The #1 question we get over, and over, and over again, is “how do I get more traffic to my site?”

To answer that, we came up with 134 ways to do just that and every single one has a short description to help get your ideas flowing.

Since this is a MASSIVE list, here’s what I recommend so you can sort the full list by time, cost and impact:

Get our traffic tactics spreadsheet!

Traffic Generation Categories:

33 Social Media Traffic Tactics You Need to Start Using Today

Website Traffic Tactic #1: Create a Facebook Chatbot

Use a Facebook Chatbot like Chatfuel or ManyChat to build a Facebook Messenger list, then start sending your top content to your chatbot subscribers.

Click here to see Sumo Bot in action and see what free website traffic gift we are giving away today.

Website Traffic Tactic #2: Prove You’re the Expert Using Quora

Create a Quora profile with a link back to your page or to relevant articles, then start posting answers to questions that people have.

As appropriate, you can include links to your articles in the answers, which will drive even more traffic back to you.

Just be careful not to seem too spammy or self-promotional. Your answers should provide value, with the link to your site being an added bonus.

Next Steps:

Create a Quora account Follow topics relevant to what you work on or write about Start engaging!

Website Traffic Tactic #3: Share Your Articles to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Okay, this one’s obvious, but I wanted to remind you of it in case you’re the type that hates self-promotion.

Show your readers value instead of just promoting your brand and this tactic will soon become your favorite one.

Website Traffic Tactic #4: Create a Branded Facebook Page

Aside from your personal Facebook page, create a “brand” Facebook page that links to your site and shares your latest articles.

This keeps readers up to date on the content you’re creating, it also shows them what your brand is up to, and is a necessary step if you eventually want to tackle Facebook ads.

A branded Facebook page also helps your search engine rankings since it’s another trustworthy source to add to your digital presence.

When people are looking for you on Google, they’ll see this in addition to your website.

Next Steps: This is a big part of getting free traffic from Facebook, so be sure to check out this guide we created to really master this important area!

Website Traffic Tactic #5: Don’t Forget to Use this Important Space on Your Twitter Profile

On your Twitter profile there’s a space to include a URL-- don’t let this precious area go to waste and use it!

Include a link to your site, newsletter, or best-performing article so that when people see you on Twitter they know where they can get more of your content or learn more about your business.

Website Traffic Tactic #6: Your Instagram Profile Should Have this Too

Just like Twitter, Instagram gives you just enough space to add a link to your website. This is actually the only place on Instagram you can use a URL, so take advantage of it!

When people find your pictures in their feed, they’ll know where to go to see more of what you have to offer. But they can’t do this if you don’t give them a link to use so be sure to add yours today.

Website Traffic Tactic #7: DM Your New Followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

Anytime you gain a new follower on your social media platforms, reach out to them using a direct message, or DM.

Here, you can thank them for the follow and share your website link + a short sentence on why you think it could be relevant to them.

Bonus points if you can make your messages personal instead of sending a generic one each time.

Website Traffic Tactic #8: Are You Using Your Skype Status Wisely?

Always include a link to your site in your Skype status. It’s a nice, friendly reminder to anyone you’re connected with to check out your site and see what’s new.

Website Traffic Tactic #9: Your Pinterest Profile Can Give You a Nice Little Boost Too

Having a link to your site from your social media profiles not only helps people discover you, it also helps you get a bit more SEO juice to your site by pointing more profiles at it.

So, again, be sure your Pinterest profile has a link to your site in it too.

Website Traffic Tactic #10: Start Posting Videos on YouTube

Videos can be an excellent way to supplement your content.

Create ones that:

Walk customers through how to do something Give your audience a behind the scenes look of you working on your business Showcase your latest (or upcoming) products (teaser videos work great for this!)

Try showing different things and seeing what people resonate with most.

Next Steps: For help on growing your YouTube channel, be sure to check out this guide.

Website Traffic Tactic #11: Are You Using Flickr Yet?

Any pictures you’ve taken or made for your site can be submitted to picture sharing sites like Flickr. This tactic isn’t popular, but definitely still gets traffic.

As long as you link those photos back to your site, you’ll see a nice little increase in traffic.

Here’s why: photos from these image aggregators rank higher in Google, so if those images come up higher in searches, so will your website.

Next Steps: If you don’t already have a Flickr account, that’s your next step.

From there, as you take pictures, upload them with links back to your site.

Website Traffic Tactic #12: Your LinkedIn Page Can Also Work For You

Include a link to your site in your LinkedIn description. If it’s part of your work, include it as your experience as well.

This simple move gives you traffic from people visiting your LinkedIn and adds legitimacy to your site since you have it listed as a business.

Next Steps: Here some other proven ways to maximize your traffic from LinkedIn.

Website Traffic Tactic #13: Use LinkedIn Groups as Another Place to Share Your Content

Join LinkedIn groups related to your target market and share your articles there.

To avoid coming across as spammy, you’ll need to be interactive and helpful with answering questions in those groups instead of just only posting your articles each time.

This tactic works well since many people in these professional groups are also looking for things to share on their sites, so putting your content in front of them this way (as long as it’s related to their interests) can get you more shares as well.

Next Steps: This tactic is also in our guide on getting traffic from LinkedIn.

Website Traffic Tactic #14: Your GitHub Profile Can Be Clutch Too

If you’re a developer and regularly use GitHub, include your URL on your profile page to send people to your site.

Then, as you contribute to public repositories or help out with other people’s bugs, you’ll have people checking out your profile and your site.

Website Traffic Tactic #15: Are You Linking to Other Niche Social Networks Too?

If you use any other smaller social networks, include links to your site from your profiles there as well.

Sometimes these niche ones will convert even higher since the people there are more involved with the community, and if you’re an active member they’ll be interested in seeing more about you too.

Website Traffic Tactic #16: Let Buffer’s Automation Make Your Job Easier

When you post a new article don’t just share it once, use Buffer to schedule it to share multiple times in the near future.

You can:

Tweet about it a few times in the next week

Post it to Facebook and LinkedIn twice

Or use whatever schedule you think works best for your audience.

