How to Get Traffic on Website for FREE in 2026

An increase in your website traffic will help you improve your search rankings, which will consequently generate even more traffic for your website.

But it’s important to make sure that the increase in website traffic is followed with an increase in engagement.

If your website traffic is going up, but your conversion rates are going done, you are simply bringing the wrong visitors to your site.

There are A TON of ways to optimize your website for conversions.

Some of these methods would include having multiple CTAs (Calls-to-Action) and lead capture forms in the right places, making navigation simple and natural, and providing the correct information that your visitors are looking for.

Nevertheless, the first step remains – you need to bring the RIGHT visitors to your website in the first place!

Your goal when crafting your marketing strategy to increase website traffic should always revolve around driving more QUALIFIED visitors to your site.

Qualified visitors are the people who are the most likely to convert into leads, customers, or clients!

Unfortunately, there isn’t a tool in existence (that we know of) that allows you to simply set it, forget it, and watch the free, high-quality website traffic flow in.

Fortunately, we do have a mix of channels that work together to drive more visitors to a website.

Some of these require effort, others require time, and many of them require money.

A few of the methods and channels that will drive visitors to your website include:

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Online directory listings
• Blogging
• Guest blogging
• Online advertisements
• Publish Videos to YouTube!
• Produce A Podcast

In the following section, we’re going to dive further into the most reliable and effective ways that you can drive more traffic to your website for FREE!

1. Perform On-Page SEO

There are countless SEO tactics that you can implement on all the pages throughout your website.

These tactics can be used to help you improve each webpage’s ranking on the search engines – thus driving more visitors to your website.

These methods include creating high-quality content that is being searched for by your audience and writing brief meta descriptions for all your webpages.

The meta description is what will appear below your website URL in the search results.

When people can understand what a webpage is all about and what information they’ll get when they click on a search result – they are much more likely to do so!

On-page SEO tactics, like these, are free to implement, but they do take some time.

For more help with SEO, check out this blog post on how to effortlessly increase sales with SEO in 2026!

You may also want to check out our blog on The 6 Most Affordable SEO Services for Small Business!

2. Create a Free Google My Business Listing

Did y’all know… an optimized Google My Business listing gets (on average) roughly 7x more website visits than an incomplete listing?

People are quick to forget that your Google My Business listing links to your website – this is a PHENOMENAL way to drive more visitors to your website!

It’s important to remember that Google is becoming smarter and smarter with which results they display for any search we make.

If your Google My Business listing provides all the information that a potential customer or client needs to make a decision, they might actually skip going to your website and directly visit/contact your business… which is way better than a standard website visit!

Here are 12 more methods you can leverage to drive more visitors to your website, and increase your overall traffic:

1. Build Backlinks

“But Mike… what’s a backlink?”

A backlink is another website linking to your website.

Getting a backlink from an industry influencer or a complimentary business will not only place your business in front of a larger audience, but it will also drive highly-qualified visitors to your website.

Additionally, Google makes note of your backlinks and uses it as a trust signal for your business.

If Google sees trustworthy websites linking back to your website – it will increase your website’s trustworthiness as well!

More trust from Google will help lead to higher rankings, which will lead to more traffic.

You can get noticed on Google for FREE with quality backlinks!

2. Post to Social Media

Of all the free marketing tools out there, social media is one of the most powerful around.

It plays a HUGE role in driving traffic to your website or anybody’s website who is using it correctly!

For example, you can use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to promote your blog posts and other useful pages on your website.

This allows you to turn your social media audience into website visitors, and then you can also draw traffic from their networks if they share your content on their accounts! Win-Win!

It’s FREE to create useful content, and it isn’t as difficult as many people believe.

You are THE expert when it comes to your product or service – your task when creating content is to simplify it for your audience.

3. Include Hashtags in Your Posts

When you post on social media to promote your blog posts or website pages, it’s CRITICAL for you to add hashtags.

Hashtags assist you in really expanding your reach, well beyond your existing network, and this allows you to be discovered by new prospects who are searching for your products and/or services!

The more people who see your posts and links on social media, the more free traffic you can expect to flood into your website!

4. Get Listed in Online Directories

One of the simplest ways to boost the amount of traffic coming to your website is to have your business (and website) listed on FREE online directories and review sites.

Additionally, many of these directories, such as Yelp, have very strong domain authority on Google (high trustworthiness).

Because of this, there’s a very high possibility that your business’ free Yelp listing could rank high for searches in your industry!

5. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Even though short-tail keywords are more frequently searched, it is substantially more difficult to rank for them on search engines.

By targeting long-tail keywords, you are given a much better chance of ranking higher (even on the first page) for searches that are specific to your products and/or services – and of course ranking higher means more traffic for your website!

It’s also worth noting, as search engines and voice-to-text capabilities advance (like we’ve seen with Siri, Alexa, Google Nest, etc.), people are beginning to use more specific phrases to search for things online.

If you want to use a free tool to help in your quest of finding good keyword opportunities – Answer the Public is a great option!

If you’re looking for a premium tool – I’d personally recommend using Ahrefs or SEMrush.

Their plans start at around $100 per month!

6. Start Email Marketing (if you aren’t already)

Another great way to drive FREE traffic to your website is through sending out regular newsletters and promoting your offers through email.

It’s also a great way to stay in touch with your customers!

In these emails you should always provide your readers with useful information and include links to pages on your website where they can go to learn more.

These links can go to one (or a few) of your blog posts or landing pages you have for a particular offer you have.

Just keep in mind that you don’t want to constantly bombard your audience with promotional emails, or you’ll watch your readers begin to disengage, delete, or (even worse) unsubscribe from your emails altogether!

Lastly, you should put a lot of thought into your email subject lines.

These will heavily impact whether or not a recipient opens your email.

If your emails don’t ever get opened, they can’t drive any traffic to your website!

If you’d like more tips on this – checkout our blog on How to Write a 5 Start Email Subject Line!

7. Guest Blog

Having a thought leader in your industry publish a blog post on your website or turning an interview with them into a blog post can REALLY help drive new traffic to your website.

You should see an increase in traffic coming from organic search, and you should also see some traffic come from that industry influencer promoting the content to their audience!

This should also assist in adding more variety to your website content and show your audience how active you are in your field!

Another option could be to ask the industry thought leader to mention your company in their own review or round up post.

This method is also free, but you’ll still need to make sure that the collaboration with this person is mutually beneficial.

They need to get value as well!

The last angle you can pursue here is to go be a guest blogger on another site! Discover businesses in your area that are complementary to yours.

Their audience should be relevant to your business as well if done correctly!

Your goal is to contribute a post to their blog that includes a link back (backlink) to your website.

You need to make sure that your post is not only relevant, but also useful to their readers so that it’s a mutually beneficial exchange!

8. Use Landing Pages

Another free traffic driving source for your website is landing pages.

Landing pages are webpages specifically designed for any of your offers.

These offers could be something like downloading a free guide, beginning a free trial, or redeeming a discount code – to name a few!

Landing pages should be loaded up with all the details that visitors will need to see in order to move forward and convert on your offering.

You should strictly focus on ONE call-to-action.

This will make it more likely for your desired action to happen!

Due to landing pages being so specific, you’re able to get extremely targeted in your messaging, which should increase the traffic coming to those pages!

9. Increase Your Online Engagement

People are quick to forget, but it’s also FREE to be active in online groups and on websites that are relative to your company and your desired audience – being engaged in these areas will help you drive more traffic to your website.

It takes very little time to comment on blogs and social media posts, answer questions that people ask on forums, and engage in conversations happening within your industry.

The more engagement you have within your community, the more exposure your social profiles will receive!

If you have a link to your website on your social profiles, you’ll be able to seamlessly turn your online engagement into another traffic driving channel for your website.

Also, make sure when you engage online that you’re being genuine in what you have to offer and that you engage discreetly – so don’t include links in your comments.

Links can be seen as spammy and end up hurting your business’ online reputation.

Increased traffic should never be the goal of your engagement – rather, it should be looked at as a secondary result!

10. Study & Learn from Your Analytics

If you didn’t already know, Google Analytics is free to use! It provides incredibly powerful insights that you can use to help drive even more traffic to your website.

You’ll want to use tracked links for any of your marketing campaigns and make a habit of constantly checking your website analytics.

These links get tracked by your Google Analytics account and will allow you know to which tactics and pieces of content work, the ones that could use some enhancements, and which ones simply aren’t worth your time in the future!

11. Publish Videos on YouTube!

Videos are an easy way to get a MASSIVE SEO boost nowadays.

There are a billion blogs out there but reading takes time… videos are a quick and easy way to learn about pretty much anything. In an age of convenience, Google loves offering their users more of just that – convenience.

Aside from the SEO boost, videos are also a great way for you to begin establishing yourself as a Thought Leader in your industry!

