Best 162 Free Traffic Sources for Your Blog or Website That Can Boost With Visitors

As it turns out, never say never… I mean, if you know me I’m one of the few people who honestly think that massive list posts are stupid and impossible to digest… Yet, here I am writing one.

Let me explain. The whole “getting traffic” issue is one which can be approached from many different angles. The possibilities are countless. You can get traffic from so many different places and by utilizing so many different practices that it’s more than easy to overlook something.

That’s why I’ve created this leviathan. I wanted to come up with a list containing all the practices and traffic sources I can think of.

But it’s still me, so even though I’m the author I still find this list impossible to go through for a normal human. That’s why I don’t expect you to read all of it. Just find a portion that interests you and use it as a reference file.

So-called free traffic

…cause it’s nowhere near free.

1. Search engines – SEO

SEO is probably one of the biggest things you can practice in order to get some traffic for your website (by the way, make sure to check out my complete guide to hosting for an online business). Top ranking for a good, competitive keyword can mean the world to your blog or website.

WordPress SEO is a pretty popular topic around the internet. Don’t forget to check these two cool posts: WordPress SEO – The Definitive Guide To Higher Rankings For Your Blog at Yoast, and WordPress SEO: The Only Guide You Need at ViperChill

2. Email marketing

Fancy name, but what it really means is sending emails to a list of people and leading them back to your blog. If you haven’t started to build your email list yet, it’s about time. Check out MailChimp as they are the only big player offering free services.

3. Co-registration traffic

This one’s usually not free, but it’s a part of email marketing, so I thought I might as well place it here. The basic idea is this: You find someone who already has an email list and try to convince them to place an additional form somewhere in their sign-up funnel.

This form/field/checkbox asks a new subscriber whether or not they want to subscribe to your list too. Something along the lines: “Hey. You might also consider subscribing to Karol’s list. He shares some interesting information about internet marketing. Just tick the checkbox and you’re good to go.”

In the end, you get a new subscriber without any real effort on your part.

Social media traffic

There’s a couple of different things here.

Social bookmarking

In a sentence – you add your blog to a number of different social bookmarking services.

The services:

4. Delicious
5. Connotea.org
6. Blinklist.com
7. Faves.com
8. Mister-wong.com
9. Spurl.net – problems while loading the site
10. Netvouz.com
11. Diigo.com
12. Backflip.com – no longer with us
13. Bibsonomy.org
14. Folkd.com
15. linkaGoGo.com
16. Slashdot.org
17. Technorati.com
18. MyStuff
19. Buddy Marks
20. Connectedy
21. MyLinkVault
22. Google Bookmarks
23. Jumptags.com
24. OYAX
25. A1 Webmarks
26. Bookmark Tracker
27. myVmarks – no longer with us
28. Wirefan.com – no longer with us
29. Boomarking.com
30. Symbaloo
31. Karmalynx.com

You don’t have to do it by hand though:

32. BookmarkingDemon
33. IMAutomator.com
34. SocialPoster
35. SocialMarker.com
36. SocialAdr

37. One more trick you can use. Share your new post via Google Reader (the little share icon at the bottom).

Web 2.0 sites

Websites within a popular domain which you can build for free, and then use them to get some traffic back to your main blog. They are:

38. Squidoo
39. HubPages
40. Weebly
41. Webs
42. Jimdo
43. Yola
44. Webnode
45. Jigsy

46. You can also try to create a new community at Ning, or join an existing one.

Social news sites

Three main players here:

47. Digg
48. Reddit
49. StumbleUpon

If you’re in the design niche check out these sites as well:

50. 40 Promotional Sites Where To Submit Your Design Related Links
51. 30+ Places to Submit Your Website Designs

Social networks

This one’s a no-brainer:

52. Twitter (how to create a twitter avatar)
53. Facebook
54. Myspace
55. LinkedIn

Free blogs

The idea is similar to the approach regarding Web 2.0 sites. Only this time you’re going to create some free blogs. Check these out:

56. WordPress.com
57. Blogger
58. LiveJournal.com
59. TypePad
60. Tumblr
61. Blog.com

Content spreading

A.k.a. submitting your content to different places around the internet.

62. Guest blogging (or posting)

This is the first biggie. Guest blogging (or posting) is one of the best sources of quality traffic. Try it yourself. Contact a number of bloggers and get some guest posting spots.

Article marketing

It’s just a fancy name for submitting your articles to various article directories around the internet. Each article has, of course, a live link back to your site.

