14 Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Feeling overwhelmed by the infinite options for driving postulation to your website? You’re not alone.

This nonfiction doesn’t database each postulation strategy nether the sun. Instead, it lists the tactics we’ve utilized astatine Ahrefs. 

Let’s get to it.

The Ahrefs blog gets implicit 427,000 monthly integrated visitors.

No doubt, search motor optimization (SEO) tin work. For arsenic agelong arsenic you rank precocious connected Google, you’ll beryllium capable to make accordant integrated postulation to your site. 

To bash this, you request to constitute astir topics radical are searching for. Here’s however to find them:

1. Enter 1 oregon a fewer applicable keywords into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Go to the Matching presumption report
3. Switch the tab to Questions

Here, you’ll spot >46,000 imaginable topics you tin target. That’s astir apt excessively many, truthful you’ll privation to constrictive the database down by looking for keywords that are:

1. High successful Traffic Potential (TP) – TP is the estimated magnitude of hunt postulation you tin perchance summation if you fertile #1 for that topic. We cipher it by estimating the magnitude of hunt postulation the #1 leafage presently gets.
2. Low successful Keyword Difficulty (KD) – KD is however hard it is to fertile for the keyword successful the apical 10 integrated hunt results. 

Use the filters to trim the database down to thing manageable.

Then prime retired those keywords that are applicable to your site. 

Recommended reading: Keyword Research: The Beginner’s Guide by Ahrefs 

A portion of contented tin rank for thousands of keywords. 

Most of them volition beryllium antithetic ways of looking for the aforesaid thing, but immoderate volition beryllium important subtopics you request to screen successful your content. 

If you tin screen these “content gaps”—subtopics you’re presently missing—you tin perchance fertile higher for your people keyword and get much hunt traffic.

Here’s however to find these “content gaps”:

1. Enter your domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Go to the Content Gap tool
3. In the apical section, participate a fewer competing pages
4. In the bottommost section, participate the URL of the leafage you privation to capable contented gaps for
5. Hit Show keywords

Eyeball the database and spot if determination are immoderate subtopics you tin screen connected your page.

For example, if we wanted to update our post connected evergreen content, we’d apt person to capable successful 2 subtopics:

• Evergreen ads
• Evergreen contented connected societal media

Guest blogging is wherever you constitute for different blogs. In return, the owner/editor volition let you to nexus backmost to your site. 

The benefits include:

• More referral traffic.
• More backlinks (which correlate with rankings).
• Increased marque awareness.

Here’s an illustration of a guest station I wrote for SmartBlogger:

How bash you find applicable impermanent blogging opportunities? Here’s how:

1. Enter a applicable keyword into Ahrefs’ Content Explorer (set it to In title)
2. Filter for One leafage per domain, Exclude homepages, and Exclude subdomains
3. Filter for Explicit results
4. Add a Language filter for the connection you write in
5. Add a Domain Rating filter for 30–70 to weed retired low-authority sites (and region “ultra precocious authority” sites that you astir apt won’t beryllium capable to transportation to… for now)
6. Add a Website postulation filter for 5000+ to weed retired websites with small oregon nary traffic
7. Add a Published filter for the Last 90 days to weed retired websites that haven’t published contented recently

Look done the results to find applicable sites you tin perchance impermanent blog for. 

Don’t interest if they don’t person a “write for us” leafage oregon are not advertizing for impermanent posts. Most sites are consenting to judge impermanent posts, adjacent if they’re not explicit astir it. After all, escaped contented is escaped content—especially if it’s good.

Recommended reading: Guest Blogging for SEO: How to Build High-Quality Links at Scale

I precocious updated my station connected free SEO tools, and postulation shot up:

A large SEO mistake is reasoning that SEO is simply a set-it-and-forget-it task. Even if you’re ranking precocious for your people keyword, that presumption is not permanent. Competitors whitethorn effort and “steal” your spot, oregon Google whitethorn little your rankings erstwhile your contented becomes outdated. 

So you request to support your contented up to day to support your rankings. 

The easiest mode to find retired which contented you should refresh is to instal our escaped WordPress SEO plugin and tally an audit. The audit volition archer you which articles you should beryllium updating. 

