You need to master free traffic sources to be successful online.

Paid traffic is great for some people and businesses, but it’s very fickle. If cost-per-click goes up then even a profitable funnel can turn unprofitable very quickly. (I know from experience as it’s happened to me).

So that’s why I believe that free traffic sources are the best. It may take some time to establish free traffic flows to your blog or website, but it’s totally worth it once you master it.

So, with this in mind, we’ve reached out to some of the top traffic experts to get their input into what traffic sources they use themselves, and how you can do the same.

You can use these free traffic sources for your blogs, websites, affiliate marketing, marketing clickbank products, and they’re all fresh and work today, in 2018 🙂

Let’s dive in.

1. Quora

Quora can be a goldmine of targeted traffic, and is probably one of the most overlooked free traffic sources.

shruti pic
Shruti @ IndianGirling

Shruti from IndianGirling.com says:

Quora is a forum type question and answer platform with pretty much any and every question under the sun.

It’s really interesting that for Shruti gets way more referral traffic from Quora to her blog than from Instagram, with way less effort: On Quora, she has less than 100 followers, and answers about 20 questions per month, and on Instagram she makes about 30 posts per month and has over 1750 followers.

Shruti says that her blog gets an average of about 12% monthly referral traffic from Quora and it is steadily increasing over time.

The reason that Shruti recommends Quora to everyone as one of the best free traffic sources is because it covers nearly every niche. While Shruti mainly answers questions related to travel and living abroad, virtually anyone in any niche is able to get free traffic from Quora in any niche.

Shruti also says that when she uses Quora, she feels like she is helping people, and driving high quality traffic to her blog at the same time.

Is Quora free traffic high quality?

Shruti says that she sees a lower bounce rate on Quora traffic (69%) compared to other referral traffic sources like Pinterest (88% bounce rate).

Traffic from Quora also outperforms other channels in terms of time spent on my website indicating that the content is highly relevant and targeted:

shruti - free traffic sources

So how does Quora actually work and what are the tips to get traffic from it?

You need to create a solid profile, with complete information, profile picture, and so on. This will give you higher percieved authority.

Then you simply go and find questions which you’d like to answer, in the topics of your choice. When you publish the answer, it will become visible on the page with the question.

Pages with questions will often rank in high positions on Page 1 of Google, and they get a lot of traffic. You are allowed to link to your content, but you need to be careful and follow a couple of rules to ensure you don’t get banned.

The type of answers that works really well is a short, to-the-point summary that answers the exact question asked. If you write a good answer, then 8 times out of 10, the reader will check out your blog to see what other content you have on your blog.

Your answer shouldn’t be sales-pitchy or full of multiple links. That kind of promotion and spam, Quora moderators as well as users can see through and will get you banned eventually.

Remember: if you republish the same answer over and over, or if you include too many links, then you may get blacklisted or banned.

You also need to make sure that you actually answer the question, because if you simply write a one-line answer and paste a link to your site, then most likely you will get banned.

As you can see, 1 of Shruti’s answers has got her 184 users in less than three months of publishing:

shruti - get free traffic

As you can see, Quora is a really powerful way of driving traffic. If you are not using it yet, then you should definitely make one of the free traffic sources going forward.

To learn more about Quora and Shruti’s tips on using it, you can check out Shruti’s article on Quora traffic.

2. Pinterest and Tailwind Tribes

You might already know that Pinterest is an incredible traffic platform and is one of the best free traffic sources available to bloggers.

However, you might have never heard about Tailwind Tribes, as it’s a reasonably new software feature (and you can read about my own results with Tailwind Tribes here)

So we got in touch with Angie Gensler from AngieGensler.com to talk about Tailwind Tribes and what she’s been doing on Pinterest using Tribes. She says:

Angie Gensler for Free Traffic Sources article
Angie @ AngieGensler

My number one traffic tip for bloggers is to leverage the power of Pinterest and Tailwind Tribes. When used properly, Pinterest can generate thousands of engaged visitors to your website month-after-month.

