I’ve spent long hours of the night working away on articles that no one reads.

I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into websites that ended up going no where.

Yes, I’ve been there…the early days of blogging… and I’ve made it to the other side.

I’m a full-time professional blogger. I also have a podcast and a YouTube channel.

I want to show you how you can do the same. I want to teach you how to separate time from money and create passive income streams online.

Why?

Because .01% of you will end up buying a product I create, like an ebook or a course, as a result of putting out this free information.

Most people won’t become one of my customers, and I’m okay with that :).

If I get you results now with this free information, then you’ll be more likely to take a chance on one of my paid products in the future.

Okay, let’s get started. Here is a WordPress graph of the traffic to the blog that you’re reading right now. It shows how my traffic has grown from 2014 to 2015 to 2016.

As you can see, this blog did a little over 50,000 views in 2016. Sweet, huh?

Compared to 2015, this is a growth of 74.70%.

Here’s the kicker… I haven’t paid for ads. My only expense to create this blog was high quality cheap hosting ($3.95 per month).

Below, I’m going to share with you how you can also get FREE traffic to your blog and begin to grow a base of loyal subscribers.

1. Learn the Basics of SEO

SEO stands for search engine marketing. When you learn the basics of SEO, you’ll understand how to rank better in the Google search engine.

This way, when someone types something into Google, your website or blog article will come up as one of the resources that they can click on. When the person clicks on that article, you just got FREE traffic from google.

Well… it’s not entirely free. You have to put in the effort to write high quality articles that answer a specific question or address a particular problem.

For example, if your blog is about dog breeds, a common question might be… what are the best dogs to have with kids? In other words, which dogs are the safest?

If you took the time to write a comprehensive article on this topic, someone may end up coming across it when they’re looking to answer this question.

There is a lot more that goes into SEO, including the technical layout of your website. Thankfully, it’s not terribly difficult to learn. If you spend a month reading through a book on SEO, the benefits will last a lifetime.

Some of my articles continue to receive traffic from Google and I wrote them years ago!

2. Share Your Articles in Social Media Groups

I don’t recommend spamming the groups, but if you share articles that will be beneficial for the group, you’ll usually be okay. For example, I recently shared an article that I wrote on Google+. In the article, I talked about how some of the most popular podcasters are manipulating the iTunes algorithm.

This post lead to over 24 comments, discussion, traffic, and new subscribers.

Keep in mind that when you share your article, you ALWAYS have to be 100% okay with any controversy or discussions that come about. You’re putting your work out there for the world.

For my other blog, I have a few LinkedIn groups that I post in on a regular basis. The moderators know me and know that I produce high quality content.

Last year, according to google analytics, this has sent my other blog 600+ views.

Woah!! And that traffic is all free.

3. Start Blog-related Social Media Profiles

Social media is another huge source of free traffic that you can use to grow your blog. I know I didn’t believe that when I first got started, so let me prove it to you.

Below, you can see how much traffic social media has sent my other blog!

I simply took the time to set up a Facebook page, Twitter page, and began to promote them on the blog. I also worked to grow those profiles. I’m now working to grow my Instagram profile, which thus far has 6,000 followers.

Of course, you must have the right social media strategy. You can’t just ask people to check out your blog. You have to share articles that genuinely improve the lives of other people.

These articles should be entertaining, help readers solve problems, or clue them in to new events that they care about. Think of your blog as a mini media company.

4. Start an Email List

This is one of the BIGGEST mistakes that new bloggers make. They don’t build an email list.

Above, I mentioned a few ways to get FREE traffic to your blog. How much would it suck to have to keep driving traffic, month after month? That’s a lot of work!

Instead, you can retain some of those visitors by allowing them to subscribe via email to your blog. They’ll then get notified of new posts that come out.

This way, when you write a brand new post, you can announce it to your list! It will INSTANTLY get traffic and those visitors will likely share it if it’s SUPER helpful.

In the long run, your email list will become the main distribution channel for your content and digital products. The earlier you start growing your list, the better.

I would recommend using one of these software tools to begin collecting email addresses from your website visitors.

5. Link Back To Previous Posts

Let’s say you’ve taken the time to write a really comprehensive blog post. Now, a visitor could come that post could read it, smile, and then close the browser window.

