Well, what if you don’t have a massive budget to test with? What if there is no budget at all?
I’m not going to say you can scale a new online business using just free traffic — because there are so many factors that come into play and dictate whether or not organic traffic and free traffic is scalable in your specific niche.
But, I will say that it is possible to kick-off a new website and attract visitors without spending money. Is it easy? Nope, because if it was everyone and their brother would be a successful online business owner making piles of money and driving Lamgorghinis, although one scroll through Instagram and you might be fooled to believe that was the case.
I feel that some people often overlook this because they are programmed to think that the only way to get started is by launching a Facebook ads campaign. Stop buying courses that regurgitate the same information over and over — instead put your head down and follow the tips I’m going to explain below.
One word of caution — don’t expect overnight success. Put in the time and effort. Do this for 120 days (yes, four months) and then take a look at your Google Analytics traffic. If you put 100% effort in your will see a nice steady climb over that duration of time. Then once you get some traffic and revenue coming you can begin to invest in solid SEO.
Ok, it’s time to get some free google traffic.
1. Intelligent Keyword Research
Attracting traffic to your website is one thing — attracting highly relevant traffic that has a good likelihood of converting on your offers is another thing. Many people only look at the traffic volume, while ignoring what is important — conversion rates.
Would you rather a website that receives 1,000 visitors a day but only generates two sales or would you be fine pulling in 200 visitors a day but generating 10 sales? Traffic quality in terms of intent, is far more important than sheer volume.
I like to do what I refer to as intelligent keyword research. While I look at the monthly search volume of a potential keyword, that is not the factor I consider when deciding whether or not to target it in an SEO effort.
I look at two things. First is the intent of the keyword. If someone searches for “Lamborghini pictures” on Google there is zero intent of actually purchasing a Lamborghini. Yes, the volume is through the roof, but it would be a complete waste of time for a Lamborghini dealership to optimize for that keyword.
On the other hand, if someone types in “Lamborghini dealer in Phoenix” there is a good chance that they are interested in purchasing a car. So, a dealer in that city would want to target that, even if it only receives a handful of monthly searches. Why? Because there are potential buyers behind that keyword.
The second thing I look for is the competition of the keyword as well as the likelihood of ranking for it. This takes a combination of tools and common sense. Use the tools, but then look at live Google results with your own eyes. If a term is dominated by large brands on page one move on.
The likes of Amazon, Walmart, Overstock and BestBuy are going to be next to impossible to outrank, especially when looking for free traffic. Even with six-figure monthly SEO budgets those monsters are difficult to compete with.
For keyword research I like SEMrush. It’s a great tool and one that everyone from seasoned SEO experts to noobs can learn from and leverage to improve their results.
Why SEMrush is the Best Tool for Identifying Keywords You Can Easily Rank
Sign up for the free trial — it will give you access to all its features. But, there is one feature that I am going to focus on for keyword research and that is the Keyword Magic Tool. You will want to enter in a seed keyword. Use your main keyword — the one you would most like to rank on top for.
From there you will see suggestions and you can keep diving down deeper and deeper, uncovering suggestions based on suggestions, etc. Pay special attention to the “Com.” column in the search results. That is Competitive Density, and it’s described as:
The level of competition between advertisers bidding on a given keyword within their PPC campaigns. Competitive Density is shown on a scale from 0 to 1.00 with 1.00 being the most difficult to rank for.
While this is pay-per-click bidding data, there is often a very similar relation to SEO and PPC competition. It’s a great starting point.
I like to identify keywords with a very low competition score, some decent search volume and a high likelihood of having buyer (or conversion) intent. For example, if a keyword has a competition score of 0.2 with 300 searches a month and I believe is a strong buyer keyword I will add it to my list.
To me, even if I only attract 20 visitors a month from it, over time it’s a smart move. When you multiply this across hundreds of keywords and factor in the snowball effect — adding to this month-after-month, you realize why this strategy is so powerful.
2. Write Content Optimized for Each Keyword (Think Long-Term)
Now that you have a list of keywords that have low competition, do a Google search for each and look at the first page results. Do you think you have a shot at outranking the websites listed? Do you see an opportunity? As long as the results aren’t dominated by the big-box brands, go for it.
You will want to write one piece of content for each keyword and optimize the entire post for that particular term. Here are some tips and guidelines to make sure you follow when doing this.
Use the Keyword in the URL
Many people will let their URL be the post title, and if that includes the keyword great, but you can take it a step further and edit the URL to only include the keyword.
Example, if the post title is “How to Find the Lowest Priced 2 Carat Engagement Ring” and the keyword is “lowest priced 2 carat engagement ring” you would want the URL to be yoursite.com/lowest-priced-2-carat-engagement-ring.
Use Keyword in the First Sentence
Using the keyword naturally in the very first sentence is an intelligent SEO practice. Get creative and make sure it’s toward the beginning of the content — as soon as you can mention it naturally, do so.
It’s important all of the suggestions here are followed — when they are, little things like this have a much bigger impact.
