You have heard that SEO is necessary.
Yet, this post will offer you free tips for boosting your web traffic without any SEO techniques.
In addition, after reading this post, you will be able to generate income from your blog as well as boosting SEO and traffic.
Have you read my About page?
My mission statement guarantees I will bring you what I learn about blogging and related topics.
One of the promises is that I will attend webinars and share with you what I learn. This post does just that.
This article is based on the work of Neil Patel, a blogging teacher so famous he’s been commended by President Obama himself.
His webinar, which this post details, is about customer acquisition. However, even if you don’t have a product, you still want traffic which is needed to sell products to people.
So, even if you’re not (yet) a marketer, the traffic generation tips in this post can help you.
According to Neil, there are four steps you should take before you can monetize your blog content.
This post will explain what they are and how you can follow his action plan.
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Free Blog Traffic Tips that Will Get People to Click Your Links
According to Neil, you don’t have to worry about implementing SEO techniques in order to rank well on Google.
Neil recommends improving your content. More people will click on your posts, and Google will raise your article to a higher position in its search engine. According to Google, more clicks on your posts indicates quality content. Therefore, even without any SEO techniques, you will move up in search engines and rank higher.
- Go to Google Search Console. Click Search Analytics.
- Make sure these three are clicked at the top: Clicks, Impressions, and CTR.
- Click Pages.
- This will show you what pages Google is ranking you for.
- Clicks mean how many people found your link on Google and clicked it.
- Impressions indicate the number of people who saw your link.
- CTR means Click Through Rate. You want it to be high.
- Click Queries
You will see what keywords you rank for.
Again, you will see the Clicks, Impressions, and Click Through Rate
If your click-through rate is under 5%, put the keyword in the title tag. That way when people go to search, your keyword will be in bold. Searchers will see it and click.
Look at the list below of secret words that will make readers click on your headlines when put in your title tag. Then look at my title tag. I have both best and free.
According to Neil, there are certain words you can put in the title tag that will increase your click through rate.
They are:
- How to
- A relevant number
- Free
- You
- Tips
- Why
- Blog Post if it’s a blog post
- Best
- Tricks
- Great
[Related:Â How to Write Powerful Headlines [Ultimate Guide]]
2. Free Blog Traffic Tips You Need to Beat Your Competition
Neil calls this “Competitive Intelligence.” He describes the importance of knowing what your competitors are doing. He says it’s a science, not a guessing game.
Go to SEMRush.
Enter your blog URL. You will see what keywords you rank for.
Put in a competitor’s site, and you will see the keywords they rank for. (Note: I found valuable information about my site by going to SEMRush, but when I tried to get information about my competitors’ keywords, I was asked to sign up for a pro account.)
I made a free account and went to
https://www.semrush.com/dashboard/
Look: I found the keyword searches people are using to find my blog. I will make sure to use these going forward.
3. Free Blog Traffic Tips You Need to Build Links To Your Site and Boost Your SEO
The more websites that link to you, the better you do in search engines. If you get links with blogs that rank better than you, you do even better.
Guest posting for bigger blogs will get you a link to your site. Make sure you’re guest posting for blogs in your niche.
By going to Alexa.com, you can see if the blog’s Alexa score is better than yours. The lower the score, the better.
(Note: Another strategy I have found that works is simply asking a blogger if you can trade links. Many of the bloggers I’ve asked have swapped links with me. Others have offered me chances to participate in their interviews, and I get links that way.)
Neil also recommends asking people to link to you. He advises they be bloggers in your niche and you should write personal, not canned, emails to them when you ask.
[Related: 13 Best Free Tools You Need to Improve Your Long Tail Keywords]
[Related: This is What You Need to Know Before You Use Alexa.com]
4. Free Blog Traffic Tips You Need to Boost Your Subscribers
Lead Magnets are incentives that you give visitors for free so that they subscribe to your blog.
Perhaps while you were reading this post, my opt-in box came out and offered you a PDF of 89 free blogging tools. That’s my lead magnet.
Did you notice it has a “Yes” or “No” question near the top? According to Neil, sign-ups will increase between 20% and 30% if you add a “Yes” or “No” question to your opt-in box.
My opt-in box that comes out of the right sidebar asked if you want to increase your blog traffic, which is a yes or no question.
I am happy to say, I have seen phenomenal results with that opt-in box. I am happy to report my Email subscriber list is growing by leaps and bounds.
In contrast, I have another opt-in box that has produced disappointing results. If you look below this post, you will see an opt-in box without a yes or no question. This offers visitors a PDF of my free blogging dictionary containing 119 blogging terms and definitions.
Even though page views on the post lived up to expectations as far as traffic, do you want to know how many people filled in the opt-in box without the yes or no question? The last time I checked, only one.
After people type in their email, they are redirected to the PDF of my 89 Free Blogging Tools post or the post with the free dictionary.
I have other incentives as well such as a Pinterest board, a StumbleUpon group, a Link Directory, and a Follow to Follow Directory among others. Neil agrees you should have multiple lead magnets.
Feel free to ask your readers what incentive they would like that would help them solve a problem they are looking to you to solve. Survey Monkey might work for this.
Neil recommends a free tool that will help you generate leads, Hello Bar.
5. Free Blog Traffic Tips You Need to Make Money Blogging
Neil recommends using Tripwires which are irresistible offers you can’t refuse.
Offer your email subscribers a low-end deal. This is your tripwire. After, upsell them something more valuable.
For example, I could upsell people my blog consulting service after they buy my ebook which costs much less. Again, Neil recommends asking your readers for a product you could sell them that would help them solve a pain point.
Neil recommends continuing upselling but you should make the third product free.
Buzzsumo.com can let you know what topics are trending if you need help knowing people’s current concerns.
If you don’t know what to ask, Neil suggests using Survey.io. I am not familiar with the site, but apparently, the website devises the questions for you. Neil recommends surveying 30 people.
How many questions should the survey have? Five is the perfect number.
I surveyed my readers. They asked me for a social media ebook. Thus, An Insider’s Guide to Building a Successful Blog, my ebook, was born.
Neil recommends capturing the customer’s email when you sell them the product.
Here’s what I do: I offer my blog coaching clients 25% off my service if they subscribe to my blog. In this way, I am increasing my email list as well as monetizing my blog.
Wrapping It Up
Tip #1 explained how to get people to click your links. Tips #2 and #3 explained how to follow Patel’s advice in order to get free blog traffic coming from search engines. Tip #4 taught you how to increase your Email subscribers. Tip #5 explained how to monetize your blog.
Readers, please share this post. Whether bloggers are looking to boost their traffic or monetize, Neil’s tips have value.
Which of Neil’s tips do you feel have merit? Have you tried any of them you can recommend? Are there any other traffic building or monetization tips you can suggest? I look forward to your answers in the comments section.
Update: Readers thought Neil Patel guest posted for us. He did not. I attended his webinar and wrote up his tips.
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