23 Proven Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic for Free

Are you looking for some of the best free ways to increase your blog traffic? If yes, you’ve landed on the right post.

As a blogger, you know that getting traffic to your website is important for the success of your blog. The more readers that visit your blog, the more opportunities you have to engage with your audience, build your brand, and make money.

However, increasing your blog traffic can be a daunting task, especially if you are working on a limited budget.

Fortunately, there are many ways to increase your blog traffic for free.

In this article, we will explore 23 proven ways to do just that.

Let’s get started!

23 Free Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

These are the best strategies you can follow to increase your blog traffic for free without spending money.

1. Patience is the key

While all of the ways listed below have been proven to work, and if followed correctly, you can increase your blog traffic. However, it will not happen overnight.

It could not even happen in 5 or 6 months. The length of time depends on many factors, but the important thing is to be patient so you do not give up too soon.

Instead of waiting for your blog post to get on the top page of Google, you can focus on tracking your progress and seeing how it improves from month to month.

Progress is far more important than anything else, and while you wait, you can spend your time creating and publishing high-quality content regularly.

2. Do Keyword Research

Keyword research is a tool used by content writers and SEO experts. It helps in the discovery of specific words and phrases that users type in Google and other search engines to find the content they are looking for.

Normally, beginners rely on their best guesses when creating content. As you can imagine, this method is hit or miss.

If you use the best-guess strategy, then there’s a high chance that your articles won’t rank high in search engines.

That might be because no one’s looking for the keywords you have used, or perhaps there is too much competition.

By doing good keyword research, you will get the following benefits:

• Find out what people are searching for.
• Discover new content ideas for popular search phrases.
• Learn from your competitors and create better content to outperform them.
• Create a series of pillar posts to attract regular traffic to your site.

There are several keyword research tools available that can help you discover new keyword ideas. We use SEMRush for our content strategy.

We have created a detailed post on how to do keyword research for a blog with step-by-step instructions.

3. Publish Quality Content

For most people, there is nothing new here. But for beginners, it should be important to understand that publishing content online is not enough.

What you need is high-quality content that search engines will love and readers will find interesting so that they share, comment, and come back to your blog for more.

What is High-Quality Content?

High-quality content is one which has the following:

• Original and Unique – the same content is not published on any other website.
• Descriptive – It offers a throughout and complete detail of a situation, covering all sides of a story (i.e., it’s not biased).
• Sharable – Users like the content and show it by interacting with it (reading, commenting, and sharing).

4. Reach Out to the Blogger Mentioned in Your Post

If you’ve published a comprehensive guide, chances are you’ve included links to useful resources from other bloggers. Why not contact them and let them know?

It’s the first thing we do when we post something new.

If you’re lucky, they could share it on their social profiles and send some extra traffic your way.

However, the primary objective here is to reach out and establish a connection, which might lead to something bigger—links, mentions, business collaborations, and more.

Executing this is pretty simple. Open your blog post and look for mentions of bloggers in your space.

Then, find their email addresses and reach out to let them know.

5. Apply Basic SEO to Your Website

SEO is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results. You don’t need to become an SEO expert to improve your website.

Anyone can do SEO for their websites without hiring an expert. There are plenty of SEO tools, SEO plugins, and step-by-step tutorials available that you can use.

We recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin for all WordPress websites. It is the complete SEO and website optimization tool on the market. The free version includes all of the SEO features that you would require for your website.

See our guide on how to optimize your blog posts for SEO.

6. Write Engaging Headlines

The first thing reader sees when they find your content in search results or RSS feeds is your article headline.

A great blog article title attracts more attention and clicks. A simple and boring title, on the other hand, is likely to be ignored and scrolled over by users.

As a result, headlines are extremely important.

There are many free headline analyzer tools available to help you create better headlines. OptinMonster Headline Analyzer and MonsterInsights Headline Analyzer are a few of them.

7. Make Internal Linking a Habit

Now that you’ve started making quality content, it is important to link to your post from your existing blog posts. This is known as internal linking, and it is very important in SEO.