Use the Keyword in H2 Tag
Using H2 and H3 tags as well as lists and bullet points help make your content more digestible for the reader and they also help Google understand what each page is about. H2 tag should be used to introduce new sections and topics within the content.
I like to make sure the keyword is used in the H2 tag, either the first or second instance within a given page. If you can use it exactly naturally, do so. If not, use the closest variant.
Include the Keyword in an Alt-Img Tag
Images should be used in your content to make it more visually appealing. It can help you explain things and make your point stronger. It also gives you an opportunity to help improve the page SEO.
At least one image should include the keyword as its alt-image tag. Google cannot read images the same way it can content — so this tag helps it to understand what the image is about, therefore helping it understand what the particular piece of content is about.
Use the Yoast SEO Plugin
No plugin or tool will do the SEO for you, but if you are using WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin helps you make sure you hit all of the important points. Enter your keyword and look at the suggestions — it’s a great tool, especially for SEO noobs.
Write Long-Form Content (with Value)
Don’t just crank out a 500 word article and call it content. I would say at the very least your content needs to hit the 1,500 word mark. That seems to be what most consider long-form these days. If you can expand beyond that, do it.
Tip: you can never write too much content. If you can put together a 5,000 word authority post on a topic optimized for a specific keyword, go for it. It will only help you.
Have a Single Clear CTA
Some people do amazing keyword research and write great content — it works and pulls in traffic. But then what? They forget an important part, and that is having a single call-to-action.
Whether it’s a submit form to generate a lead or a button that directs them to a purchase page — you have to have a goal on each post. Don’t anticipate the visitor figuring out that conversion path themselves. You have to almost hold their hand. Make it impossible for them to miss that objective on the page. Put it right in front of their nose, while removing all other distractions.
Don’t cut corners when it comes to writing your content — do it right, even if it takes longer than you would like. This ensures long-term SEO success. If not you might have to rewrite and fix it down the line. Don’t set yourself up for future failure — set yourself up for success.
3. Promote and Amplify Your Content
After creating content you have two options. You can let it sit there and hope Google indexes it quickly and starts to rank it. Or you can put some more work in and help give it a little kickstart by attracting social shares, links, exposure, etc.
Here are a handful of ways to help amplify your posts and drive traffic as well as help strengthen it in terms of SEO.
Your Own Social Media Platforms
Even if your business social accounts are new and thin without a large following you have your personal social media, right? Everyone has at the very least a Facebook page, and some also have Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.
Promote your posts on your social platforms and ask your connections and followers to share it. You would be surprised at how many people will gladly do it — and all it took was asking.
Influencer Outreach for Shares
Every niche has influencers — people that are authorities on the given topic. Identify them and find their contact information. An email address, contact form on their personal website, social media accounts, etc.
Reach out to them and be authentic and transparent. Let them know that you just published a post and you would be very grateful if they shared it with their audience. Always end offering to share their content or help in any way they see fit.
Some will gladly help you just to be nice, while some may see a potential way to cross-benefit each other.
Blogger Outreach for Links
This is the same concept as above, but this time you want to reach out to popular niche relevant blogs, identify content on their website that could be improved by linking to the content resource you just created.
This is a great way to earn links naturally (and without a cost) that will help your pages rank in Google. This is a numbers game, and it may take 100 outreach emails to secure a couple links. Again, be prepared to put in the work — those that do experience the reward.
Commenting (Forums, Blogs, Reddit and Quora)
Throw SEO out of the window, because dropping links into blog comments, forum posts, reddit threads and Quora questions will not help your rankings — BUT they can help you accomplish what you are after — traffic.
Find relevant (and fresh) topics that your content directly answers or offers value to. You will want to use aged accounts so you look less like a spammer (you can buy them or start to age them yourself), but the concept is to simply look like you are trying to help and provide information relevant to the topic or question.
You would be shocked at how much traffic you can generate from Reddit alone. Again, it’s a numbers game. You might have 100 links to content across Reddit, and if each just pulls in 10 visits a day, that’s an additional 30,000 visitors per month!
You have to think big like this — when you do and it “clicks” you will understand that every little piece of this works together to really help scale your traffic numbers.
Final Thoughts
It should be very clear that it will take a lot of work to get free traffic, but it should also be very clear that it’s indeed possible if you are willing to put that work in. If you have a pile of money to spend on traffic then by all means fire up a Facebook ads campaign or a Google PPC campaign.
But most new businesses don’t have a huge marketing budget.
Honestly, this is something I would suggest every new website do, even if they have a lot of money for paid traffic. What if that source of traffic dries up? Then what?
Putting in the effort to attract organic traffic from the beginning will pay off long-term. When you are able to create several sources of free traffic — and continue to add to that list — you can see your organic traffic and sales snowball.
Are you going to commit to 120 days of this? If so, drop a comment below. I want to see how many of our blog readers are ready to put in the work. I can tell you first-hand that this strategy can pay off down the road and help you build a solid online business.
Who’s in?
