11 Free Ways to Gain Traffic and Links

#1 Social Bookmark – There are many great social bookmarking sites out there such as Digg, Reddit and more. Take your time to submit your best work to at least 30-50 of them. If it’s good enough, it can go viral and send you thousands of new visitors.

#2 Article Submission – Submit unique articles to directories such as iSnare and Ezine Articles. These sites are going to allow you to put a link at the end of each article. This is a great way to not only a great way to drive traffic but get a link back from an authority status as well.

#3 Press releases – Make sure that you build a press release with a reputable source. Submit it to services such as PRWeb, and you will find that if the media likes it, your phone will be ringing off the hook. It’s a great way to get into major media outlets and more.

#4 Help a reporter – HARO (helpareporter.com) is a fantastic resource to use when you want to hook up with people that work with huge media outlets such as the New York Times and more. Subscribe to the free newsletter, and communicate with those that you can help. Most are nice enough to link back.

#5 Guest blog – Find blogs that are in your niche, and offer great content that is unique. What you’re going to do is not only expose yourself to a new reader’s base, but you will find that it’s a great way to get traffic as well.

#6 Directories – Some higher quality based directories such as BOTW and DMOZ can yield some great traffic. Keep in mind that most directories such as these are only going to link to those with great content. You’re going to want to make sure that you have something worth linking to. Try and avoid blasting your site to 10,000 directories at once.

#7 Join your local chamber of commerce – Joining your local chamber of commerce is not only a great way to connect with those around you, but build your brand awareness to those that want to learn. You’re going to find that these people are going to be more than willing to help you with linking back to your site, or even pay you to help them!

#8 Yahoo! Answers – I love yahoo answers because they allow you to leave a link when you answer questions. As long as you don’t spam the service, you’re going to find that you can get some good traffic from some of the questions that they ask. Just leave a great answer, and you will find that it may be chosen as the “best answer.”

#9 Wikipedia – This is a hard one, but it can work. If you have a legit site with few ads, you can add your link to Wikipedia. Keep in mind that a link that violates their guidelines will get deleted rather fast. If you go this route, make sure that you’re adding your site to a category that best suits your topic.

#10 2.0 Sites – I have found that sites such as Squidoo and Hubpages are a great way to not only gain traffic, but make money as well! Since these sites are authoritative, it’s a great way to tap into their traffic source.

#11 Forum Signature – The last thing that I would recommend is that you start posting on a message board. Make sure that the message board is related to your website. What you’re going to want to make sure you do is place your URL in your signature. This is a great way to get traffic to your site.