Increase Traffic to a Website or Blog Using SEO

If you have a website or blog then chances are you want people to visit it.  You want traffic.  Traffic can be driven to your site organically or by paid methods.  

One of the ways to get free traffic is to gain organic listings.  The benefits of organic listings (free listings) in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) over paid listings is that the free listings that come from search engine optimization can last indefinitely.  Paid listings last only as long as you are paying for them.

Search engine optimization (SEO) (optimizing your website or blog to get free traffic) takes work and patience but the pay-off is worth it.  The following paragraphs give suggestions to help you improve your organic search engine traffic.

Structure Content Around Long-Tail Keywords

One way to organically increase traffic to a website is to structure your content around long tail-keywords (keywords that are longer and more specific).  One to two word keywords usually have too much competition.  Long-tail keywords convert better.  One tool, that helps find long-tail keywords, that guarantees that it will increase your organic search traffic is Hittail.  Another really good tool to research long-tail keywords is the Google Keyword Tool.  Use these keyword tools to make sure that the phrases and terms that you use in your content are the ones that people generally use during their searches.

Use Meta Tags, Keywords, Search Description…

A second way to increase traffic to a blog or website is to make sure that you optimize a site by including meta tags, keywords, and search description.  Make sure that you take the time to fill these out whenever you are publishing to a website or blog.  Doing this simple thing will speed up the ranking for your keywords.

Content Is King

A third way to get more visitors to your website is to provide readers with awesome content.  Content is definitely still king.  Search engines are giving higher rankings to websites and blogs that offer quality content consistently.

Search engines are not the only judges of your content.  Readers will only return to your website or blog if the content is relevant and helpful.  Also, readers only share quality content.  Ask yourself while writing your content, is this something that I would take time to read? 

Have Patience and Hang In There

A fourth way to organically drive more traffic to your website is to have patience and hang in there long term.  The ones that consistently produces high quality work long term are the ones that will be more likely to appear in the SERPs for keywords that are related to their website.  For instance, if you are using article marketing to drive traffic to a blog, sometimes it takes submissions of two to three unique articles to Ezinearticles a day for the duration of a year before you would really start seeing noticeable results in traffic.  Staying consistent for years as opposed to just months or weeks will make a big difference in the amount of traffic that you receive.

Build Links Ethically

A fifth way to drive free traffic to a website or blog is to build links.  Ask people who you are associated with that are owners of credible websites to “embed hyperlinked keywords back to your site.”  Asking others is not the only way that you can get links back to your site.  You could also get links back to your site by commenting on blogs in your niche and leaving a link back to your site.  Another way to build links is to leave keyword anchored links back to your site in the reference section of online articles that you write.

Conclusion

SEO takes more time and effort than paying for listings however it produces results that can last indefinitely.  Make the commitment to use SEO for the long haul.  It will be efforts well spent.

(Some of this article was written via Scott Gerber at http://mashable.com/2013/09/09/increase-search-traffic/)

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