Of all the options you have for hosting videos, YouTube is by far the best (and most popular) video channel for generating more website traffic.

Oh and by the way… it also happens to be the 2nd largest search engine in the WORLD!

Your potential reach on YouTube is pretty remarkable.

According to data provided by YouTube, they have more than 2 BILLION USERS (roughly a third of all internet users in the world).

On mobile devices alone, they reach more 18 to 34 year-old people than any television network in the United States!

That age demographic makes up roughly 70% of YouTube’s viewership.

However, YouTube’s demographics are wide-open – their viewers are not strictly young, single men like they were 10 years ago!

Now that we’ve established that, the question becomes: how can you effectively narrow down YouTube’s ENORMOUS audience and get the correct eyeballs to watch your YouTube videos and eventually on your website?

Here are 3 types of video content you could publish on your YouTube channel:

• Entertainment: These are fun videos that cater to your audience’s interests! It’s one of the best methods for capturing viewers’ attention and directing it to your products or services!
• Educational: These videos are used to teach your audience new skills and build trust with them (thought leadership). If possible, try to use your product or service as the solution for solving any problems you present. Do not force it though or you will come off as unauthentic!
• Storytelling: These videos should fit into your company’s identity. They are perfect for establishing your brand’s image and ideals to your viewing audience!

12. Produce A Podcast

According to a study done by Edison Research, over the last 5 years, the number of Americans who listen to podcasts every week has increased by over 175%.

They also found that roughly 90 million Americans listen to a podcast at least once per month!

Like blogging, producing a podcast offers you the opportunity to stand out in a particular niche, while targeting a specific audience.

The issue with podcasting is that it isn’t exactly optimized for driving new website traffic.

People typically listen to podcasts when they’re on the bus, at the gym, or taking a walk on their lunchbreak.

Unlike a YouTube video, blog post, or a post on social media, there isn’t a Call-to-Action they can click while listening.

Because of this, the listener has the difficult task of remembering the points you discussed and then making additional actions after listening to your prompts or suggestions.

The manager of the Shopify Masters podcast, Shuang Esther Shan, says that your task is to find other ways that drive traffic and make it simple for your listeners to find information that you mentioned on your podcast.

Shan also shares that “We stick to three core principles.

First, for in app podcast descriptions we provide a concise and accurate summary of the episode with a link to our blog post that accompanies the episode.

Second, on our blog, we’ll publish a key summary for easy access and reading as well as the transcripts for our hearing-impaired audience.

Finally, if an episode covers a lot of apps, tools, or any other useful resources, we’ll provide a list of relevant resources with each item linked accordingly.”

Another great way (that isn’t free) to drive more traffic to your website is through paid advertisements on Google.

These ads are extremely targeted to people who are seeking providers for the services you offer.

1. Google Maps Advertising

A little-known trick for Google Ads is that you can set specific preferences so that your business shows up at the top of Google Maps search results.

Just like with standard paid search advertisements, there is still going to be an indicator next to your listing that lets people know it’s a paid advertisement.

However, the increased exposure you receive from appearing at the top of results is worth its weight in gold!

2. Google Search Advertising

When you run a Google Ads campaign, you are paying to have your website (typically a landing page) show up at the top of search results for whichever keywords you decide on.

When someone searches for the keywords you’ve chosen, Google looks at every account who is bidding on the keywords and decides which ads they will display (and in what order) based on the quality and relevance of their advertisement.

Paid results will always appear first, at the very top of search results pages.

This type of exposure is great for generating more traffic to your website, by highly qualified visitors.

Also, you’ll only ever pay when someone actually clicks on your advertisement.

If your business doesn’t currently have the budget for paid advertising, check out this article on How to Get Free Advertising on Google!

Social media, retargeting, and display advertisement campaigns are all tremendous Pay-Per-Click advertising avenues for increasing your website traffic.

Social Media Advertising

With search advertising, you are paying for your ad to show at the top of the screen for relevant searches – with social media ad campaigns you are paying to be shown in relevant feeds.

With both ad campaign types, you can indicate the specific audience that you’d like your ad to appear for.

But because social media allows you to utilize more psychographic data, you are able to target your ads even better than standard search ads allow!

Display Advertising

Display advertisements are shown as branded banners on websites relevant to the campaign you setup.

If your business is in the fitness industry and your ad is shown on the website of a company that sells athletic gear, your ad is likely going to drive highly-relevant, qualified traffic to your website!

Retargeting

Retargeted advertisements can be displayed on websites, social media feeds, and, as of recently, YouTube videos!