This tactic:

Gives your content a second (or third) chance to catch readers who may have missed it

Serves as a gentle nudge for anyone who saw your post but didn’t get a chance to actually read what you have to say

Website Traffic Tactic #17: MeetEdgar Can Also Help You Share Your Content Over and Over Again (Without Adding More Work)

On top of Buffer, use MeetEdgar to automatically re-share content later.

MeetEdgar adds your content to a library and then shares it out on a schedule so that you don’t have to keep Buffering it in the future.

With this, you’ll always have good content going out to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn audiences, without having to worry about it!

Website Traffic Tactic #18: Don’t Forget About the Redheaded Stepchild Google+

Sure, there are only a few people hanging out on Google+, but it doesn’t hurt to post your articles there as well.

Pro tip: be sure to categorize your content using the right #hashtags!

Website Traffic Tactic #19: Include a Link in Your Google+ Profile Too

Just like Facebook and Twitter, having a G+ profile with a link to your site not only helps you get traffic from a new audience, it also gives your site more authority in Google’s eyes.

Website Traffic Tactic #20: Use Google+ Communities to Spread Your Reach

Beyond just sharing your content on your own Google+ page, there are tons of communities within G+ that you can join and share your content to.

This is a great option if you don’t have many followers on G+, since members of a community are usually going to be more active than the hundreds of followers you might have who never log on.

Website Traffic Tactic #21: Don’t Forget to Share on Pinterest Too

If you have strong visuals to go with your products or articles (which you should), share them on Pinterest using relevant hashtags.

People on Pinterest love anything artsy, visual, or creative, so now’s the time to show off that part of your brand.

And don’t forget to link back to your site (is this obvious yet?)!

Website Traffic Tactic #22: Snapchat Can Also Be a Great Place to Share Your Articles

Include your snapchat username and your “snapcode” on your blog and encourage people to follow you. It’s a good way to engage with your audience.

Whenever you publish a new post you can take a few snaps of it telling your followers to go read it.

Website Traffic Tactic #23: You’re Sharing Your Articles on Instagram Too Right?

Obviously you can’t share a whole article to Instagram, but you can take one quote or idea from it.

Using a tool like Canva, you can easily create a nice image out of it, share that to Instagram, and use the caption to tell your followers to go to your profile link and website to read more.

Website Traffic Tactic #24: Don’t Forget to Use “Shoutouts” on Instagram

Reach out to an Instagram account with a similar audience and size to you and offer to do a shoutout. You shoutout one of their posts (branded with their URL) and in return, they shoutout one of yours. It’s like guest posting for social media!

Next Steps: Make a list of other Instagram accounts in your niche, and then as you gain more followers, offer to do shoutouts.

Website Traffic Tactic #25: WhatsApp Sharing Should Be Your New Bestie

Your audience might be more international than you realize.

Check your Google Analytics for the location details from people visiting your site, and if a decent percentage are from outside the US, encourage your audience to share articles to their WhatsApp friends using Share buttons.

It surprised me too, but a lot of sites are getting a good amount of traffic through WhatsApp sharing.

Website Traffic Tactic #26: Create SlideShares of Your Content

Whenever you have a particularly good piece of content, create a SlideShare of it as an additional way for people to digest and share the most important points.

This also puts you in the SlideShare content network, where you can get discovered by people browsing through SlideShares to learn new things.

Just be sure to include links back to your site!

Website Traffic Tactic #27: Host Periscope Sessions

Twitter’s popular app, Periscope, allows you to stream live videos to your followers. This lets you engage with them directly and gives you an opportunity to answer any questions your audience has.

Then, as you’re broadcasting, mention articles or products of yours they should look at as they apply to the questions being asked.

Website Traffic Tactic #28: Facebook Live is Also Another Live-Streaming Platform You Should Use

Just like with Periscope, live streaming to your audience is not only a great way to boost engagement but it can also drive traffic to your site like Noah did on this Facebook Live.

When your followers come up with questions, you can answer them on the spot and mention additional resources to help them further (links to articles on the topic or other helpful information on your site).

Website Traffic Tactic #29: Create Share-Worthy Infographics

Create visually appealing infographics out of your best posts on Fiverr and share them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

At the very bottom of the image, include a link back to your site so anyone can easily find your site and, once it’s shared, you’ll increase your reach.

You can also let people reading the original article download the infographic to refer back to later, or share on social media from the actual image if you use Sumo Share.

Next Steps: If you want to make infographics to go along with your content, check out sites like Piktochart and Venngage.

Website Traffic Tactic #30: Always Add Sharing Buttons to Your Site

One easy way to encourage other people to share your content (and thus increase your traffic) is to add social sharing buttons (like the ones you see on the left).

These powerful tools take just a few seconds to set up and they offer a nice return on increasing your website traffic.

Website Traffic Tactic #31: Shout Out the Experts You Mentioned in Your Content

If you mention an influencer or brand in your content, shoot them an email or tag them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. If the content is good and makes them look good, they’ll frequently share it with their audiences.

Next Steps: Anytime you post a new piece of epic content, make a list of people you mentioned in the article and send them a quick tweet or email with a link to the article!

Website Traffic Tactic #32: Get Involved in Twitter Chats

One way to get more targeted traffic from Twitter is to join Twitter chats on topics that are relevant to your brand.

Regular chats are listed here and usually happen at a certain time of the week and are followed by a hashtag (e.g. #ContentChat every Monday at 3-4pm ET).

Anytime you want to contribute to the chat, just include the hashtag with your tweet and you’re in.

If someone asks for information on a topic that you know you have an article on, or that's relevant to your brand, drop a link to your site, so long as you don't seem overly spammy or self-promotional.

Next Steps: We wrote a helpful guide on getting more traffic from Twitter, so if you’re looking for other useful tips, check it out.

Website Traffic Tactic #33: Start a Twitter Chat

If there's not a good Twitter chat to join, or if you just want to own your own, consider starting one!

It's a great way to engage with your community and build your Twitter presence, and also to figure out what questions your readers have that you could answer with future content.

Next Steps:

Pick a topic, hashtag, date and time. Let your audience know about the chat by email and add it here Once it starts, get the discussion going by posting some questions you have for your audience. Make sure you respond to every tweet to keep people engaged!

11 Ways to Drive Traffic Using Message Boards

Since message boards are mostly for discussions, there’s one golden rule you should follow when using them:

Always give more than you take.

