How do you drive free traffic to your website?

How would Internet Marketing Experts invest $100 to get free traffic?

Today I came across a fantastic blog post where 7 Internet Marketing experts share how to market a website on just $100.

Here are the two key insights on how to get free traffic that I took away from reading this article.

Insight Number 1 on How to Get Free Traffic:

"good content & good links"

~Andy Hagans (worlds best link baiter)

If you are experienced, then this will not be very new to you but here is what is so shocking to me.  The majority of new internet marketers tend to join dozens of sites or communities that promise to unleash tons of free traffic to their blog or their site. 

There are two huge problems with these types of sites that promise to help you get free traffic.

Problem 1: Trading time for clicks

Trading time for clicks is not an effective strategy on how to get free traffic.  Why? Because it does not scale!  There is no leverage.  Granted, you might be able to get some visitors to your site by using a service such as BlogExplosion but I would say that you are not investing your time wisely. 

If you are doing it for fun just to discover new blogs, then I would say use a different service such as MyBlogLog because you will not discover the leading blogs by using a simple traffic exchange.

Problem 2: Targeted vs. untargeted traffic

Many newbies will signup and join sites such as:

• InstantBuzz
• TrumpTraffic
• TrafficSwarm
• Hits2u.com
• etc, etc...

However, I am not even linking to these sites because I do not endorse them and I would not recommend them to you.  The problem with these sites is that while they might get you some or even a lot of free traffic, it will most likely be NOT targeted and so while you can get free traffic here it will convert poorly.

Insight Number 2 on How to Get Free Traffic:

Spend $20 to $200 on books about the topic I am interested in, and I would get a few background books on marketing and the web including Purple Cow, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and Don’t Make Me Think. ~Aron Wall

Learn from the best SEO experts in town.  Read every leading SEO blog and invest money into buying SEO guides and books.  You need to know how to optimize your content because only optimized content will do great in the search engines. 

Insight Number 3 on How to Get Free Traffic:

Start blogging, pay for content writing, and leverage social media

Another common theme that surfaced was the importance of writing blog posts and surprisingly the importance of hiring people to write content for you.  This one came as a surprise to me but  I think this is something that the leading Internet Marketing experts have been doing for a long time.  Writing good original content takes time and there are lots of great writers out there that are offering writing services at a good price at eLance.

To find out what content they should write and how to best leverage social media sites continue by reading the Interview of the top 7 Internet Marketing Experts...

Last 5 posts by

• Do you think SEO in other languages is easier? - September 18th, 2008
• Google Slap - How to recover from a Google Slap? - September 8th, 2008
• What Does Your Order Button Say? - August 29th, 2008
• Will Knol Rule The Search Engines? First Analysis Indicates...It Just Might - July 23rd, 2008
• Are small businesses dropping out of AdWords? - July 23rd, 2008

About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

If you want to see what's in the private lab...

Ask yourself... which part of your business would you most like to improve?

I can send you 7 tactics related to your specific needs, if you like.

You don't have to buy anything, just take it as a backstage pass into our private course.

Will it give you the solution you've been waiting for?

There's only one way to find out.