Nowadays, everyone can build a website. Content Management Systems (CMS) made it so straightforward that you don’t need any coding skills to own & publish a domain.
When it comes to attracting visitors to your web pages, things get much more complicated. How many well-designed websites are desperately looking for catching online users’ interest?
The challenge doesn’t end here. Even if you have a decent amount of traffic, it doesn’t mean you will successfully monetize it. We have seen websites with 40,000+ monthly visitors not getting a single sale.
Fortunately, there are many methods to catch people’s attention across the internet. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of them and by far the most cost-effective way.
Why Boosting Traffic Without SEO?
What if you want to get traffic without SEO? As weird as this thought might look, avoiding SEO strategies does not necessarily mean shooting yourself a bullet in the foot.
First, it can be considered a complement to SEO. In this case, the first step to boosting online visitors without doing SEO is to clearly understand those techniques.
Besides, to do SEO… you must master SEO. It is not a trivial job & most people are not familiar with organic optimizations. It makes sense for them to look for an alternative.
Eventually, SEO is not a cheap practice. It requires lots of effort and a long-term commitment. As a matter of fact, its Return On Investment (ROI) is extremely high. However, you need an initial budget to get started. It can be a showstopper for many individuals & small business owners.
For those reasons, we have listed 7 free & 3 paid methods to increase your website traffic without implementing any SEO campaign. Spoiler alert: a few of them are a combination of several tips, and some others are “almost SEO tricks but not totally.” Discover them by reading this article.
7 Free Ways To Get Traffic Without SEO
Let’s get this straight: by “free techniques,” we mean methods that do not require any financial investment or marketing budget. Of course, you still must provide some effort & spend some time implementing them. There is nothing completely free in this world!
#1 Offline Events & Word-Of-Mouth
Yes, offline activities do bring online traffic. We noticed that many times in the past.
Of course, it depends on the industry & local culture. For example, we guarantee that the word-of-mouth & physical presence seminars work extremely well in Vietnam.
There are several ways to implement this referral marketing strategy.
Overall, engaging the discussion with potential business partners or clients makes them willing to “learn more” and visit your website, or maybe share it with other people.
If you exchange your business cards during the conversation, it works even better.
Attending live workshops & conferences allows you to get noticed. From this point, it is a game number: the more people you reach offline, the more you could turn a fraction of them to visit your web pages. If you are a speaker, you multiply your chances!
#2 Webinars & Online Conferences
Webinars & online conferences are pretty much the parallel version of the previous free tip. In real life, few of them imply an entry fee or a sponsorship program. Hopefully, most webinars are free of charge.
Those online events can potentially gather more attendees than offline seminars. This is a great opportunity to mention your brand, your company name, or a direct link to your website.
People are more likely to share your domain during those online conferences if you are the one sharing your expertise. Talk about specific topics to shine in their eyes. As for offline events, being a speaker brings more value.
People join webinars because they want to learn more about a specific topic. It means you have a common interest with them. They are “qualified leads.”
#3 Content Marketing
Content marketing is a major part of SEO… except if you do not optimize your copywriting.
SEO-friendly copies are challenging to produce. They do bring lots of benefits, including more website traffic. However, you do not need to write search engine-optimized articles to publish valuable content.
We cannot insist enough on content marketing. If you lack SEO skills, that’s okay! Produce content anyway because good articles attract people. The math is simple: the more interesting your content is, the more online users will read it, bringing traffic along.
Just know your subject, write expert content about the topic, and you will be fine.
#4 Visual Aids
Text contents bring traffic. Visual contents bring more.
We live in a graphic society. Images engage more than copies. Videos engage more than images. Compare the traffic performance of a page having only text versus a page hosting text and visual aids. Those with images or videos always attract more visitors.
Take an article and create an infographic when possible. Infographics are pieces of content that online users love to share (which potentially gets you more traffic).
Videos work well. Make sure to publish your videos on the YouTube channel to benefit from this powerful search engine (second-best worldwide right after Google). Embed this YouTube video into your website and you are good to go.
#5 Interviews & Reviews
Having an entry ticket to dedicated communities is the insurance to reach engaged people.
Approach those groups & find the right experts or famous guys to interview. Most of them, not saying all, will be glad to answer your questions for free.
Then, publish this interview on your online channels. And profit. The person you interviewed will be more than happy to share this piece of content across his/her network.