To find retired exactly what aspects you request to refresh, look astatine the hunt results to spot what the top-ranking posts person that you don’t. Often, ranking drops hap due to the fact that definite parts of your contented are outdated. For example:

• Screenshots
• Process
• Stats
• Links (broken, etc)
• Year successful the title

Depending connected the people keyword, sometimes refreshing the outdated sections volition suffice. In different cases, you whitethorn find that you request to bash a afloat rewrite of the article. (Don’t worry, we bash this often too!)

Recommended reading: Republishing Content: How to Update Old Blog Posts for SEO

From new-ish podcasts to a apical 100 concern podcast, our main selling officer, Tim Soulo, has appeared connected them all. 

There are presently 850,000 progressive podcasts. And galore podcasts request guests. So wherefore not transportation to beryllium 1 of them? Share your cognition and, successful return, you get marque exposure, referral traffic, links, and more. 

The simplest mode to find podcast opportunities is to hunt for “top [your niche] podcasts” successful Google. 

However, immoderate of them whitethorn beryllium retired of your scope (for now). So here’s however to find podcasts that are apt wrong your wheelhouse:

1. Find idiosyncratic successful your manufacture who has been a impermanent connected galore podcasts
2. Enter their domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
3. Go to the Backlinks report
4. Set the hunt to Referring leafage rubric and hunt for their name

Look done the results and prime retired those that are applicable podcast opportunities. Then find the host’s email and transportation yourself arsenic a guest. 

For astir businesses, determination are plentifulness of non-competing brands with the aforesaid oregon akin people audience. So wherefore not enactment unneurotic to cross-promote to each other’s audience?

That’s what we did with Buffer, a societal media scheduling tool. 

We arranged a associated webinar titled “How to Build Your Website Traffic With Evergreen Content and Social Media.” Then some brands heavy promoted the webinar connected societal media starring up to day zero. 

Post-webinar, Buffer created a blog post summarizing the presentation, portion we posted the signaling connected YouTube and uploaded the presumption slides connected SlideShare.

Takeaway: look for opportunities to spouse with brands that lick antithetic problems for a akin audience. That way, you tin each summation entree to an wholly caller user base.

With implicit 330 million monthly progressive users, it seems a no-brainer to beforehand connected Reddit. 

With 1 exception: Reddit hates marketing. 

If Redditors drawback adjacent a whiff of self-promotion, they volition not hesitate to downvote your post, delete it, oregon adjacent prohibition you from the subreddit. They whitethorn adjacent blacklist your domain.

Yet, Tim managed to successfully “promote” his link gathering post:

Reddit enjoys adjuvant and invaluable content. Its users are lone antagonistic to spammers. So to beforehand connected Reddit, you tin replicate what Tim did:

Take 1 of your blog posts, portion distant each interior and outer links, format it successful markdown, and stock it connected a applicable subreddit. Only astatine the extremity bash you permission a nexus backmost to your archetypal blog post.

Notice that adjacent though it was a “tl;dr,” it was inactive meaty with tons of adjuvant accusation for Redditors. The station was invaluable connected its own, whether oregon not radical clicked done the link. That’s what you should beryllium aiming for. 

Recommended reading: Reddit Marketing: How to Self Promote connected Reddit and Get More Traffic

People usually person tons of related questions erstwhile researching a topic. While you should strive to reply astir of them, sometimes it’s conscionable intolerable to weave them people into your content.

You tin lick this by adding an FAQ conception astatine the extremity of your article. That tin perchance assistance your contented fertile for much long-tail keywords and get much hunt traffic. 

The easiest mode to find these questions is to Google your people keyword and look for the People Also Ask (PAA) questions that appear. 

You tin besides look astatine the Questions report successful Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.

Threads get a batch of engagement connected Twitter. Take, for example, this thread from our caput of content, Joshua Hardwick: 

He hardly adjacent tweets!

You don’t person to bash this from scratch. Just instrumentality 1 of your existing blog posts and repurpose it. Paste your contented into a instrumentality similar Typefully and edit from there.

Then adhd a nexus backmost to your blog station astatine the extremity of the thread.

Recommended reading: How to Write a Tweetstorm 

Our posts connected LinkedIn make a ton of engagement and clicks. 

Yes, LinkedIn whitethorn not beryllium the sexiest societal media platform. But don’t slumber connected it. More and much radical are rediscovering LinkedIn’s quality to nonstop tons of traffic.

The bully quality is that you don’t person to make contented from scratch. Simply repurpose your existing content, which is what we do.