Be an active, contributing member in the community before you ask people to check out your site. Don’t just run in and throw your links around hoping people will click them. They won’t, they’ll get annoyed at you, and you might get banned.

Website Traffic Tactic #34: Post in Yahoo Groups

Yahoo Groups are communities of like minded people talking about their interests, and is a perfect place to find people who could be interested in your products or content.

Website Traffic Tactic #35: You Should Also Post in Facebook Groups

A Facebook Group is a common and popular way to find people who are interested in the niche that you’re targeting. It’s easy to search Facebook for all of the groups related to your field, and then you can pick the ones that have the most people and activity.

One thing to note is that many groups have rules about when you can post links to your site (for example, certain days of the week only), and how active you can be in plugging yourself, so make sure you read the sidebar or pinned posts with rules before you share anything!

Next Steps: This is a big part of getting free traffic from Facebook, so be sure to check out our guide on that!

Website Traffic Tactic #36: Create Your Own Facebook Group

Another option if you don’t want to play by the rules of other people’s Facebook groups is to make your own. Create a group for people interested in the kinds of things you talk about or sell on your site, and build a community of like minded people discussing that niche.

Then, when you have new articles or content, you can share as much as you want! Just don’t do it too much or you’ll turn people off from the community and they’ll think you’re using them.

Next Steps: This also falls under the umbrella of free traffic from Facebook, so be sure to check out that guide once you’re done with this one.

Website Traffic Tactic #37: Post in Google Groups

Similar to Yahoo groups, you can find Google Groups that fit your niche and share articles or ideas there too.

Website Traffic Tactic #38: Post to Slack Teams

If you’re a member of any Slack Teams, you can share your new articles there with people who might be interested in them. Or you can share a link to another place that you’ve posted your article (such as reddit) and suggest they go vote it up and comment on it.

Next Steps: Join some related slack communities and start engaging! For a list of potential ones, check out Slack List.

Website Traffic Tactic #39: Create Your Own Slack Team

Just like with Facebook, sometimes the best strategy is to just make your own Slack community and share your content there. That way you know you won’t get in trouble with the admins, and you also know that everyone who’s in the Slack team is interested in what you have to share with them.

As an experiment, we created a Slack team to go along with our Traffic1M course, and it ended up getting over 6,000 signups!

Website Traffic Tactic #40: Post in Niche Forums

Aside from the big chat platforms like Google, Facebook, and Slack, you can find more niche forums on specific topics related to your industry.

With these especially, it’s important to become an active contributing member before you ask for anything from them. Don’t just run in and start promoting yourself, become a respected contributor so that members want to read your stuff.

Website Traffic Tactic #41: Post to Reddit

Find relevant subreddits to your niche and share your content or products there.

Just be careful! Reddit doesn’t like self promotion, so you don’t want to just throw links to your site up without becoming a member of the community first.

Also, make sure to look at their guidelines for what they allow to be posted. Some subreddits will only let you submit text, others will let links but no personal blog posts, and so on. Follow the rules and you won’t get banned.

Next Steps: Eddy Azar explained exactly how to growth hack Reddit for massive traffic in this guide. Check it out!

Website Traffic Tactic #42: Host a Reddit AMA

If you have a small audience initially, and can speak as an expert in your field, try hosting a Reddit AMA where your audience and other people on Reddit can ask you questions.

Do it within a more targeted subreddit than the default AMA one. If you write a lot about carpentry, try doing an AMA on your experience as a carpenter in /r/carpentry.

Website Traffic Tactic #43: Share Your Product on Product Hunt

If you have an actual product, book, game, or podcast episode, you can submit it to Product Hunt and be included in their daily list of cool new things for other people on the Internet to find.

If you resonate with their community, you’ll likely get thousands, or tens of thousands, of new site visitors.

Website Traffic Tactic #44: Submit Your Content to Community Sites

There are also a number of sites similar to Reddit for sharing articles or information, such as Inbound or GrowthHackers or Triberr.

Sharing new articles to these sites can result in a ton of new traffic as well, so long as you don’t come across as spammy and make sure that you’re sharing something worthwhile.

4 Email Tactics Guaranteed to Increase Your Website Traffic

Here’s how to drive traffic to your site using your emails:

Website Traffic Tactic #45: Update Your Email Signature

In your email signature, set your name to link to your site, or include a call to action in the signature telling people why they should go look at your site.

Website Traffic Tactic #46: Update the Email Signatures of Your Whole Company

If you have a team, make sure that everyone in the company has their email signatures driving traffic back to the site, especially if there’s something specific you want people to do like refer their friends for Sumo jobs.

Website Traffic Tactic #47: Add a Link to Your Site in Your Autoresponder

If you go offline for a few days, set up a “vacation” autoresponder that tells people to check out your site while you’re gone.

Or just set one up to go out all the time saying you’re slow at responding to email. A little annoying? Yes, but you’ll get a lot less email and more traffic :)

Website Traffic Tactic #48: Direct, Targeted, Email Outreach

Submitted by Darren Davis of Link Caffeine.[*]

Before or after you write a post, you can find people who have tweeted about similar topics using BuzzSumo then reach out to them about your upcoming, or posted article.

Based on this feedback from Heidi, Chris added Tip #1 about conversions and Tip #8 about rituals to this Tony Robbins website traffic article.

You can also ask them if they'd like an early look, and to possibly be mentioned in it, and then their investment will likely result in them helping a bit with promotion once it's live!

5 PR / Press Traffic Tactics You’re Probably Not Using (& Should Be)

Did you know that you can increase your website traffic using PR tactics? Check out how in this next section.

Website Traffic Tactic #49: Alert Blogs / Publications

If you have a new product, feature or milestone that certain blogs or publications would want to tell their readers about, let the writers know! They’re always looking for great stories, and if you know how to pitch, getting picked up isn’t too hard.

Next Steps: Read Jordan’s article on how to get press coverage and follow his steps to get easy exposure.

Website Traffic Tactic #50: Get Listed on Google News

If you have a news site, or are putting out a lot of timely content, you should work on getting listed in Google News.

All it requires is a few changes to how your articles are structured, following some of their content rules, and applying through Google News Publisher Center.

You’ll then immediately be exposed to hundreds of thousands more people with each article.