You can start with these:

63. EzineArticles
64. GoArticles
65. ArticlesBase
66. Buzzle
67. Isnare
68. ArticleCity
69. Article Dashboard
70. The Free Library
71. FreestyleJournalism
72. Article Alley
73. Article Blast
74. ArticleSnatch
75. Sooper Articles
76. Amazines

You might want to consider one of these services as well:

77. UniqueArticleWizard
78. ArticleMarketingAutomation

79. One more trick. Turn your article into a pdf and submit it to Scribd.

If you’re into this kind of stuff you can use spinning software to create some alternative versions of your articles. The best one of its kind is (as the name says itself) The Best Spinner.

Video marketing

Similar to article marketing, only this time you’re submitting videos.

The list:

80. YouTube.com (how to create a YouTube background)
81. Vimeo.com
82. eHow.com
83. Viddler.com
84. Dailymotion.com
85. 5min.com
86. video.yahoo.com
87. vids.myspace.com
88. Revver.com
89. Veoh.com
90. blip.tv
91. Guba.com
92. livevideo.com
93. Metacafe.com
94. Videojug.com

You might want to consider one of these automation services as well:

95. Traffic Geyser
96. TubeMogul
97. VidPostRobot
98. Hey!Spread

Podcasts

You’re ahead on this one if you’re a radio-personality type. Of course, use your podcast to promote your main site.

99. iTunes
100. PodcastAlley
101. PodcastDirectory

Photo sites

This is one of less popular ways of driving traffic, but can be effective if you refine the process well enough.

102. Flickr
103. Picasa

104. One more trick. SEO-optimize the images on your blog. That way they have a chance to appear on Google Image Search.

Pinging

This is not a direct traffic getting method, but a way of notifying certain search engines that something is going on at your blog. After the pings have been sent those search engines update their listing featuring your new content. This in return can get you some new visitors.

Check out these services:

105. Autopinger.com
106. www.PingMyBlog.com
107. www.Pingoat.com
108. pingomatic.com
109. www.Pingler.com

RSS directories and aggregators

Sites, where many different RSS feeds can be found in one place. Submitting your blog to such places can’t hurt you.

The list:

110. Alltop.com
111. Feedagg.com
112. Feedfury.com
113. feedraider.com
114. GoldenFeed.com
115.
feedcat.net
116. feedage.com
117. rssmotron.com
118. rss-network.com
119. rssmountain.com
120. feedplex.com
121. plazoo.com

Community participating

122. Blog commenting

As you know every comment contains a link back to the author’s site. And a valuable comment can bring really good traffic when it’s published on a big blog.

Just a simple advice here. Go out there, find some quality blogs and start commenting.

123. Forum posting

Similar to blog commenting. Only this time you’re posting on forums and the link is usually in your signature file.

124. Ning communities

Mentioned earlier in this list. You can either create a new community or join an existing one.

Getting a blog badge

A badge is a little widget that sits in your sidebar and displays various things. Mostly ads for other blogs. However, by displaying such a badge your blog gets featured on other websites that use the same badge.

125. Blogupp.com
126. Entrecard

Website and blog directories

They’re not as effective as they used to be, but there’s still some value in this.

127. Dmoz
128. blogcatalog.com
129. blogged.com
130. mybloglog.com
131. networkedblogs.com
132. technorati.com

Paid traffic

If you have too much money you might want to consider spending some of it on paid traffic.

Here’s a big list of various advertising networks (including social media advertising platforms, at the bottom).

First and foremost, check out this site: payperclicksearchengines.com

133. AdWords (duh!)
134. Y!SM + MSN
135. Adknowledge.com
136. abcsearch.com
137. 7search.com
138. looksmart.com
139. pulse360.com
140. advertise – ask.com
141. finditquick.info
142. advertise.com
143. inuvo.com
144. admarketplace.com
145. bidvertiser.com
146. myads.com
147. addesk.advertising.com
148. advertising.aol.com
149. mediatraffic.com
150. trafficvance.com
151.
zango.com
152. clicksor.com
153. buysellads.com
154. text-link-ads.com
155. valueclick.com
156. Facebook
157. Plenty of Fish
158. sponsoredtweets.com
159. LinkedIn
160. StumbleUpon

161. And a bonus – check out PRWeb for some press release marketing.

162. One more thing. Did you know that you can buy social media traffic and subscribers (Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube views, and SoundCloud music views)? Check the site out.