They get placed in front of people who have already visited your website recently and are highly likely to return.

If you really know what you are doing, you can have your ads appear for people who have recently visited your competitors’ websites, so you can get their business instead!

Host Contests & Giveaways

They get placed in… Hosting a contest or giveaway is fantastic way to gain more followers on social media, boost your social media engagement, and drive more traffic to your website!

Studies have found that 94% of the time, users will share your promotion IMMEDIATELY after they register for a contest or giveaway that you are running.

Additionally, 62% of your participants will share your promotion with a friend and recommend that they do it as well!

You can use contests, sweepstakes, and giveaways to quickly drive more traffic to your website by offering exciting prizes to your customers in exchange for their participation.

Rewards and prizes are extremely compelling incentives for convincing new (and current) customers to actually visit your website.

Your contests and giveaways can even leverage social sharing as a method of entry.

This gives your contest a much higher chance of achieving virality and spreading rampantly around social media!

Once the participants have reached your website, you can use different techniques to steer them to your products and/or services.

One well-known method would be to offer them discounts or coupons on your offerings!

While you can actually drive traffic to your website for free, there is no magic button or tool that will magically generate traffic without you needing to do anything.

If you are seriously contemplating using an automatic website traffic generator, paid or free, here are a few reasons to reconsider:

Your Traffic Will Not Be Targeted

The main purpose for driving more visitors to your website and improving your Google rankings is to boost the amount of people who interact with your business – and, most importantly, turn them into paying customers!

If your website visitors aren’t highly targeted, they are very unlikely to actually engage with your website, and you are going to watch your lead and conversion rates PLUMMET.

Auto Website Traffic Generators Can Hurt Your Rankings

Remember, Google is a TRILLION DOLLAR company for a reason.

They provide incredible value to your users and always want to provide more.

For that reason, they continuously improve their search algorithms that can easily detect spammy behavior like suspicious upticks in website traffic and activity, or a downtick in time that visitors spend on your website.

An automatic traffic bot or generator will, more than likely, draw the wrong type of attention from Google.

This will actually harm your business’ reputation with Google and your search rankings will suffer.

Your Site Could Get Banned

If your website is being flooded with bot traffic, you are playing with fire.

You are running the risk of getting your website blocked from online advertising platforms or, even worse, getting your website banned from Google entirely.

If you haven’t figured out by now, cheap website traffic is not worth it at all! Take the time that it ACTUALLY takes to build up high-quality traffic for your website.

This traffic is sustainable and will actually convert into revenue for your business!

Getting free website traffic is nice for the obvious reason of not needing to spend any money, but it does require a lot of effort on your end.

However, the amount of effort you put in will directly correlate with the quality of traffic driven to your website!

As we discussed above, there is absolutely no point in driving traffic to your website if those visitors are not going to turn into dollars for your business.

They need to be highly engaged with your webpages to convert into leads and EVENTUALLY become paying customers!

Google My Business checks out as the best free website traffic generator because it:

• Gives customers the opportunity to review your business reviews and boost your online reputation
• Drives qualified visitors to your website
• Boosts your visibility on a channel whose users have high buying intent
• Allows you to appear for searches related to your business and locations
• Is FREE and simple to set up your listing.

Also, keep in mind that Google My Business:

• Gives searchers the ability to engage with your business directly on your GMB listing – which boosts your chances of engagement and of acquiring new customers.
• Allows your business to be discovered in mobile searches, which have substantially surpassed the number of desktop searches.
• Uses visuals, like pictures and videos, to provide consumers with an idea of what it’s actually like to be at your business, which helps knockdown their barrier of uncertainty.

Now understanding the numerous benefits that come with a Google My Business listing, your business simply cannot afford to not have one (if you run a local business).

Create your free listing and continue updating it as often as possible!

Driving more visitors to your website to increase your traffic is not something that happens by simply snapping your fingers.

It takes a bit of effort and elbow-grease, but the good news is that we’ve eliminated the hard part for you – which is knowing what you need to do in the first place.

By utilizing Google My Business and the other effective tactics discussed above, you’ll be able to drive the right visitors to your website and, more importantly, convert more of those visitors into paying customers or clients!

Hope this article helps you out! If you want more advice for expanding your reach, getting leads, & growing your business — let me know in the comment section below!

If you’d like help implementing any of these tactics into your business – checkout our affordable seo services and web design services – or simply drop us a line!

We’d love if you left a comment/question for us to answer below!

How would an increase in website traffic benefit your business?