Website Traffic Tactic #51: Get Featured on HARO

By signing up for HARO (help a reporter out) you have the opportunity to be interviewed by reporters looking for experts in a certain field.

They need people to interview for articles, so they turn to HARO to source them. When you select a few fields that you’re knowledgeable in, you’ll get emails daily from reporters looking for experts on related topics.

Then, if you’re interviewed, you can mention an article or part of your site relevant to the interview.

Website Traffic Tactic #52: Go on the Radio

Reach out to radio stations in your area (or nationally) about bringing you on to talk about any issues or topics relevant to your niche.

Simply send the radio station a message via Facebook or email with the value you can add to their audience and asking who the appropriate person is to speak to.

Making yourself available as an expert makes their life easier since now they know who they need to go to whenever they need a guest to talk about certain areas.

Then during the broadcast make sure there’s a way for you to tactfully mention your site. Ideally, they’ll mention it in the intro and outro of your interview.

Website Traffic Tactic #53: Go on TV

Similar to radio, if you can be interviewed for TV segments on topics related to your niche, they’ll usually include mentions of your site which results in new traffic for you.

Simply find the contact page of the TV network you want to contact and send them as request. Look out for Sumo on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS soon!

The easiest way to make this happen is to start small with local news networks firsts, and then use those interviews to work your way up to the big ones.

12 Ways Your Own Site Can Increase Your Website Traffic

Are you using your site to increase your website traffic? It may seem like an oxymoron, but it’s not. See for yourself:

Website Traffic Tactic #54: Grow Your Email List

A big email list is your best asset for getting more traffic. Your email subscribers will be the first ones to read your content and share it with their audiences, giving you that initial boost whenever you publish something.

And if you offer products, they’ll be the first ones to buy them and check them out.

Next Steps: If you want some ideas on great ways to grow your email list, Robbie explains how he got 2,239 email subscribers from scratch.

Website Traffic Tactic #55: Run a Giveaway

A giveaway is an excellent tactic to get more traffic to your site as well as get more email subscribers. Just install KingSumo, decide on some prizes related to your niche, and then email your list and promote the giveaway on social media.

Since the giveaway incentivizes people to invite their friends to it, you’ll see a ton of referral traffic from the participants inviting their friends.

Done right, a giveaway can result in tens of thousands of new subscribers.

Website Traffic Tactic #56: Use Snip.ly to Drive Traffic Back to You

When you share content, do it with a Snip.ly link so that when people go read it there’s also a call to action to go and visit your site. This way when you’re sharing things you’re promoting yourself as well as other people’s sites.

Website Traffic Tactic #57: Offer a Free Product

Create a free product related to your site’s content, host it on your site, and then share it with your audience.

If the product is good and people are visiting the page, not only will it get picked up by search engines, but the early people you send it to will tell their friends about it and drive more traffic your way.

Next Steps: HubSpot created their “Website Grader” to analyze people’s sites, make recommendations, and then upsell them on HubSpot.

Learn from this and consider: Is there some sort of related tool you can make for your audience?

Website Traffic Tactic #58: Sell a Bundle with Other Products

Reach out to products and blogs with similar audiences to yours, and suggest doing a product bundle between yourselves.

Then when you launch the bundle, promote it to your audience, and make sure they promote it to their audiences too. Everyone involved will get more traffic, as well as make more sales!

Next Steps: We regularly do this with bundles like AppSumo Briefcase. Is there a combination of products that your audience needs that you can partner with?

Website Traffic Tactic #59: Interview Influencers on Your Site

By interviewing an influencer in your space, and making sure it’s excellent, you lend credibility to your site by having them on it, and you can ask them to share it with their audiences.

This also gives you an opportunity to rank on Google for their name, so that when people are searching for more info on them, your site pops up.

Website Traffic Tactic #60: Write an Expert Roundup Post

Beyond interviewing just one person to feature them on your site, write an “expert roundup” where you reach out to a number of different experts to get their opinions on a topic.

This has the benefit of potentially getting promotion from a bunch of influencers, as well as lending a lot of credibility to your content from having that many influencers’ names on it.

Next Steps: Want to create a killer expert roundup? Check out how Tor got 20,321 visitors from one epic roundup post.

Website Traffic Tactic #61: Review Companies and Products

If you write a good, honest review of a company or product, they’ll likely share it with their audience.

All you have to do is show it to them so they know to let their audiences know.

Website Traffic Tactic #62: Host a Webinar, Ask Your List to Promote

Put together a free webinar on something that you know your audience will be interested in, and then ask them to invite their friends to join in on it.

Here is Sumo’s webinar on “How To Grow Your Website Traffic.”

As long as it’s a truly free, no-sale webinar, people will appreciate the free information and be more willing to invite their friends to join in.

Website Traffic Tactic #63: Post Job Listings

A job listing is a great way to put your site in front of a new audience. Here is what we do at Sumo on Built In Austin.

Don’t do this unless you’re actually trying to hire someone, of course, but when you do, make sure that the job listing is also exciting enough that it gets people to visit your site.

Website Traffic Tactic #64: Create a Forum On Your Site

If you want to keep people discussing your site on your site, you can use simply plugins like bbPress to add a forum.

The benefit to having it on your own site is that then you’re getting a bunch of traffic back to your site when people want to have a discussion, and since you’re in charge you can link to your articles as much as you want.

Website Traffic Tactic #65: Publish Awards

This is another Sumo-submitted tip from Bryan of UpGrow this time.[*]

Depending on the type of content you create, you can publish awards to companies in your industry in order to recognize them for excellence in certain areas.

As the awards gain recognition, the sites that get selected will be more motivated to publish them and brag about winning, driving traffic back to you as the creator of the award

21 Growth-Packed Traffic Tactics That Don’t Involve Your Website

Have you ever considered using other sites to drive traffic to your website? Check out how this works:

Website Traffic Tactic #66: Become a Guest on a Well-Known Podcast

Find a small podcast that talks about anything related to your business, and then reach out to the host about interviewing you as a guest. Once you’ve done a smaller one, you can use that interview to score bigger and better ones and move up through the podcast ranks!

Just be sure that there’s a mention of your site and business somewhere in the interview and show notes, and that they mention you just before the episode ends.

