Traffic doesn’t always have to be a nightmare. When it comes to organic online traffic, the more you have the better!

There are plenty of SEM, PPC and other paid advertising options out there these days, but the smart money (in inbound marketing) will always be on strategies that improve on your organic search results. Free traffic from search engines might sound too good to be true, and while it’s true that Google has made it a lot harder to achieve, it’s not impossible. Here are 40 ways you can start building your organic traffic today:

  1. Put your URL on everything you send out, from invoices to cheques and quotes. It’s low tech, but this is probably the quickest and cheapest way to increase website traffic.
  2. Add a call to action to your emails, and update it regularly. This is another low tech, cheap and effective way to get more traffic without spending a cent.
  3. If you haven’t already done so, complete your company’s Google business listing. Google+ may be a bust as a social network, but the tools Google offers business owners for local search are still important to website traffic.
  4. Make sure that you’re easy to contact from your website. Include a phone number, email address, map, social networks and any other methods you can.
  5. Get a mobile site, redesign your site to be responsive or get an app developed. Depending where the data comes from, and as per Clickz.com (@ClickZ) the stats for mobile search put it at between 30% and 60% of all searches, but that’s still a huge search volume, and if your site is not mobile friendly, it needs to be.
  6. Make your written content better. Longer, more in depth pieces will get you noticed by search engines, and that means more traffic. In fact, according to Neil Patel (@NeilPatel) the ideal length for content is 2000 words.
  7. Create list posts (like this one) but related to your business. They’re a great way to share a lot of information in a small space.
  8. Don’t ignore keywords. They’re not as relevant as they used to be in terms of metatags and keyword density, but long tail keywords are still search relevant, and if you spend time researching keywords, you’ll automatically get new content ideas at the same time.
  9. Don’t ignore Meta descriptions. They might not have any direct SEO value anymore, but they are still what search engines will display when your page shows up in results, and that can influence whether visitors click through or not.
  10. Add alt tags to all of your images too. Image search results are a little used traffic generation tool, and they can bring visitors to your site.
  11. Set up a Tweeting schedule, and make sure set aside time every day or week to follow new accounts and interact with existing ones. In fact, Twitter’s (@twitter) own research indicates that 47% of business followers will visit the website linked to the account.
  12. If you don’t already have one, get a LinkedIn account. Add your company to your profile, and create a company page. Then join and engage in groups related to your industry. According to Buffer (@buffer) LinkedIn drives four times the amount of traffic to company websites.
  13. If you have a small budget, spend most of it on content. If you look at the top ranking sites in the world, using the Alexa (@Alexainternet) most of the world’s most popular websites are either search engines, tools or household names, or content heavy. They’re big, and they have thousands of pages of content. Which equates to thousands of pages of potential search result listings.
  14. Get good quality backlinks. The operative word, as per Matt Cutts (@MattCutts) of Google’s formidable anti-spam team, is quality. It’s not about quantity anymore. Focus on backlink relevancy.
  15. Use Facebook (@facebook). It’s the world’s biggest search engine (by far!) according to Statista (@StatistaCharts). It offers free and low cost, targeted advertising. It’s a no brainer.
  16. Use your Facebook business page to join groups and contribute, or comment on posts by related but non competing pages.
  17. Consolidate pages on your website. If you have lots of subpages on a particular topic, chances are they’re confusing search engine spiders. Consolidate them into one big page with subheadings, and you’ll get better results.
  18. Shamelessly self-promote yourself to influencers in your industry. A positive mention from a trusted third party will almost always get visitors to your site, as noted by Kissmetrics (@Kissmetrics).
  19. Get press mentions. 60% of journalists are finding their news stories online according to industry leading PR site PRWeb (@PRWeb). Make sure your business is issuing press releases and getting a slice of the press traffic pie.
  20. Improve your user experience. If organic traffic is your website’s goal, then bounce rates are its nemesis. If you’re getting lots of traffic that is leaving immediately after, you’re not getting any bang for your buck. Ensure that your landing pages are keeping visitors on your site too.
  21. Automate your social media marketing by using a tool like Hootsuite to schedule social media posts ahead of time, or hire a company to post on your behalf.
  22. Post links to every blog post on every social network. Every time.
  23. Create a meme. Yes, they’re silly, but that’s the point. The fact is that even Moz (@Moz) agrees that memes are a great way to build interest and traffic. Go for it.
  24. Make sure that there are social sharing buttons on your website, and that your content is both shareable by email as well as printable.
  25. Create an offer to generate interest and collect opt-in emails for your list. White papers, e-books or video courses are all great choices, and are relatively quick and easy to create.
  26. Create a community on your website by allowing comments or integrating a support forum.
  27. Sponsor a local charity event. Not only will you do something great for your local community, but you’ll also get publicity in the local papers and at the event itself.
  28. Offer a web only deal. An offer that your customers can only access through your website will grow your traffic, and if you also encourage sharing (and share your offer yourself on every social media platform you’re on) you’ll get even more bang for your buck.
  29. Sign up for online review directories, such as Yelp.com. Ask your customers to leave reviews for you if they have experienced great service. According to Entrepreneur.com (@Entrepreneur), in a recent survey, 88% of respondents confirmed that they used online reviews to assist in buying decisions.
  30. Consider using retargeting to bring customers back to your website after they leave. In fact, Venturebeat (@VentureBeat) published the results of a survey, where 90% of online marketers ranked retargeting on par with paid search ads and email marketing. Since return traffic is more important than one time traffic, this is an important fact to consider in your quest for hordes of website visitors.
  31. Place newsletter signup forms on every page. If visitors can sign up for news easily, they’re more likely to leave their information, and you can remind them to pay a visit from time to time.
  32. Create a YouTube channel and post useful, amusing and interesting videos. They don’t have to be professional grade to give you a boost in your website visitors.
  33. Make sure that your website URL is included on your professional membership pages – such as your BBB listing and your Chamber of Commerce profile for your area.
  34. Create a content schedule, and stick to it. You don’t have to blog every day to benefit from this. It’s far more important to blog or update your website regularly (even if that means once a week) than it is to blog every day.
  35. Invite strategic business partners to guest post on your blog, and ask them to allow you to do the same. For instance, if you own a fencing business, and your strategic partner owns a landscaping company, you can each write a post for publication on each other’s blogs, and refer traffic to each other.
  36. Offer free tools or templates for download on your site. The internet loves free stuff, and if you offer something great, they’ll tell each other.
  37. Get a Pinterest account, and start pinning images from your blog and related to your business.
  38. Do the same with Instagram. As Social Media Examiner (@SMExaminer) pointed out in 2014, images get more likes and more engagement than text only content.
  39. If you’re targeting a younger demographic, consider using Snapchat (@Snapchat) to market products and services to them. The limited time creates urgency, which is perfect for certain types of marketing campaign.
  40. Submit your posts to Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit.

That’s almost certainly not a complete list of traffic generation strategies, but they are ideas that you can implement almost immediately. Do you have any ideas to add to the list? Feel free to share them in the comments!