Probably everyone who has a website has a marketing strategy. If you don’t, you should. There are strategies for optimization, marketing, SEO and many other aspects that you can’t count on one hand. They all incorporate planning, metrics and effort, and although they take time to implement, they are like money in the bank. The problem, however, is that sometimes your site needs a boost, a discernable jump in traffic, for whatever the reason may be, and there is nothing wrong with this. Sometimes people get so wrapped up in all these strategies that they forget some of the uncomplicated methods that still work. Here are some of those all-important yet incredibly simple elements to draw traffic to your website for an immediate boost, and best of all, they are entirely free.

Utilize Guest Bloggers

Immediately reach out to between five and ten people relevant to your niche and ask them to do a guest post for you. All it will cost is a link, in the bio or the post itself, back to their site. You save time by not having to write the content, and your audience gets a fresh new voice and perspective. Not only does this help grow your brand and establish credibility in your niche, but it also exposes your site to a broader audience that includes the guest author’s existing followers.  Face it: the additional links are useful for SEO too, which also means more traffic and eyeballs for you.

Add Target Phrases

Depending on the product or service you are offering, this can be a super-easy way to catapult your site to the top of the SERPs. When consumers query, they want to know that the information they find is current, and many times, that the business is near them. Add the year somewhere in the titles or near keyword strings. For instance, “easy ways to boost traffic” suddenly becomes “easy ways … traffic 2018.” That gives visitors the relevant and current information they want. Another target phrase is “near me.” Queries including this phrase rose over one hundred percent in the last two years alone. Either do a quick audit or repurposing of material to add these target phrases for an immediate boost in traffic.

Add Meta Data

Do a quick audit of your site and ensure you’ve added metadata for every post. If there is no meta title, add the same with the meta description. It is free and straightforward. You’d be surprised how many people still don’t do this. You do need to make sure they are the correct length, so they don’t get cut off. Allowing your meta titles and tags to be truncated doesn’t reflect well on your site. It sends a psychological message that you don’t know what you are doing, or you don’t pay attention to details. The meta title should be between 50 and 55 characters long, anything more will get replaced with an ellipsis. The meta description should contain fewer than 300 characters to be fully displayed; this is also an excellent opportunity to utilize primary keywords and keyword phrases.

These are three super-simple steps to give your website traffic an immediate boost. Invite some guest bloggers to write a post and grow your audience, add target phrases to new and existing material and edit your pages to ensure they include metadata. These tricks won’t cost a dime, and you will quickly see results.