Next Steps: Need help getting started here? Check out our guide to getting interviewed on podcasts and get to work!

Website Traffic Tactic #67: Start Your Own Podcast

Instead of spending time trying to get on someone else’s podcast, why not start your own?

Think of influencers you’d want to interview from your target market and invite them to be guests on your show.

Depending on how big your reach is, it might be harder to get bigger guests, but as your audience grows you’ll be able to get more and more influential people to join you.

Once the episode airs, ask your guest to promote the show to their audience. With every new guest you have, you’ll increase your exposure exponential.

Next Steps: Check out our step-by-step guide to starting and growing your podcast from 0 to 10k downloads in one month.

Website Traffic Tactic #68: Become a Case Study on Well-Known Blog

If you present yourself as an expert, other sites could be interested in interviewing you to create good content for their audiences.

We did this by interviewing Jules Pieri of The Grommet. She got a bunch of new traffic to her site, and we got a great story for our audience.

Next Steps: Reach out to blogs with an audience related to yours and pitch yourself as a good story for their audience.

Website Traffic Tactic #69: Comment on Relevant Blogs

Fill up your RSS reader (Feedly, for example) with blogs that have audiences similar to yours. Whenever new posts go out that you can add thoughts to, jump in and leave comments that add to the discussion.

Don’t just ham-fistedly promote your site--provide value!

Most commenting platforms let you link your name to your site, and that’s more than enough. If you’re writing interesting comments, people will visit your site.

Next Steps: Curate a list of blogs related to your niche using Feedly or another RSS manager. Each time you see a new article you know something about, leave a thoughtful comment.

Website Traffic Tactic #70: Do a Webinar for Another Site’s Audience

Reach out to sites with large mailing lists and offer to teach something to their subscribers for free. Make it a great webinar, include mentions of your own site, and people who like what you’re teaching will want to visit your site and learn more.

Website Traffic Tactic #71: Get Quoted in an Expert Roundup

If someone reaches out to you asking for a quote or your opinion for an article, always give them one!

Tell them that you just want them to link back to your site with your quote, and they’ll usually be more than happy to do it.

Next Steps: The best thing you can do is be an active contributor to communities related to your niche. This way, when other people are looking for experts to interview, your name will be on the top of their minds

Website Traffic Tactic #72: Submit Your Site to Aggregators

Site aggregators like Digg and AllTop are a good place to submit your site to so that it can be found by people looking for new sites to check out.

And if it gets accepted and performs well there, they’ll feature it higher, and the free traffic will start rolling in.

Website Traffic Tactic #73: Use Someone’s Product and Let Them Tell Your Story

Email the marketing team at a product you love and tell them how you’ve used their product to make your life better.

If it’s a good story, they might want to write about it and feature it on their site including links back to yours.

Website Traffic Tactic #74: Sell Your Product on Marketplaces

Use marketplaces like Craigslist, Etsy, eBay, Shopify, Amazon, and more to give your product more reach. When shipping it, include notes with links back to your site to convince them to buy directly from you in the future.

Here is Sumo’s Shopify Marketplace listing where people can add Sumo directly to their Shopify store and then get redirected to the Sumo site.

Website Traffic Tactic #75: Create an eBook and List it On Amazon

Take some of your best content that fits under a certain theme, compile it into an eBook, and then sell it or give it away for free on Amazon’s Kindle platform like Sumo did here.

Amazon will also let you list your book as free for a limited time if it’s normally paid, and during that period you can feature it as a freebie on deals sites to get more downloads.

Just make sure to include lots of links back to your site in the eBook!

Website Traffic Tactic #76: Give Your eBook Away For Free

Take the eBook you created and give it away for free.

The more people you can help with your content, the more likely they are to buy from you.

Website Traffic Tactic #77: List Your Physical or Virtual Business on Yelp, Foursquare, etc.

Whether you have a physical or virtual location, make sure that it’s listed on discovery and rating platforms like Foursquare and Yelp.

Not only will this help people find your business, but you’ll get more traffic to your site when people are looking for more information.

For a virtual business, just list your State, Zipcode and Country to get a free link.

Website Traffic Tactic #78: Guest Post on Relevant Sites

Reach out to sites in the same niche as you and suggest content that their audience might be interested in.

Then just include a few tactful links back to your site and products, without making it seem like you’re just trying to promote yourself.

Next Steps: Find sites in a similar space to you, then follow John’s steps to doing a great guest post.

Website Traffic Tactic #79: Run a Free Promo on a Deals Site

Email companies like AppSumo about your product and offer to do a deal for their audience.

If the product is good and they think it’ll sell well, you could be promoted to hundreds of thousands of people.

Website Traffic Tactic #80: Acquire Someone Else’s Newsletter

You might find a site that’s no longer active, but that has a large email list built up. Reach out to whoever used to run it and offer to purchase their email list and pitch them on your own site.

This could result in thousands of new regular visitors, as well as a sizeable boost to your newsletter.

Next Steps: If you find a site that’s no longer active, reach out to the authors about acquiring their email list.

Website Traffic Tactic #81: Acquire Someone Else’s Product

Search ProductHunt for products complimentary to your business that may not be updated.

Reach out to the founder and see how their product is going since they launched on ProductHunt.

Offer to acquire their business and then use their customer list to send traffic to your own business.

Website Traffic Tactic #82: Do a Cross-Promotion with Another Site

Find another site in the same space as you and offer to promote them to your audience in exchange for them promoting you to theirs, either through linking out in blog posts or through mentioning each other in your newsletters.

By doing this, you’ll know that you’re getting qualified traffic, and if you both benefit from it, you can keep the relationship going.

Website Traffic Tactic #83: Syndicate Your Content to Other Sites

If you don’t have as much time for guest posting, another option is to let other aggregator sites republish your content to their audiences.

As long as you include links to your other articles in the post, it’s a great way to get in front of a new audience and drive more traffic to your site. As a bonus, this also helps with SEO.

Next Steps: Check out Sarah's epic guide to easily republishing your content on big sites for a massive increase in traffic!

Website Traffic Tactic #84: Repurpose Your Content for Medium

In-between syndicating and guest posting, you can also repurpose your content into smaller pieces (with links to your site, of course) and publish it on Medium.

