3 (Secret) Free Ways To Get More Website Traffic Fast
In this article, I’m sharing 3 secret, free ways to get traffic to your blog or website that you might have never heard of…that really work.
These 3 secrets are great strategies to help you grow and get more website traffic FAST organically, and are perfect for when you have more time than money.
Using all three at once will truly supercharge your marketing strategy!
Secret #1 — The Tribal Method
You may have noticed I’m a firm believer in using the power of Pinterest to sell almost any product or service you can think of.
Pinterest is simply THE BEST PLACE for free, targeted, buying traffic. Period. If you want proof, go check out my articleWhy You Should Use Pinterest For Your Business (A+ Traffic Quality).”I talk in-depth about why Pinterest traffic is so incredibly high quality. I kinda nerd out on numbers in there 😁
If you want to get more website traffic fast, you should be using Pinterest.
The Tribal Method is Pinterest on steroids
Here’s where I learned this trick. In my first online business (4 years ago!), I did ALL the things. Probably just like you’re doing right now.
I wrote great blog posts full of super-useful content, I created helpful videos on Youtube, I spent 4 hours a day being helpful on Facebook, I had an Instagram account, I guest posted articles, I did podcast interviews…and I heard crickets. No shares, no traffic, no views, no customers.
No one was finding my stuff, or engaging with it. Ugh. Talk about disappointing!
Can you relate?
I remember thinking, “I just wish I could find a group of people in the same boat as me.
We could share each other’s content every time we posted something, maybe collaborate, and all grow exponentially that way.
I mean, if I have 500 followers, and they have 500 followers, we could double our reach just with 2 of us! Imagine what a group of 50 or a 100 could do!!! We could get way more website traffic faster than going it alone”
Turns out, Tailwind was creating something just like I envisioned (but only for Pinterest) back when I was dreaming of it…
Tailwind Tribes
Tribes are groups of similar content creators (lifestyle bloggers, health coaches, internet marketers, spiritual mammas, really any niche) that agree to share each other’s content on their Pinterest accounts in order to generate more website traffic faster than going it alone.
They do this through Tailwind.
It works like this:
First, you need to set up a Pinterest account, if you don’t already have one. Make sure you have a few boards and at least 10 pins on each board.
Then, you need to create some pins for your content. Create at least 1 (preferable 5–10) Pinterest sized image for each post that you want more traffic to on your website. You can use Canva for this (they have some great templates if you aren’t creative).
Now create a pin on Pinterest for each of these images.
Take every post on your site that you’d like to get more traffic and repeat the process, creating pin images and linking each pin to each post.
Now, it’s time to go sign up for a Tailwind account.
Tailwind is a software tool that allows you to schedule pins and more. You can pop over to Tailwind’s blog to find out about that if you want. It’s free to get started, and you don’t even need a credit card for the free trial. Although, to be honest, you’ll probably want to sign up for a plan!
The Free Trial does not have a time limit and will allow you to publish 100 pins which is more than enough to get started.
After you sign up and connect your Pinterest account to your Tailwind account, click on the Tribes feature and select “Find a tribe”.
From here, you can search for Tribes in your niche.
When you find a Tribe you want to join, all you have to do is request to join that Tribe. Some have instant acceptance, while with others you might need to wait to get accepted.
Once you’re accepted, you’ll be able to share content with your tribe members. If they think it’s something their audience would find useful, they’ll share it on their boards!
In most Tribes, there are rules about minimum shares (share for share). Generally, the more of other tribe members content you share, the more likely your own content will be shared, since Tailwind shares this information with them.
So what does a good Tailwind Strategy look like?
It’s very simple.
Ideally, you want to pin approximately 50–70% your own pins and 30–50% repins from your Tribes, and I recommend pinning between 10–25 times a day.
You can schedule days, weeks or even months worth of pins in advance.
Generally speaking, the more Tribe member’s pins you share, the more repins you will get back from your fellow Tribe members.
Let me be crystal-clear about how this works. Your traffic will come from your fellow Tribe members’ followers (and their followers), not from your fellow Tailwind Tribe members themselves.
Let’s say you have a blog post you’d like to get more traffic: “How To Spin Your Own Yarn”.
You’d create a pin on Pinterest with that title, write a keyword rich description (maybe with a few hashtags), link the URL to your blog post, and share that pin inside your Tailwind Tribe. Then, your fellow Tribe members will potentially share it to their audience.
Then, two things will happen:
Firstly, that Tribe member’s followers will see your pin, and may click on it and find your site.
Secondly, the more your pin is shared, the more “authority” it gains. This means it will be more likely to come up on Pinterest for various search terms like “making yarn.” It will also be recommended as “related content” when people are browsing other pins about yarn, knitting & crochet, etc.
Before you know it, you’ll have tons of new website traffic!