In fact, I was able to grow my own blog very quickly using my signature Pinterest Traffic Trifecta strategies. One of those strategies is Tailwind Tribes.

Tailwind is an online software to manage your Pinterest account. Tailwind created Tribes to help their customers collaborate and work together to grow their reach.

A Tribe within Tailwind is simply a group of people in the same niche who want to work with each other to share each other’s content on Pinterest. Below is a screenshot of the Tribes tab within Tailwind:

Tribes Example

There are multiple members within each Tribe.

And each Tribe member can add content (their Pinterest pins) to the Tribe, and nominate them for sharing by others.

Other Tribe members are expected to do the same, and everyone in the Tribe is expected to share each other’s pins by pinning each other’s pins on their own Pinterest profiles, each person sharing each other’s content with their followers.

Since I joined Tribes in January of 2017, my Pins have reached nearly 100 million people! According to my Google Analytics, that reach has directly resulted in an increase in traffic and email subscribers:

Tribes Reach

That’s the power of Pinterest and Tailwind Tribes!

If you’re familiar with Pinterest group boards, Tribes are very similar, but the true magic of Tribes is in the data Tailwind provides.

As a Tribe member, you’re able to see the re-share counts on each Pin in the Tribe. This data is extremely helpful to learn what Pin designs and headlines perform the best.

Tribes are a game-changer for Pinterest marketers! If you aren’t using Tribes to grow your blog yet, you can sign up for Tailwind and start your free trial.

Then, read this post for a detailed guide on how to get started with Tailwind Tribes: How to Use Tailwind Tribes (And Explode Your Website Traffic).

Thank you Angie for sharing that with us. Angie Gensler is the founder of AngieGensler.com, a social media and digital marketing blog. She teaches busy entrepreneurs how to market and grow an online business without the hustle or tech confusion.

Tailwind Tribes is definitely one of the best free traffic sources that can work very quickly and doesn’t require a massive time investment.

3. SEO

Is SEO dead? Fortunately, no. SEO is still one of the best free traffic sources.

As a matter of fact, Google searches have been growing consistently every year (you can read more about that here). And they’re expected to grow for the foreseeable future.

So that means that SEO is still one of the best free traffic sources available and you should be paying close attention to the opportunities to get a slice of the trillions of search engine users onto YOUR website.

In putting this article together, we reached out to Vytautas Palovis, SEO Team Lead @ Oberlo, to see what advice he has for someone looking for additional ways to get free traffic to their site.

Vytautas for the Free Traffic Sources article
Vytautas @ Oberlo

Vytautas says: “Don’t underestimate the power of SEO these days, it’s not dead, far from it”

SEO is evolving, so you should too. Look for trendy topics and write all your articles in an SEO-friendly manner. Write all your content aimed at your readers but with search algorithms in mind.

Blogging and SEO have shared a very close relationship for the past 10 years, and the content quality itself remains one of the most important factors if you want to succeed in Google rankings.

Depending on your industry, I advise you to use tools like Google Keyword planner, or Google trends, to validate your topic idea in terms of monthly search volume around that topic.

If you’re obsessed with SEO, I would recommend using more advanced SEO tools, such as SEMrush, or Ahrefs, so you can dig more into comprehensive keyword research, by checking keyword difficulty and competition score, as well as trying to understand who else is fighting for those search queries.

Depending on your Content Management System (CMS), you should have text analyzer in place as well, so you can optimize the article for keywords you want to rank for. For instance, if you’re using WordPress, Yoast SEO plugin could be a good helper.

Here is an example of how Yoast SEO plugin can help you:

yoast seo

My final piece of advice would be to post blog articles regularly, perhaps 1-2 article a week, as you should aim to increase user engagement metrics and get more returning visitors to your blog.

If you want more tips on how to increase website traffic, check out the recent article on the Oberlo blog which covers additional free traffic sources and ways to increase website traffic.