Since Medium has publications with thousands of readers, if you can get your piece picked up by one you’ll get a ton of new readers that you never would have otherwise reached.

Next Steps: Try Cathryn and Allen’s “Medium Hack” to gain a ton of quick exposure.

Website Traffic Tactic #85: Republish Your Content on Secondary Blog Networks

Create a Tumblr, LinkedIn, Squarespace blog, Quora blog, or any other “secondary” blog platform and republish all of your content on it with links back to your site.

You can also publish the content as “posts” to social sites like reddit and LinkedIn, as long form content meant to spark discussion.

Next Steps: Set up blogs on other platforms, and then use services like IFTTT to automatically republish to them, or quickly do it manually with tools like Medium’s story importer.

Website Traffic Tactic #86: Create a Wikipedia Page

If you already have some impact and reach, you can submit for a Wikipedia page to be made about yourself or your business. Then within the page you can link back to your own site to drive more traffic to it.

Next Steps: Wikipedia’s approval process is pretty strict so be sure to read their policies before attempting to write your page. This simple step will save you countless hours in the approval process.

Website Traffic Tactic #87: Add Your Articles as Wikipedia References

Find Wikipedia articles about topics that you’ve written about or have content around, and then suggest that parts of Wikipedia pages be linked back to your site as a reference. It’s a nofollow link, but it can still help send some traffic your way.

Website Traffic Tactic #88: Sell Your Product through Affiliates

Submitted by fellow Sumo Sid of Personal Trainers London.[*]

Get other people to sell your product by sending you qualified leads. If they buy, you give the affiliate a percentage. Even if the visitors don’t buy, they’ll hopefully share your content, or sign up for your list.

Next Steps: There are lots of Wordpress plugins, such as AffiliateWP that will manage the technical aspects of tracking who came from where for you.

Website Traffic Tactic #89: Build a Related Micro-Site

This one comes from Bryan of UpGrow.[*]

To capitalize on search engine rankings, and to give your audience other places to find you, you can create a micro-site based on a certain aspect of what you're already talking about or selling on your main site.

For example, we've created email courses around growing your email list or getting your first million visitors to create more ways for people to find out about Sumo.

Website Traffic Tactic #90: Pitch to Link Roundups

Submitted by Darren Davis of Link Caffeine.[*]

If you’re not familiar with them, link roundups are curated posts (or a "roundup”) of great blog content from the past week. The best part is roundups are found in almost every niche.

Roundup curators have a tough job to find quality content to showcase in their roundup every week. When you suggest your new post, you deliver content FOR them.

Next Steps: An easy way to find a roundup is to:

Use this search string on Google: intitle:keyword roundup. Replace "keyword" with the topic you really want to search for. After you find a roundup that's a good fit, send them an email pitching them on your article!

5 Product-Focused Growth Hacks to Help You Increase Your Website Traffic

Your products can also help drive traffic to your website. Here’s how:

Website Traffic Tactic #91: Create an App

If you have a series of content that performs particularly well, create an app that helps people take action on the content in it. It could be as simple as a reference for a how-to guide.

For example, you could make an app for this post that’s a “Random Traffic Generation Idea Generator” to help you find ideas in this massive list :)

Next Steps: Not a developer? You can usually find someone to help on sites like UpWork and Freelancer.

Website Traffic Tactic #92: Make a Browser Extension

You might have a product that people need quick access to when they’re on other sites, so making a browser extension that helps them use your product easier will not only increase retention, but also remind them of your site and help bring them back in the future.

Next Steps: Not a developer? You can usually find someone to help on sites like UpWork and Freelancer.

Website Traffic Tactic #93: Create a Course for Udemy

Because you have a site, there’s at least one thing that you’re able to teach to the world. Udemy makes it easy to host a video course and promote it to your audience, while also being featured in their library and promoted to their audience.

Then, when you have new relevant content that your audience would be interested in, you can promote it to your Udemy audience through their platform and drive some traffic back to your site.

Website Traffic Tactic #94: Create a Teachable Course

Or you can go more advanced and host a course on your own site using Teachable. Teachable lets you keep more of your profits and everything on your own site.

The downside: you don’t have another library to promote in so you need to do more legwork getting the word out about your course.

Next Steps: Find out how to create an online course to drive more traffic and take your blog to six figures in just 30 days.

Website Traffic Tactic #95: Teach on CreativeLive

A third option for online courseware is to apply to teach a course on CreativeLive. These courses are seen as high quality and will lend a lot of authority to your brand.

As a bonus, they promote their courses to their audience, so it will drive more traffic back to your own site.

Next Steps: Apply to become an instructor on CreativeLive by following these instructions.

5 Ways Your Email Newsletters Can Drive Traffic

Are you using your email newsletters to drive traffic to your site? If not, this next section is for you.

Website Traffic Tactic #96: Email Out New Posts

If you have an email list (and you should) then make sure you’re emailing people whenever you have a new article or piece of content up. That will provide your initial surge of traffic and hopefully your first shares.

Next Steps: Read our guide to the 15 types of emails you should be sending to your list to see how to maximize the traffic from your emails.

Website Traffic Tactic #97: Setup Autoresponder With Your Best Posts

Look inside your Google Analytics > Behaviour > Site Content dashboard and identify your top 5 most popular pieces of content. Setup them up to send to people inside your autoresponder. Here is how Noah does it on OkDork:

With one email in your autoresponder like this, all of your subscribers will start to get hooked on your content.

Website Traffic Tactic #98: Ask Your Current Readers to Forward Your Latest Email

In your next email to your subscribers, ask them to forward the email to one friend they think might be interested in your site or product.

Every single one of your followers will know at least one likeminded person who could be interested, so take advantage of it!

Website Traffic Tactic #99: Ask Your Readers What They Want

One way to figure out what content should be creating is to ask your current readers what they want to read.

You might discover some new content ideas that you’ve never heard of.

Website Traffic Tactic #100: Do a List Swap

Another effective way to get more traffic is to work with people who have email lists around the same size as yours.

This functions like a blog swap, but you’re email list swapping instead. Each of you email out about a piece of content to drive traffic to one another’s websites.

Next Steps: Find similar sized sites to yours, and offer to promote a piece of their content to your list if they promote one of yours to theirs as well!