Secret #2 — The “Reverse Pitch” Strategy
I stumbled across this method for getting more website traffic fast recently. It’s on the Caffeinated Blogger website. While I haven’t used this exact tip myself (yet), I have friends who have done this, with amazing results. The trick is to pick the right people to pitch to (not your friends who are struggling, but the rising stars in your niche).
I’m just providing a quick overview of this strategy here. Feel free to pop over to their article after you finish reading this, for a more in-depth explanation of how to do this.
Basically, the Reverse Pitch helps you get free, targeted, and profitable traffic by increasing your search engine rankings, through backlinks from reputable, higher ranked websites.
You likely already know that backlinks from other sites to your content is critical to ranking on Google. And, that a good ranking means people will see it, and click on it! It’s still one of the best ways to get lots more traffic.
This strategy helps supercharge the process.
A normal link pitch looks something like this:
- Select your (longtail) keywords — and make sure you have a chance to rank for them. Now, keyword research alone is it’s own beast, so I’ll save that for another day. Here’s a good starting point article if you’re interested in learning more about this.
- Write and publish some great content.
- Then you start finding & contacting other bloggers and site owners, asking them to link to your content.
- Or you just passively wait for the links to come… which rarely happens and takes forever.
- And, when you send outreach messages asking for links, it’s rare to get a response. It’s not unheard-of to send out 100 high-quality, non-spammy messages and hear crickets. Aren’t virtual crickets just the worst?
It’s so discouraging, right?
Now here’s the Reverse Pitch, and why it works so easily.
Hint — it’s all about leading with value, just like with client marketing! It goes like this:
Step 1 remains the same
Select your (longtail) keywords.
Step 2 is both counter-intuitive, and genius:
Make the pitch BEFORE WRITING A WORD. Say what?
Let’s say our niche is online dating for divorced women over 40, and our keyword research says the next hot topic we should tackle is “5 Ways To Have A Great First Date If You Haven’t Dated In Years”.
We want to pitch this article idea and get some backlinks BEFORE we actually create anything.
How do we do that?
By asking your competition to CONTRIBUTE to the piece, and casually mentioning that they can link back to the content once it’s up.
Caffeinatedblogger.com says “In my experience, this strategy works great, because you will offer something back to them, something of great value.” and I absolutely agree. Everyone loves free marketing. If you have a few bigger sites contributing and sharing the link to their audience, everyone’s reach increases, so it’s a win-win for all involved.
You’ll want to ask roughly double the number of companies you are hoping will participate — about 20 or 30 (most will, but some won’t).
Now I bet you’re asking yourself; “who’s a good prospect for this strategy?”
If you’re anything like me, you are already stalking your competition religiously… but if not, head over to Google and do some research!
You can use a free tool such as Moz Toolbar (for Chrome) to check your target’s domain authority and page authority. I recommend targeting sites that are at or above your domain authority. Don’t pick too many of the biggest players in your niche, unless you are already near their level.
Once you have your list, contact them all and ask them if they’d like to be featured in a round-up post of the best “insert your/their niche here”. Let them know all they have to do is submit a piece of advice or content for inclusion.
Make a point of telling them you will link to their site, and will give them full credit for the contribution.
You can word it like this:
— –
“Hi,
I see you are in the [xyz] niche, too! I was wondering if you’d like to be included in one of our upcoming articles?
I run a blog over at [xyzcompany.com] and we’re working on an article to show [insert topic here].
I know you are really knowledgable on [xyz] and I wanted to reach out personally and see if you’d be interested in being featured in this upcoming blog post. Our aim is to provide our readers with high quality, actionable and unique tips and ideas. Your content seems like the perfect fit.
If you’re interested, please share your best tip for [xyz].
I’d love it if your tip was as specific as possible, with any examples, links to resources (including your own!), stats, etc. that you feel our readers would find useful or relevant.
When you send your tip in, we’ll include it in our blog post, along with a credit and a do-follow link to your site. We’ll also send you the post URL once it’s published. All I ask in return is that you consider linking to it from somewhere on your site (such as an “I’ve been featured in” section).
If you’re interested in being included in this article, please just shoot me an email back with your #1 tip by [date] and I’ll make sure it gets included.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions! I can’t wait to see what your tip is 😀
Looking forward to chatting soon.
[your name]”
— –
Notice that:
Notice that you’re offering them something valuable. They get a link back to their website (with the possibility of lots more traffic), along with increased exposure, AND the ability to include their freebie link/pitch (that’s a 3-fer!)
Business owners are always looking for both more legitimate backlinks and more free publicity. They’ll likely be flattered you chose them and excited to participate. (Wouldn’t you be?)
Also notice that we’re gently suggesting that perhaps they would consider linking to our article once it’s finished, without being pushy about it.
This makes it a win-win, and your response rate will be much higher. Heck, they might ask you to keep them in mind for your next roundup!
Step 3: Gather Responses
After you get all those responses back, it’s time to write an excellent article.
Remember to make sure it’s really high quality, so everyone who participates is proud to be a part of it.
