8 Steps to More Website Traffic

In today's internet environment with the flood of retail marketers and the thousands of 'make money online' hopefuls scattered about, the competition for high search engine ranking is fierce.   Anyone who has put up a website within the last few years can probably relate.

While good site ranking isn't impossible, it's still a difficult task.  For this reason I don't recommend merely focusing on website optimization alone, couple it with paid ads, writing articles and pay-per-click advertising and you'll be on your way to lots more targeted visitors and consequently more sales.  But for the purpose of this article we are going to focus on optimizing each and every one of your pages in hopes of improving your natural search engine ranking. 

So what constitutes good website optimization?

There are differing opinions on what works in today's environment, just check in with your favorite search engine forum and there's enough opinions and advice to confuse and frustrate anyone.  There are, however a few basic practices that haven't changed and are not likely to change because they make the most sense for what web surfers and the search engines are looking for.

Let's take a look at what these practices are and how you can successfully implement them:

1. Keyword Research
Whether you use a paid or free keyword research tool, do your research!

You goal is to find the keywords that people are using to find your information. You can’t accurately do that without using a good keyword research tool.  

For each page of your website you want to use accurate descriptive keywords that people use to find the information your page is about. Don't settle on finding just one keyword however; strive to find descriptive keyword phrases.  This is how people will more accurately find your site. 

A good keyword phrase is typically easier to rank well for.  If you have a page that sells red satin shoes, optimize that page for ‘red satin shoes’.  Of course red shoes may have a higher search count but the sites that turn of for that phrase will be less likely to satisfy the visitor but also you're competing with a lot more pages and giving yourself less of a chance to rank well.  Stick to using a 1-3 accurate keyword phrases that more precisely describes what your page is about.

2. Optimize your page, Title and Description Tags Carefully
Your title tag should be a brief but accurate summary of what the page is about. Your title should also contain your best keyword phrase for that page.

Your description should contain the words in your title but expand on those words to create a compelling description for your visitors.  Remember the description is often what the search engines use to describe you site, so it's what viewers will read before deciding if your site is what they are looking for, therefore, it needs to be accurate and compelling.

3. Be sure each page has relevant, unique, useful content
This is important.  Google, in particular, is committed to bringing their viewers the best most relevant pages to their viewers.  Granted, we've all seen flaws in their logic but nevertheless it's their strategy and you will do well to comply with. 

The most important part of creating content is doing your best to keep it unique and original.  Rehashed information that is found everywhere the less impressed the search engines will be.  Use your creative verbal skills, and think about how you can come across in a more unique fashion.  Remember, it's not always the statement you're making; it's how you say it. 

For example, saying 'beat the competition by using good keywords' will get less focus and attention than phrasing it this way, 'Using creative and unique keywords will catch a viewers attention giving you a leg up on the competition'  Do you see the difference? 
Not everyone will write the latter phrase but you'll see the first phase a lot.

Use topics and subtopics on your page
Not a must but it's a good idea to place a topic on your page and then use a sub-topic below that.  The topic could be what you placed in the title tag of your page and the sub topic would expand on that.

For example if your page is 'how articles can improve traffic to your website’ then your subtopic might look something like this 'tips and strategies for writing articles that draw viewers to you site'.

4. Use synonyms in your page content. 
The search engines like to see various forms of root words as well as synonyms of words.  For example, a page that is about 'educational toys' should include synonyms of the phrase 'educational toys'. 

Tip:  Go to Google and type in '~educational toys' (without the quotes).  Take a look at the bolded words in the listing of sites. At the time of this writing there were sites listed with words in them like 'Math Toys' and 'learning toys'.  These are synonyms that Google considers relevant and will help boost you in the page ranks if you also use them on your pages.

5. Use Headline tags.
Use headlines on all of your pages and make sure they in are the H1, H2 or H3 Tags. Using our educational toys example, your headline should be in the body of your html and look like this:
 
<H1>Educational Toys</H1> (with the number in the tags (h1, h2, h3, h4) corresponding with size of the font)

6. Name your page with your best keyword phrase.
It simply makes sense that if you name your page with your best keyword phrase.  It also gives the viewer and the search engine a good description of the page. 

For example, a page about 'educational toys' would accurately be called:
www.yoursite.com/educational_toys.html/, www.yoursite.com/educational-toys.html/ or 
www.yoursite.com/educationaltoys.html

7. Use ALT tags for your graphics
Use your main keyword phrase for that page in your graphics alt tag.  Search engines can't read graphics so using an alt tag with your graphics gives them one more piece of information about your page and every little bit helps.

I don't recommend using a lot of graphics and stuffing them with keywords, search engines will be wise to that, however, if you do have a graphic on your page, put your main keyword in the alt text.

8. Get quality incoming links. 
Links still hold high value with the search engines and you should strive to get a few good ones. How you get them may vary but the important thing to remember is to make the links count.  Getting links from unrelated sites or sites that the search engines don't deem of value can hurt your chances of getting noticed.
 
When requesting a link exchange, be sure to provide your link exchange partner with link text that uses your best keyword phrase. 

An example of code you can use to exchange links: 

<a href=http://www.yoursitename>Your Keyword Phrase</a> - Your 2-3 line site description.

Take care to include all the above strategies and you should see an increase in traffic for your chosen keywords.  It may take a few weeks to see improvement but it's often worth the wait.

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