4 SEO Traffic Tactics You Can’t Afford to Miss

Don’t forget that your search engine optimization can also help you increase traffic to your website. Here’s how:

Website Traffic Tactic #101: Add Names to Your Images

By adding meta names to your images, you can make sure that they get picked up on Google Images and drive people to your site.

This can add a lot to your traffic beyond just the articles themselves linking, since each article might have 10-20 images in it. That’s another 10-20 things you could be ranking for, beyond just the one article.

Website Traffic Tactic #102: Optimize Your Content for Better Rankings

Go to Google Search Console > Search Traffic > Search Analytics and filter all Queries for your website by Impressions and Position over the Last 90 days like this:

Look through the list and find all your keywords that have >100 Impressions and a Position between 5-15. These are the keywords you can optimize your content for to get into position 1-3 so you can get more traffic quickly.

If you click on the Query you will get taken to a Google search results page so you can see which piece of content you need to optimize.

Website Traffic Tactic #103: Get Guest Posts from Authors with High Search Volume

Look inside a competitive intelligence tool like SEMRush and prioritize a list of authors in your industry to reach out to based on the search volume they get on their name.

Reach out to them and incentivize them to post on your blog (eg: promote to your list of 20,000, ad money to their content, etc). Here is a post from the author Lewis Howes on Sumo:

They’ll get exposed to a new audience, you’ll get easy content, and you’ll likely rank for searches for their name in the future.

Website Traffic Tactic #104: Interlink Your Blog Posts

In each blog post, include links to your other blog posts. This helps your SEO rankings, and also helps people stay on your site longer by going down the rabbit hole of your content.

Next Steps: Every time you publish something new, go back through your old posts (or just the most popular ones) and see how you can link to your newest one.

12 Surefire (Non-Digital) Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Here’s how you can increase traffic to your website anytime you meet someone.

Website Traffic Tactic #105: Create Business Cards with Links

Assuming you still use business cards, make sure they have a link to your site on them.

To be extra aggressive about it, take off your email, phone number, and anything else. Have it just be your name, title, and website. That way they have to go through your site to get to you.

Website Traffic Tactic #106: Feature Your Website on Your Physical Presence

If you have a physical presence (store, booth, etc.) make sure that it has links to your site anywhere that people might see them regularly.

Someone could be interested in your business but doesn’t want to buy or engage yet, so they likely go to your site instead.

Website Traffic Tactic #107: Sponsor Conferences and Events

Find conferences and events that are related to your target market, and offer to help sponsor them. People who are interested in the event (whether or not they attend) will see the list of sponsors and potentially visit your site to learn more.

You can even sponsor a local sports team, as one Sumo user suggested, since many parents (who could be in your target audience) end up seeing the sponsor banners over the period of several hours during a game.

Instead of adding a phone number to your sponsor banner, use your website instead. Bored parents or any other people with extra time can browse your site during their down time.

Next Steps: Find conferences/local events/sports events in your target niche and offer to sponsor them. The “entry level” sponsorships might only be a few hundred dollars and could drive tons of new eyes to your brand.

Consider sponsoring local events that may attract those in your target market:

Sporting events

5ks

Health & Wellness Fairs

Website Traffic Tactic #108: Hand Out 3D Printed Staves with Your Logo and Website

Buy a customized modular stave from Enstaved with your logo and website and gift it to:

Your Dream 100 clients

Your customers

Guests at your next conference

Website Traffic Tactic #109: Host an In-Person Workshop with an Expert

Look for experts in your area that could host a workshop related to your target market, then host an event where they give a presentation or work with the audience on the topic.

This lets you network with a local expert, makes them look good, and builds interest in your business and site at the same time.

Website Traffic Tactic #110: Host a Conference

As you build up your traffic, hosting a conference related to your brand or niche is a great way to spread your reach even further. People who are already engaging with your site will invite their like-minded friends, and the publicity of hosting a large conference will boost your traffic even more.

Next Steps: Lloyed wrote an excellent guide to hosting a successful conference with big-name speakers in under three months.

Website Traffic Tactic #111: Consider Making Laptop Stickers

Your laptop is an advertising tool just waiting to be taken advantage of. Make some stickers that showcase your website (don’t forget the URL if your SEO is low) and put them front and center on the back of your laptop.

Not only will curious people in coffee shops check it out, they might strike up a conversation with you about it.

Website Traffic Tactic #112: Use Flyers

If your site has a physical presence, or talks about physical places, you can put up flyers telling people to “learn more” at your site. Since they’re already invested in the place (by being there) they’re more likely to be interested in checking out your website.

Website Traffic Tactic #113: Attend Meetups

Find Meetups in your area and try to make friends with the hosts and regular attendees. You should start doing this both before and during the event.

Keep in mind, you shouldn’t do this just to get visitors, try to become a part of the community so that they want to learn more about what you’re doing.

Website Traffic Tactic #114: Start Your Own Meetup

Another option is to start your own Meetup.

With this route, you can control the community, promote to it as much as you want, and get better feedback on your content and products.

Website Traffic Tactic #115: Make T-shirts and Give them Away

Use a site like Teespring to make t-shirts representing your product or business and give them away to friends, partners, clients, and anyone who works with you.

Just make sure they’re nice shirts and comfortable to wear! People should enjoy putting them on--no cheap fabrics.

Website Traffic Tactic #116: Send Content to Professors for Their Students

Depending on your content, you might have something that would be useful to university professors. Reach out and introduce yourself (if they aren’t ones you know from college) and let them know that it might help their students.

18 Ways Ads Can Get You the Traffic Boost You Need

Here’s how to use ads to drive traffic to your website.

Website Traffic Tactic #117: Twitter Ads

Twitter ads are emerging as a new way to pay to promote your website. Since they don’t have nearly the popularity of Facebook or Google ads, there’s still an opportunity to take advantage of them early and get some inexpensive traffic.

Website Traffic Tactic #118: LinkedIn Ads

If you have a business or website that helps people professionally, LinkedIn ads could be the ideal place to reach them.

People usually go to LinkedIn when they’re looking for content related to their jobs or industry, so if you promote something relevant to them when they’re in that mindset you’ll likely convert better than on Facebook or Twitter.

Website Traffic Tactic #119: Facebook Ads

Facebook is like one of the first places you thought of when I said “ads,” and for good reason.