Mercy MmboneMercy Mmbone from WritingDoozy agrees. She says:

“I mostly focus on SEO to drive traffic to my website. I know that I can get traffic from social media platforms and Pinterest. But I like Google’s traffic the most because it converts the best. What I do is write content that’s of high-quality, include my keywords in the URL, blog title, and throughout within the content.

As you can see I rank at position 3 for this keyword ”blog vs article” due to the SEO effort I put into the article (https://writingdoozy.com/blog-vs-article/).

I also have a couple of other posts on Google’s page 1. So, SEO is what I focus on most to drive traffic to my website.”


SEO Traffic Tip: establish the strength of your competition

Another successful blogger who likes using SEO Traffic is Divine Mwimba from LadiesMakeMoney.com. Here is an excellent tip from her:

“In order to get free traffic to your blog you need to do some major keyword research and in depth research on the topic. Google loves in depth content and long form posts.”

I have been using KeywordsEverywhere to determine if a topic has potential to rank on Google. This means: Are people really searching the internet for the topic I want to write and rank for?

I also want to know how competitive the subject is.

This means looking at the top 10 results that show up on Google and seeing how big the sites are that are ranking for my potential keyword (and the Keywords Everwhere toolbar helps with that).

If there are mostly big sites that have taken up the first ten spots on Google, chances are, I won’t make it. And no one really looks past the second page of Google.

If I think that there are some smaller, weaker sites on Page 1, I will then work on my keyword a little more by making it more long tail, which generally gives me better luck (increases my chances to rank on Page 1).

Once I get the best keyword, I will then find a few more complimentary keywords that I feel I can rank for and sprinkle them throughout my blog posts.

The more complimentary keywords you have, the better! Ensure they are used naturally through out the post.

Finally, I share the post on all my social media network, email list and try to get it featured on other big sites.

Final tip from Divine: The secret is to write more and better content than those on the first 10 page of Google!

Divine is the Creative Director at Culturewedding.ca and Ladiesmakemoney.com, and Co Founder at St-Lucia.ca.

You can read more about her company and services here.


What about creating content that will rank in Google and get you SEO traffic?

This is a topic that makes bloggers sweat – creating the actual content. It’s a lot of work, and how do you ensure that your content is good enough?

Maomao Chia, a freelance developer and blogger, says:

Maomao Chia
Maomao @ Maomao Chia

You need to create an optimized, outstanding post.

Luckily, a great post doesn’t need to be “perfect”, or have no grammar mistakes. And it doesn’t need to be a professional article (like a thesis).

Your article must be on-site optimized. Therefore, H2, H3 and H4 tags are very important in your article writing.

For example, you can use Google Keyword Planner to generate your list of keywords. If you enter “best chicken recipes” into Google Keyword planner, you will get back a bunch of long-tail keywords such as “best chicken recipes for dinner”, “best chicken recipes in the world”, etc.

Try using your main keyword and related long-tail keywords in your article, and using long tail keywords in your H2 titles throughout the article. That will ensure that you give yourself the best possible chance to get as much long-tail traffic as possible.

Also, pay attention to the article structure of your top competitors which appear on the first page of Google search results for your main keyword.

Maomao recommends to check their on-site SEO:

  • Article length
  • Keywords they use in their H2, H3 title (you can press Control+U in most browsers to view site source code)
  • Point layout – how they layout their content
  • How they present their article to reader – general tone and content

Learn why their current article is successful, and try to make similar improvements in your article. And you may just end up finding your article ranked in Google search results 🙂


4. Twitter

Perhaps it’s a surprise to see Twitter here, but it’s actually one of the most effective free traffic sources available today.

Deborah Kay
Deborah @ DigitalDiscovery

We got in touch with Deborah Kay from Digital Discovery and she shared with us her Twitter traffic tips.

Deborah Kay from DigitalDiscovery found a very effective Twitter traffic strategy:

Twitter is the primary driver of traffic to my site, accounting for over 40% of traffic in the last year. Here are two tips on how I do it.