Write about VIPs in your industry & ask them to share. Consider reviews & testimonials. You will receive free website traffic in return.
#6 Forums
If you are active on forums, you can earn qualified traffic.
It is not an easy process, and it takes lots of time. However, it is a free strategy to get website traffic without SEO that grows exponentially. The downside is that you depend on the forum’s activity. If it is dead, so will your traffic source.
Tell stories & never hard-sell. Get the community’s trust and they will boost your website traffic.
Answer their questions. Be nice. Visit the comment sections. If you comply with the forum rules, you will nurture great traffic potential.
Be careful because some forums do not allow website links. Only upload them when allowed & if it brings value to the forum users.
#7 Social Media
In the 2010s, rumors pretended that social media platforms were a good signal to improve SEO rankings. It turned out it was a myth. Social channels have no impact on SEO.
However, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. bring significant traffic to websites. For many brands, those platforms are the main source of website visitors.
Publish organic posts on your fan page and include links redirecting to your website. The success of this free and non-SEO solution depends on your social page’s popularity. The more active followers you have, the more traffic you will get back to your web pages.
There is also a paid version of this option. If you hire a professional agency, it can build a social strategy, and a content calendar, produce appealing creatives, and publish them for you. It guarantees superior service at a certain cost. Let’s see below 3 paid ways to get traffic without SEO.
3 Paid Ways To Get Traffic Without SEO
Now let’s dig into paid techniques to increase your web page’s number of visitors. If you have a media budget, we strongly recommend you invest in SEO which is the most sustainable way to get noticed online. If you want to ban SEO for specific reasons, then the coming section is for you.
#1 Digital Ads
Paid ads are the most solid way to bring traffic to a landing page. Unlike SEO, the results are quick. You can see visitors flooding your website in a matter of hours.
This strategy requires 2 conditions to succeed. First, you need a media spending budget. Second, you must have a minimum of skills & experience to run digital paid campaigns.
The way you will run your paid ads depends on your business objective. Why do you want to boost your website traffic? Is it for brand awareness or conversions?
Consider these paid ad solutions to bring traffic to your website:
- Google Ads Search: if you target people having a clear intent
- Google Ads Shopping: if you sell online products
- Google Display Network Ads: if you want brand awareness traffic
- Facebook Ads: if your target audience is on social media
Of course, it must make sense to pay for getting website traffic. If the purpose of getting website visitors is to monetize this traffic (for example, with Google AdSense), then do not go for paid ads! You will never get any positive ROI with such a business model.
#2 Influencers
Influencers & Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) benefit from a huge number of followers. It starts from 10,000 up to several million of fan people. Why not take advantage of this active database?
Many businesses gained online exposure thanks to influencers. Find a relevant one for your market niche and propose a partnership.
Influencers can endorse your brand or your products by creating showcase videos and publishing them on their social channels. It brings massive website traffic because the followers already trust the influencer.
For example, if you sell cosmetic products, you can ask a popular female influencer to use them and publish videos on Instagram with links back to your website.
Working with influencers has a cost, but it is a proven successful strategy.
#3 Email Marketing
Depending on the industry and country, email marketing remains strong, mostly because it is extremely cost-effective.
The challenge is all about building the email list. You need to have enough addresses before running such a campaign. We recommend at least 1,000 emails to get started.
You can collect emails from various sources: social platforms, websites, offline networking, etc. To launch an email marketing campaign, you must ensure those emails are qualified. There is no point in wasting money on sending newsletters to people who are not interested in your brand.
Never purchase email lists. It is a bad practice and a waste of the marketing budget.
Keep your emails short and visual. People have no time to read long stories. Most of them are scanners and will spend less than 2 seconds on them. Pay attention to the email headline: it represents 80% of your whole email’s attractiveness.
Make sure you include a clear Call To Action (CTA) button with a link redirecting to your website. Email marketing is an affordable way to get traffic without SEO.
How To Get Traffic Without SEO?
We listed 10 different ways to enhance your website traffic. Based on our experience, they are the most solid digital strategies. Few of them require specific skills, others need some relationships, and the last ones can be implemented by anyone. They are mostly a matter of time and involvement.
Prodima Vietnam is glad to share more expertise about this topic. Contact us via this form for a free consultation to reach your business targets.