To me, that’s a waste of a visitor.

You either want to get that visitor on your email list or to get them to read another relevant article that you wrote.

It’s more work to get 5 new visitors than to get an existing visitor to read through five of your articles. The latter is going to boost your page views and deepen your relationship with the reader.

I run an online forum where users can interact, ask questions, and start new discussions. Pages of this forum link to other pages. Users can check out new threads and stories.

In the past year, this forum received 289,997 pageviews. As you can see below, many of these users were viewing multiple pages. If I broke the data down further based on logged-in users, you’d find that many of the users are viewing lots of pages each time they come to the site.

You can even see that in THIS blog post, I’m linking to other resources on this website. If you find this article to be super helpful, you’re likely to check out other articles on this website, and maybe hop on the email newsletter and receive FREE online business info.

By linking back to previous posts, you’re also making it easier for the reader to continue to learn about the subject. They don’t have to hunt around on Google for another great article. They can just stay on your blog!

6. Re-Purpose Blog Content

If you spend a ton of time writing an article, you don’t want that resource to go to waste. You can re-purpose that content.

For example, I wrote an article about how I made my first six figures online. I then took that content and created a YouTube video out of it. I could have gone even further and done a podcast on that subject.

Other ways that you can re-purpose your content include:

• Creating a slide show
• Making an infographic
• Instagram or SnapChat story
• Create an ebook 
• Make a Webinar
• Etc.

By re-purposing your blog content, you’ll make it easier to increase your blog traffic because you won’t be working as hard. You’ll also be making use of different content forms, which will naturally bring in different types of readers.

The visitors who read my blog articles are often times different from the people who listen to my podcast episodes or watch my YouTube videos.

7. Write Guest Blog Posts

A guest blog post is simply when you write a blog post for someone else’s blog. In return, they let you include a link to your blog in the article and usually they’ll give you a short bio.

Writing guest blogs posts will help improve the SEO of your website, but they’ll also send free traffic your way. Readers of the blog will check out your blog if your content is extremely helpful.

They’ll think to themselves… “This guy seems like he knows a lot… I wonder what else he has to say?”

If you follow the points outlined above, you’ll be able to capture a certain portion of that traffic in the form of new social media followers or email subscribers.

8. Pitch Journalists and Get Media Hits

It’s surprising how easy it is to get mentioned in the media. Since starting my first professional blog, I’ve been cited by CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and more.

I use resources like HARO (help a reporter out) to position myself as an expert in the eyes of the media. For example, I know a lot about blogging. Therefore, if a reporter is looking to do a story on that subject, I can be useful! I can share my journey, tips, or advice on the topic.

When you’re mentioned in the media, you’ll likely get a small traffic spike from the readers of that publication. It will also do wonders for your SEO and credibility.

With better SEO, you’ll get more traffic from Google over time. With better credibility, you’ll have more people willing to take the time to read your articles. You’re not just some blogger on the internet. Other people have verified that you know what you’re talking about.

9. Start a Facebook or LinkedIn Group

This is an AMAZING way to boost the traffic to your blog over time. I started a LinkedIn group for my other blog which has grown to over 6,000 members. The Google+ group has over 10,000.

These are online assets that can be leveraged when I come out with new articles or new products.

Of course, the group is going to start small, but don’t underestimate how it can grow into a powerful resource. Having your own group will give you more control over your online marketing. Also, you’ll get the chance to interact with some of your readers and deepen the relationship!

Thankfully, it’s free to start a Facebook or LinkedIn group. All it takes is the time to set one up. Then, you can invite your friends or other connections to begin to get the group going.

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways that you can increase your blog traffic for free. As you begin to grow your traffic, you’ll start getting more regular readers and subscribers.

Eventually, laying these foundations is what will enable you to go full-time as a professional blogger and earn your income from writing online.

I want to help you achieve this goal.

If you’d like to learn from me directly, take a sec to subscribe to this blog. I put out lots of high quality information and I’m beginning to grow this blog’s YouTube channel.

Finally, you can even see in real-time how I’m getting traffic to a completely new blog. Check out some of the things I’m doing to boost the traffic here.