Honestly, this should be the easy part, because you will have real tips and advice from real people!
This is the type of content Google (and your audience) will love, as it’s valuable and helpful.
Step 4: Publish. Then, send all the contributors a thank you and send them the finished post link. Add a polite suggestion that their audience might really enjoy reading it.
This works really, really well. You end up with:
- High-quality content based on real stories and statistics
- A fair number of near-instant backlinks to it
- Rankings and traffic, as long as you’ve selected lower competition keywords
Do this a few times, and you’ll get way more website traffic faster than almost any other method.
Secret #3 — The “Winning The Snippet” Strategy
Web traffic is all about the Google, isn’t it? If we want to get more website traffic fast, we have to play nice with their algorithm. And featured snippets is the way in, because they are still relatively new.
Featured snippets are the new holy grail of search results. They’re known as position zero — the coveted number one position, right under the ads.
Every marketer wants to be number one on Google. I know I do, and you do too, right?
So how do we achieve this lofty goal? Let’s dive in.
First, what is the featured snippet?
They are (usually) the most-clicked links, and, they are the one sentence (or video, or table/list) that answers the 5 W’s — who, what, when, where, why & how.
Because of this, they are very user-friendly, since they help users find answers before they’ve even clicked on a link. They deliver the right answers, right there in the search results.
Sounds amazing, right?
While you can’t “make” Google pick your page as the featured snippet, you can stack the odds a smidge in your favor!
The three main types of snippets are:
1. Paragraph snippets are the most common, currently a staggering 82% of total snippets. Typically, they are between 40–50 words in length, and often include an image.
2. List/Table snippets appear 10.8% and 7.28% of the time respectively, and are typically a step-by-step, multi-answer, or numerical answer. Google won’t create these, so you have to create them on your page.
3. Video snippets are new, and very popular, for how-to answers, songs, and movie/tv show queries. They are typically Youtube video links.
And no, we as google users can’t “tell” Google what format we want to receive our answers in (yet — maybe someday).
Why are they so important? Simply put, they take up more real estate on the page. And did I mention that they are the first listing under the ads? They stand out, they are flashy, and they are super helpful to your audience. All great reasons to take them seriously.
So, what do you need to do to “earn” that featured snippet position?
Firstly, as with both of the above techniques, it’s ALL about keywords.
Like, seriously, they are more important than writing out your dream client avatar OR picking your niche. Again, picking long-tail keyword phrases that could be search questions is key.
It’s also important to pick keywords that are searched often enough that you’ll be found, and that you have a chance to rank for. This is kind of an art but there are some keyword software programs out there that can help with this.
Next up is making sure your page is following all SEO best practices.
The vast majority (70%) of featured snippets are pulled from a first, second or third-ranked results. This makes sense, as Google trusts the websites and pages with good SEO more.
Then, use pictures that support your content.
Great pictures make a great user experience and provide Google with visuals that will help users find what they are looking for.
Also, wherever possible, include lists and tables.
Google loves lists and tables because we humans love them so much, so help them out!
Use headings and subheadings, and use questions in those subheadings.
This will help Google find and pull your answers for their snippets. Making the algorithm’s job easier makes ranking your pages easier. The bonus part? If each subheading answers a different, related question to your main keyword, you can rank for ALL those snippets. Once you get ranked for one, it’s more likely you will get ranked for others.
Finally, make sure your writing is clear and concise.
Snippets are short, y’all, so make sure your answer will fit. Writing a novel the size of War & Peace, with paragraphs that would make Tolstoy blush, won’t get you anywhere. Short, Sweet, and to the point is going to get you the website traffic you want faster.
Bonus tip
If you really want to get more website traffic fast, then edit your existing, older content to help Google rank you higher! Make sure you are addressing all the items above, in order to win that snippet.
So that’s it.
A HUGE article on an important topic — how to get a ton of traffic to your site for free. Thanks for reading to the end.
I’d love to hear how implementing these tips helps you get more website traffic fast!
Are You Ready To Start Using Hashtags?
Now that I’ve shared a fire hose of information with you, are you feeling inspired to create your very own Pinterest hashtag strategy? I’d love to hear about your Pinterest successes.
Are you ready to hire someone to create a winning strategy for your Pinterest account?
Let’s chat and see if we’d be a good fit to work together!
Whichever way you decide to go, I hope this post was helpful. If you found this information useful, would you mind sharing it on Pinterest?
If you’re wondering whether you should hire a specialist to look after your Pinterest marketing, check out my post WHY HIRE A PINTEREST STRATEGIST.
Pinterest By The Numbers
Pinterest has 70 million users
There are over 1/2 million verified business accounts on Pinterest
Pinterest has over 2.5 billion average monthly pageviews
Pinterest users spend an average of 98 minutes per month on Pinterest
The average amount per order that derives from Pinterest traffic is between $140 and $180
Pinterest drives more traffic to publishers than Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit combined