Here is why internal linking is so crucial:

• Internal links help Google identify the context and relationship between your website’s various articles. It then utilizes this content as ranking signals.
• Internal links can help in increasing page views and reduce bounce rates.
• It’s more difficult to get links to your content from third-party websites. Creating links on your own website is much easier.

We recommended that you make it a habit to link to your older post from your newer ones.

8. Build Backlinks to Your Blog

A backlink is a link to your website from another website.

But why bother?

First, backlinks are an important ranking factor that Google considers when deciding where to place your website on search engine result pages (SERPs). Blogs with a high number of backlinks from reliable websites often rank better in SERPs.

Furthermore, backlinks from trustworthy websites increase trust in yours, which means search engines will be more likely to promote your website, resulting in more eyes on your blog.

9. Add Images, Charts, and Infographics to Your Post

As said previously, adding images and charts to your articles makes them more readable.

As human beings, we love colors and objects because they create emotional responses in our brains. This makes us more involved and engaged in our environment.

People love looking at infographics because they make information interesting and simple to understand. Images in your blog post draw readers’ attention and help them focus on the visual aspect as well as the content surrounding it.

However, it’s important to know that you can’t use any image you find online. Images are protected by copyright, and stealing copyrighted content can result in serious punishments.

Ideally, you can use your own images and graphics for your blog post.

10. Add Videos to Your Post

Videos are one of the best successful forms of content on the internet. Users spend more time on blog posts that include videos than on those that only contain text and images.

The best approach to adding videos to your WordPress site is to upload them to YouTube and embed them in your blog posts.

11. Choose a Good Theme

There are many great WordPress themes available on the market. The problem is that many newbies want to use a theme that has everything. These themes aren’t always the best choice for your website’s design.

Bad website design prevents people from spending more time on your blog, resulting in fewer page views.

On the other hand, a good design encourages them to find more content, explore new sections, and spend more time.

If you need help selecting a theme, then you can see our guide on how to choose a WordPress theme.

12. Optimize Your Website Speed

Website speed is the most important factor in increasing your blog traffic. If your website is slow, users may leave your website before it even starts to load.

Furthermore, search engines like Google have started penalizing slower websites by ranking them lower in search results, reducing traffic for such sites.

If you want more traffic and revenue from your website, you need to optimize your WordPress performance. This means you should use caching, avoid unnecessary bloat, and optimize your images.

You can see your detailed guide on how to speed up your WordPress Website that will help you speed up your website without the need to hire a developer.

13. Start Your Email List

Most novices waste too much time attracting new visitors to their websites. However, more than 70% of visitors who leave your website never return.

The key to growing your blog traffic is NOT just to attract new visitors but also to keep existing visitors coming back.

This is why you should begin building your email list right now.

To start for free, we recommend using Aweber, which lets you manage upto 500 subscribers.

The best part about your email list is that you have complete control over it. Your reach is unrestricted, and you have direct access to your user’s inboxes.

Email marketing is the most cost-effective and impactful marketing strategy available to you. Without an email list, you’re losing prospective subscribers every day.

Once you’ve created an email list, you can send out frequent email newsletters to encourage people to visit your site.

14. Promote your Content on Social Media

Do not just publish content but promote it as well. Your ‘job’ is not finished when you hit the publish button. Creating and publishing blogs is the first step in the blogging process; the second step is to share your content so that it gets the attention it deserves.

What exactly do we mean by “promote your content”?

As a blogger, one of your ‘job responsibilities’ is to connect with other bloggers in your niche, and the best way to do so is through different social media platforms.

If you have done this task correctly, then you will have at least a few thousand followers on Twitter, Facebook, Quora, Reddit, etc.

These are the people that are most likely to find your content interesting, so you need to let them know that you have new content on your blog by informing them through your social media accounts.

Recommended reading: How to Promote Your Blog.

15. Track Your Website’s Keyword Rankings

After you’ve begun creating and promoting content, you’ll want to keep track of how well each content is performing. In addition, what keywords does it rank for?

You may check this using a tool called Google Search Console. It’s a free Google tool that allows you to see how your website performs in Google Search.