Tip #1. I recycle my best content in evergreen tweets. To do that, I use social media management tool Agorapulse to schedule all my blog posts.

Inside Agorapulse, here is how the post queues work:

twitter traffic source 1

Agorapulse allows you to re-queue tweets and add custom UTM tags them as well:

Twitter - free traffic sources 3.png

Tip #2: I retweet all my best performing tweets. I use a free script that automatically retweets any one of my tweets that has more than 10 likes. You can do it manually too.

Retweeting my best tweets has allowed me to increase link clicks per tweet by 388%. Read more about making Twitter one of your free traffic sources in my blogpost here.


5. Facebook Groups & Social Channels

Social media and general, and specifically Facebook Groups can be very powerful free traffic sources for your blog.

Marta Raptis piece for Free Traffic Sources post
Marta @ MartaRaptis

Marta Raptis from MartaRaptis.com has shared an excellent strategy with us, which utilizes Facebook groups and results in tons of free traffic for her:

There are a few steps I take each and every time I post a new blog on my website. These steps are all part of my strategy that helps me get more readers to my freshly published blog posts. The entire process combined takes no more than thirty minutes in total but is very effective.

Step 1: Share on your social channels

The first thing I do after hitting “publish” is share my blog on each one of my social media platforms by clicking on the social buttons directly from my website below my post. You’ll need to make sure you turn on social sharing on your website in order to be able to do this. Clicking on all of the buttons below takes only a few seconds so it’s nice and easy!

Step 2: Email out to the subscriber list

Next I take a few minutes to copy the first couple of paragraphs of my new article and paste it into a newsletter campaign. This way I can email my subscribers letting them know there is a new post ready for them to read.

I include a button in my email that says “Click here to read the full article”. That way I give my readers a little taste (or a teaser if you will) of what they can learn and entice them to go to my website to read the rest. This trick ensures I get more traffic to my site and is really simple to implement.

Step 3: Using Facebook Groups as a free traffic source

The final thing I always do is go to my Facebook groups and find the threads that invite you to post your new blog post. This step really helps me get more eyes on my new piece of content, so I highly encourage you to do it.

So for example, The Rising Tide Society Facebook group has a weekly thread on Wednesdays called “Blog Love Wednesday”. I always share my latest blog link there and get people coming over to read it. There are plenty of other Facebook groups for entrepreneurs with their own weekly threads that allow blog link sharing on dedicated days of the week. You can join whatever group your ideal client hangs out in and look out for those threads there.

BONUS TIP: After I’ve done all of the above, I also make sure to schedule my new blog post as a pin on Pinterest by using Tailwind to post it at the best time in multiple boards that I’ve selected. Using Tailwind has been a game changer in my overall site traffic, so I highly recommend trying it out!

Facebook Groups are probably one of the most under-used free traffic sources, so you should definitely give them a try!

6. Monitoring Social Media

Louise Brogan piece for the Free Traffic post
Louise @ SocialBeeni

Louise Brogan from SocialBeeni has given us another bit of advice with one more free traffic source that you can use for your blog or website:

It’s a good idea to listen to what the audience on social media are asking about. Then she creates blog posts to help answer those questions.

She says: “When I see someone ask a question such as ‘how to build your audience online’ I can send them to the blogpost which I have already written.

Moving my audience from social media to my website is key for me, with the aim of building my email list and creating an engaged loyal audience.”

So to put it into a practical perspective, here is how you can implement this strategy:

  • Join various Facebook groups in your niche (or LinkedIn chats or see what your friends who are in the same niche are posting about).
  • Check most common questions that people ask
  • Create articles on your blog addressing these questions
  • Next time when you see this question ask in another post, simply reply to that post with the link to your blog where you’re addressing that question

You can read about several more free traffic sources on Louise Brogan’s blog here: 7 Ways To Grow Your Audience Online.

Wrap Up & What To Do Next

That’s it – these are some of the best free traffic sources you can use today to get fast traffic to your blog or website.