It gives you a bit more flexibility than other ad networks since you can focus on right side vs. newsfeed, you can do easy retargeting, and you can boost articles or posts that you put on your page. Or just opt for likes.

Website Traffic Tactic #120: Use Google Search Ads

With Google Search Ads, you don’t have to wait for SEO to kick in: you can skip straight to the top of Google results.

The downside is that depending on the niche you’re going after, they can get expensive quickly. But if you’re promoting something that most people aren’t paying to feature, then you can quickly get cheap traffic.

Website Traffic Tactic #121: Use Google Display Ads Too

The other option through Google’s ad network is to create Display Ads. These are the ads you see in banners on other people’s sites, letting you target products or services to people who are reading relevant content that other people have published.

In a high-competition field, you’ll have to pay a TON for placement. But with something more niche that fewer people are promoting, you could get inexpensive traffic from other people’s content.

Website Traffic Tactic #122: Don’t Forget About Pinterest Ads

Pinterest recently started rolling out its ad network to the public. If you have highly visual content (clothing, food, crafts) that would normally perform well on Pinterest’s highly visual platform, then it’s a prime place to promote your content.

Website Traffic Tactic #123: StumbleUpon Paid Promotion

Stumbleupon lets you quickly jump from website to website to find something interesting to read or do. By promoting yourself on their ad network, you get preferred placement in their recommendations, and more traffic to your site as a direct result.

Stumbleupon ads are worth trying if you have catchy, exciting headlines that will make people want to stick around.

Stumbleupon users are jumping from one article to the next at a higher speed than in most other mediums, so make sure you have something on your page to grab their attention.

Website Traffic Tactic #124: Instagram Ads

There are two ways you can do advertising on Instagram:

You can buy advertisements that show up in people’s image feeds through the Instagram partner program, or You can pay Instagram users with a high number of followers to use and promote your product.

Website Traffic Tactic #125: Try Using Reddit Ads

Reddit, the popular article-indexing and discussion site, also offers an advertising platform.

One of the main benefits to advertising on Reddit is that you can focus your ads on people reading certain “subreddits” like Ryan did above in r/Keto.

Website Traffic Tactic #126: Bing Ads Could Give You the Boost You Need

Believe it or not, people actually use Bing, and since it’s in such lower demand than Google, you can compete for keywords at a lower price.

The downside is that you’ll have less traffic to go after. But if you’re in a highly competitive space and are having a hard time affording traffic from Google, Bing ads could be a good place to experiment.

Website Traffic Tactic #127: Yahoo Ads

Just like Bing, since Yahoo is a less popular search engine than Google, you can usually get cheaper ad placement. Try going to the Yahoo Ads platform and seeing how much traffic you can get!

Website Traffic Tactic #128: Use Retargeting Ads

For most of the platforms mentioned above (especially Google, Facebook, and Twitter) you can use a “retargeting pixel” to send people back to your site after they’ve already visited.

These prospects already recognize your brand, and are usually much cheaper to get clicks from than entirely new people.

To get really advanced, you can try showing them ads of specific products they were looking at to try to get them to come back and follow through on buying them.

Website Traffic Tactic #129: Mobile Ads Will Help You Too

If you have an app, or a mobile-optimized landing page, then mobile ads could be a good way to drive more traffic to your site.

This is also especially true if you’re promoting a game, since so many ads are also served in games, you can easily reach people in that mindset.

Website Traffic Tactic #130: Buy Ads on Niche Sites

Within your niche, there are likely a number of blogs and smaller sites that create content related to yours or your products.

By reaching out to them, you can negotiate ad placement on their site outside of Google’s Display network, which means you get a better price and a more direct relationship with the site owner.

In turn, they benefit because they know that they’re showing relevant content to their readers, instead of hoping that Google shows good ads.

Website Traffic Tactic #131: Sponsor a Relevant Newsletter

Similar to #14, you can reach out to writers who have a large number of email subscribers and offer to pay them to promote your product in one of their next emails.

These promotions are highly targeted because they’re going out to people who see this person as an authority, and typically have much higher conversion rates than just doing a display ad or sidebar promotion.

Next Steps: See what blogs you read and newsletters you follow, then ask them if they’d be willing to promote your site or do a co-promotion where you feature them as well.

Website Traffic Tactic #132: Sponsor a Thank-You Page

A third way to sponsor sites that are related to your target market is to promote yourself on the thank-you page that they serve visitors after they sign up.

When people arrive on this page, they’re already in a “yes” mindset and are more likely to be interested in anything that the author of the newsletter they’ve just joined is promoting there. By having one of your ads in this space, you guarantee that it’s only being seen by a highly-qualified audience.

Next Steps: Similar to above, see what sites you regularly read and share a readership with, and ask if you can buy promo space on their thank-you page when people opt in.

Website Traffic Tactic #133: Buy Physical Ads

Just because it’s not on the Internet doesn’t mean it can’t work.

Depending on what kind of traffic you want to your site, you can use services to find inexpensive billboards or physical promotion space where you can give people a reason to visit your site.

It’s not the first thing you’d think of, but it just might work.

Next Steps: Browse through a site like Outdoor Billboards and see if there are good deals on ad space in a location you want to target.

Website Traffic Tactic #134: Buy Print Ads

If you’re selling a product or offering a service, there’s almost certainly a magazine that’s read by your target niche.

You can reach out to the magazine (there’s usually a contact number online or in the back) about advertising opportunities, and do a trial run with their next issue.

Depending on how well targeted and exciting your advertisement is, this can be magnitudes cheaper than web advertising--mostly because so few people are doing it!

Next Steps:

Pick 3 magazines related to your niche. Find their contact info, then reach out about the price of ad placement. Ask if there are any last minute deals on unused ad space in upcoming issues.

Your Turn

With 134 tactics under your belt, now you have no excuses for not having enough traffic.

Even if you use a fraction of the traffic tactics we mentioned in today’s article, you’ll see a huge boost in your website traffic stats.

Like Julian did using the seven tactics in this video that took him from 0-10k visitors in 30 days:

To keep yourself on track to hit your traffic goals like Julian:

Get our traffic tactics spreadsheet!

It has every tactic, bonus info, and different rankings to help you pick the best channel and always have something to refer back to.