The next step is to keep an eye on your competitors’ websites. Google Search Console does not reveal who is ranked higher than you or why.

You’ll need a tool called SEMRush for this. This will also provide you with specific information on your competitors, their top keywords, and what you need to do to beat them to the top.

16. Track Your Website Traffic and User Engagement

Now that you’ve started getting some free blog traffic, you’ll need to figure out where your visitors are coming from and what they’re doing while they’re there. Without this information, you can’t analyze your approach or plan your future steps.

This is where Google Analytics comes in.

It keeps track of your website visitors and provides information on traffic, engagement, and other user activities. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

The most significant advantage of using Google Analytics is that it allows you to see what your users are doing when they come to your website.

17. Comment on Niche Related Blogs

Commenting on other related blogs is a terrific method to connect with an influencer in your field.

Search the web for top blogs in your niche and begin commenting on their most recent posts. It will help you notify them and their readers of your presence and establish your authority in the niche.

18. Join Forum

Although social networks have become a far more popular means for people to participate in debates, forums can still be found all over the Internet.

Find forums where people gather to discuss things of your interest. You will be allowed to involve in conversations and, perhaps, add a link or two as needed. Remember to provide information about yourself and your website in your signature.

19. Add Social Share Buttons to Your Content

Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your blog’s content. You must add social sharing buttons in all of your content so that people may quickly share it on social media. This would increase the traffic and visibility of your content.

20. Include a Link to Your Site on All Your Web Profiles

Everyone who contacts you should be aware that you have a blog. Some good tactics to achieve this include the following:

• Include your blog’s URL in your email signature so that your email contacts may check it.
• Add your blog’s URL to your most-used social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. This way, individuals who find you on social media will be able to discover your blog as well.
• Include your blog’s URL in the author profiles of any sites where you currently contribute, including your own.

21. Participate in Q&A Websites

Every day, thousands of individuals search the internet for answers. You can make accounts on Question and Answer websites like Quora, Reddit, and others and start answering people’s questions.

The aim is to discover topics related to your niche and participate in them. It will help in getting your name out there and gaining authority. This way, you can redirect users to your website and increase your blog traffic for free.

22. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are a type of keyword phrase that has at least three or four words in the phrase.

Because there is low competition for long-tail keywords, they are considerably simpler to rank than short-tail keywords. They also account for 70% of all web searches. Thus you should constantly include long-tail keywords in your blog posts to increase your blog traffic for free.

For more, check out our beginner guide on long-tail keywords.

23. Refresh Old Content

Your content should be fresh and up-to-date. Neil Patel once said that he spends 10% of his time writing new content and 90% of his time updating existing content. Think about this. If you are wondering how to increase blog traffic, follow the strategy of top marketers and refresh your content.

But how do you know which content to refresh? The simplest way is to install Google Analytics for your site.

You can use Google Analytics to identify which pages are generating the most traffic and which pages have a high bounce rate. Pages that are getting a lot of traffic but have a high bounce rate may benefit from a refresh.

Once you’ve identified the pages, then it’s a matter of figuring out what you need to update. You can do this by analyzing the top-ranking pages to see what they’re doing better than you.

Final Thought

When we asked a few bloggers what their biggest blogging challenge was, the majority of them replied it was a lack of blog traffic. We understand that growing blog traffic might be difficult at times, but it is possible if you adhere to Google’s guidelines. Give your audience first priority, and only share stuff that is worth sharing.

Never forget to connect with other bloggers in your industry since building relationships helps you gain backlinks, increase traffic to your website, and help create a better blog.

If you properly implement the proven tips and strategies mentioned in this detailed guide, we’ll definitely say you’ll increase your blog traffic for free in no time. Just be patient if you are finding ways to increase your blog organic traffic as it takes time.

We hope this article helps you learn how to increase your blog traffic for free.

For your next step, check out these helpful resources:

• Best Ways to Make Money With WordPress Blog
• 15 Best Blog Plugins for WordPress Bloggers
• WordPress SEO Tips to Increase Website Ranking
• How to Promote Your Blog and Increase Traffic

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.