If you enjoyed this post, then please consider sharing this article using one of the social sharing buttons above or below this post 🙂

Also, join my newsletter and get my Traffic Course as a bonus:

My FREE Traffic Course: How I Generate Blog Visitors

Sign up to my newsletter & instantly get this free Course as a bonus!

Comment & Further Reading

Let’s stay in touch! Leave me a comment below and let me know what you thought of the post.

Do you know any other free traffic sources that should be included? Perhaps you’d like to be featured on this post as well as a contributor? Drop me a comment and lets chat.

Here are some other posts from our site that you may like:

    17 replies to "Free Traffic Sources: Explode Your Website With High Quality Traffic – Fast!"

    • Marta Raptis

      Thanks for the feature! I also enjoyed reading everyone else’s tips. We can all benefit from doing something more to generate website traffic. These are all great tips.

      • Greg Kononenko

        Hi Marta, thank you so much for sharing your strategy with us!

    • Francis

      Eine gute Möglichkeit. in den Sozialen Medien Fuß zu fassen.
      Danke dafĂŒr.

      Mfg Gunter

      • Greg Kononenko

        Hi Francis, I put that into Google Translate, got this: “A good opportunity. to gain a foothold in the social media. Thanks for that.”. Hope it’s correct – and you’re very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.

    • Mercy Mmbone

      Hey Greg,

      Thanks so much for including me in this post.

      I’ve learned that in looking to increase a site’s traffic, there’s no one size fit all strategy. Everybody has there own way of driving traffic to their websites, which works perfectly for them. When each of us tries to implement all these methods shared here in this informative post then I believe the traffic will be way better than what we currently have.

      Thanks so much for sharing this with us.

      Mercy Mmbone.

    • ivanochat2

      Hi Greg!

      I know it has nothing to do with the post but I really like the design of the website and. was wondering how are you able to set your post title background color to purple while your featured image is this:
      https://i1.wp.com/www.caffeinatedblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Free-Traffic-Sources-featured-image.png?resize=420%2C260&ssl=1

      BTW I enjoy your youtube videos!

      • Greg Kononenko

        Hi, thank you for the comment! It’s in the theme options, I use OptimizePress Smart Theme theme, and it has that setting, both Global and per-post. Smart Theme comes with any OptimizePress purchase.

    • w3techweb.com

      Hi Brother as a new blogger This Artikle Is Very Helpful For ME. thanks you for share. [ From Bangladesh ]

    • Rayyan Ayyubi

      Nice Work ! Thank You for Sharing great Article.
      I have some SEO Tricks which helps to rank faster on Google don’t forget to check it out

    • aram

      hi Greg, really it’s an awesome post to bring in free traffic, it’s very helpful to a new blogger like me. I like and implemented the tailwind tribes strategy, it’s working. Thanks again.

    • Adekunle Ajayi

      This is a great list of posts you have put up Greg…will put it on my bookmark for later in-depth reading

    • Enstine Muki

      SEO has been my #1 source of traffic since I got into blogging. But recently, I started with Pinterest and it’s closely following behind SEO. Pinterest may be my first channel in the next few months and I can really see this coming 😉

    • James Mulatya

      Great post. I like going through your content with a fine tooth comb and I never get disappointed. I started blogging as a result of going through your courses. Stay blessed n stay caffeinated.

      • Greg Kononenko

        Hi James, thanks for your feedback and good luck blogging 🙂

    • Nikola Roza

      Hi Greg,
      I think that SEO is always going to be number #1 free traffic source for most websites, but the truly successful ones learn to diversify and not putt all their eggs in Google’s basket.
      But the key is to introduce other channels one by one. If you try to get them all at once,- you will fail miserably.

    • Naresh Kumar

      You are awesome your lot of post ranked on Google, you have beautifully described how to get traffic that is the major problem of majority of people how you do that very quickly. Quora and Pinterest ok but getting SEO traffic need skill what is that skill can you elaborate.

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