Driving free traffic by giving things away

As I’m writing this, Google just expanded Canvas inside Search AI Mode to all users in the US. Search is slowly turning from “ten blue links” into a workspace that can generate artifacts on your behalf. When I saw that update, I had the same thought I keep having lately. Informational clicks are going to get harder to earn. (The Verge)

So the question becomes sharper.

How do you drive free traffic when fewer people bother to click?

I think the answer is to stop trying to be read, and start trying to be used.

Free traffic is an outcome, not a tactic

Most people treat free traffic like a marketing trick. They want a new channel, a new hack, a new algorithm to ride.

But the simplest version is older than the internet.

People share useful things.

If you give someone something that saves them time, they will remember you. If it saves their team time, they will send it to other people. If it becomes part of their workflow, they will come back without you asking.

That is what free traffic actually is. Repeated attention earned through utility.

Why tools beat content

Content is great for teaching. Tools are great for doing.

A blog post can explain how to convert JSON to CSV. A tool can convert JSON to CSV in ten seconds. The second one creates a stronger memory, because it meets the user at the moment of urgency.

And that urgency is what search is made of.

The user is not browsing for entertainment. They are trying to get unstuck.

When you ship a small tool that unsticks them immediately, you are no longer competing with other writers. You are competing with their friction.

That is a much better competition to be in.

The strategy I keep coming back to

If I had to pick one reliable way to drive free traffic to a SaaS, it would be this.

Build a free tools section on your landing site. Then ship a lot of tiny, focused tools that solve one job each.

Not lead magnets. Not gated downloads. Not “enter your email to continue.”

Just free tools that work.

If you do this well, it creates a strange effect. Your marketing site stops being a brochure and starts being a destination. People don’t just visit when they are evaluating you. They visit when they need something done.

And the best part is that the tools do the distribution for you.

• People bookmark them.
• People share them in Slack.
• People link them in docs.
• People paste them into forum answers.
• People reference them in their own posts.

You end up earning links and returning users in a way that ordinary content rarely achieves.

Why this works especially well right now

If search becomes more agentic, the web splits into two layers.

The layer that is read.
The layer that is used.

Agents can summarize an article without sending you a click. But they still need places to perform actions, validate things, transform data, generate outputs, and produce downloadable artifacts.

Tools live in that second layer.

So when I see Google pushing Search toward generating artifacts in a side panel, it reinforces my bias. The web is moving toward outcomes. (The Verge)

Give people outcomes and they will find you.

How I think about what to build

I like tools that are small, fast, and obvious.

The best ones have a title that is basically a search query. The user should know what it does before they scroll. The page should load instantly, work instantly, and let them leave with something concrete.

This is also where my “non linear thinking” post matters. This strategy rarely feels good in the beginning because it compounds. You ship ten tools and nothing happens. Then the eleventh ranks. Then it gets linked. Then your baseline changes. If you expect a smooth line, you quit early. If you expect compounding, you keep shipping.

Where the ideas come from

The easiest way to fail here is to build fifty tools that nobody searches for.

So I don’t start from creativity. I start from evidence.

Zapier templates are one of my favorite sources of evidence because they reveal what people repeatedly automate. If thousands of people automate a workflow, the steps inside that workflow contain smaller “tool shaped” jobs.

That is why I wrote my piece on finding business ideas with Zapier. It’s the same mindset. Don’t invent demand. Locate it, then package it.

A lot of the best free tools are just one step extracted from a larger automation. Make that step instant, clean, and free, and you get a search page that earns traffic for years.

Closing thought

If you want free traffic, you can fight for attention, or you can earn it.

Content earns attention when it teaches. Tools earn attention when they remove friction.

In a world where search is increasingly answering questions directly, utility is harder to summarize away. A free tool is not an opinion. It’s a result.

So if you run a SaaS, the move is simple. Add a tools section. Ship a lot of small utilities. Keep them fast. Keep them honest.

People love free downloads. People love free tools.

And if you give away enough value, traffic stops being something you chase.

It becomes something that returns.