It’s always challenging trying to come up with something someone hasn’t written about already. There are dozens of ways to get traffic to your site. I will cover some of the more obvious ways in another post in this series but today I’m going to be covering some less known and in some cases controversial traffic tactics.

First of all, there is no free traffic. You will always pay something whether it is time or money but there are definitely things you can do to leverage both.  Lets look at five lesser known ways to drive traffic to your sites:

1. Creating buzz and controversy. You have to be careful with this but you can definitely blow things up this way and go viral. Here is an interesting example of what looks more like a marketing effort than a legitimate ripoff report. It is a report about a well known marketer Matt Bacak. I don’t know if I would venture such a risky tactic, but…getting in the Ripoff Report will get you on the front page of Google. Really, if you give it a little thought and creativity you can use the Ripoff Report to your advantage.
2. Here is a method I have been using to buy some very inexpensive advertising. First, I buy some PPC and run it on the content networks. Second, I click on the “Network” tab and look at the URLs that resulted in the most clicks. Then I check the sites in Quantcast and Alexa to get an idea about traffic. Then I simply go to those sites and fill out the contact form and tell them I want to advertise on their site. This can be a great way to get cheap targeted traffic.
3. Meetups.com I saw a very clever campaign come through someone who joined one of the Meetup groups I belong to. You get the mail because you have already white-listed Meetup member mail, and you open the mail because you think it is some information relevant to your group. I got something that said Meetup member mail and opened it to find something that read “How a mom used free internet offers to save money on teeth whitening” or something to that effect. I thought it was pretty clever.
4. Free classified sites - I have tried using Craigslist a few times and have definitely seen increases in traffic. You have to be careful about how you do it though or you’ll be flagged for removal. One way that has worked well for me is to provide an 800 number with a prerecored message advising callers if they want more information they can either call another line and speak to one of our counselors or they can go to www.yoursite.com.
   Here’s a list of free classified sites:
   • www.craigslist.org
     
   • www.gumtree.com
     
   • www.backpage.com/classifieds/index
     
   • www.kajiji.com
     
   • www.usfreeads.com
     
   • www.adlandpro.com
     
   • www.thepcmanwebsite.com/classified_ads.shtml
     
   • www.domesticsale.com/
     
   • www.classifiedads.com
     
   • www.inetgiant.com
     
   • www.tumblehere.com
     
   • www.classifiedsforfree.com/
     
   • www.freeonlineads.net/
     
   • www.webcosmo.com
     
   • www.1second.com/a.htm
     
   • www.freeadlists.com/
     
   • www.theadnet.com/
     
   • www.topclassifieds.com/
5. Pay for reviews. Yes, you can buy reviews of  your product, blog, or site (you can also get paid to review other’s blogs, products, and sites).  Here’s a list of paid review sites.

Next post I’ll give you a huge list of all the old standby traffic tactics, maybe there will be something in there you haven’t heard about.

In the meantime why not pop over to the free section and pickup your 15 free list building tips and your free 5 day course on better email marketing.

Tweet This Post