Even better: repost what you’re already posting connected Twitter. It works truly well.

Amplifiers are radical with a ample assemblage connected email, social, and more. Most importantly, they person the quality to stock your contented with their assemblage and nonstop tons of postulation to your site. 

The easiest mode to find amplifiers successful your niche is to usage SparkToro. The escaped mentation allows you to tally up to 5 searches a month, which should beryllium capable to get started.

From there, you tin look astatine who these amplifiers are following—and prosecute the way to find much amplifiers. 

However, it’s not arsenic elemental arsenic sending them an email and asking them to beforehand your website. Not lone are they not obliged to bash so, but they besides get nary benefits. 

This means you request to springiness them a reason. 

There are 2 ways to do this. 

One, amusement them thing caller and valuable. If you person thing that’s genuinely unsocial (e.g., archetypal data), past they whitethorn admit a heads-up. For example, Rand Fishkin tweeted astir our Google Search Console survey (even though we didn’t inquire him to!).

Compare that to his effect a fewer years ago, erstwhile Tim asked Rand to cheque retired his blog station that was, successful hindsight, not unique:

How bash you make thing unique? Here are some ideas:

1. Do you person idiosyncratic acquisition with something? If not, tin you trial oregon acquisition it yourself?
2. Do you person entree to data? Alternatively, you tin find idiosyncratic who has and enactment with them. Then analyse the information and contiguous your findings. 
3. Can you interrogation experts? You tin speech to thought leaders successful your tract and stock their expertise and knowledge. 

Two, diagnostic them. If your contented featured 1 of their quotes, articles, oregon adjacent themselves, past it’s a legit crushed to tell them. 

They’ll beryllium delighted to cognize they’ve been featured. 

One last tip: Don’t expect that they’ll stock your contented with their following. If they do, it’s cool. If they don’t, it’s cool too.

Focus connected gathering the relationship. It whitethorn yet pb to thing more: a link, a partnership, oregon adjacent a aboriginal concern collaboration. 

Recommended reading: Who Will Amplify This? And Why?

At Ahrefs, we connection plentifulness of free SEO tools.

Combined, they make astir 400,000 monthly hunt visits.

Don’t constitute this disconnected arsenic a maneuver lone for bundle businesses. Other businesses tin bash it too. For example, Crunch provides accounting services and offers a free “take location pay” calculator.

However, don’t simply spell and make immoderate tool. If you’re going to put time, effort, and wealth into this endeavor, you privation it to bash well. So you should make tools that actually have demand.

Here’s however to find specified opportunities:

1. Enter a applicable keyword into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Go to the Matching terms report
3. In the Include box, hunt for presumption similar tool, tools, calculator, checker, template, report, etc (choose Any word)

Look done the database to find the astir applicable escaped instrumentality you tin make that will send you postulation and business. 

Meet Sam Oh, our YouTube master. Not lone did helium assistance physique our YouTube channel to 330,000 subscribers, but helium besides managed to thrust postulation to our videos from Google.

How did helium do that?

Simple: YouTube videos fertile connected Google too. 

To fertile your videos connected Google, you request to find topics that radical similar to ticker videos about. Here’s however to find them:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Content Explorer
2. Run this search: site:youtube.com inurl:watch title:topic
3. Sort the results by Page traffic

This volition springiness you a database of YouTube videos that presently get hunt postulation from Google. Look done the database to find applicable topics you can cover.

Follow our assets beneath to make a video that’ll fertile for these topics:

If you person the fund and are consenting to invest, don’t hide that you tin ever bargain paid postulation from platforms similar Google and Facebook. 

In fact, that’s what we bash astatine Ahrefs.

However, you’re not lone constricted to conscionable Google and Facebook. Given however fashionable they are—and truthful expensive—you tin ever see moving ads connected different societal platforms similar Pinterest, Quora, YouTube, oregon adjacent TikTok. 

For example, we tally hunt ads connected YouTube, and they lone outgo america $0.01/min.

We besides tally ads connected Quora and are getting comparatively cheap(er) clicks.

Expand your view, see different platforms, and you’ll recognize that online advertizing whitethorn not beryllium arsenic costly arsenic you thought.

Final thoughts

Experiment with the supra postulation strategies and commencement generating postulation to your website.

Did I miss retired connected immoderate chill tactics? Let maine cognize on Twitter.