Get More Website Traffic
Once upon a time you could actually get more website traffic
by simply throwing a bunch of good keyword search phrases on
your pages and in the "tags" in your HTML. Search engines
got better though, and then some "experts" told us
that we just needed high-quality content to get traffic. The
operating theory seemed to be "build it and they will come,"
as long as you built it well.
Unfortunately, it wasn't true - you still needed to optimize
the pages of your site. If your page was about ultralight backpacking,
how would the search engines know that if you didn't use the
phrase a few times on the page? The programs aren't that
smart (at least not yet). If you called it "fastpacking,"
there was no way for all those searchers of "ultralight
backpacking" to find your page - even if it was exactly
the content they wanted, and the best on the subject.
Optimization always helped (and it still matters). Search
engine algorithms changed again though, and they began to place
less emphasis on "on site" optimization. Keywords on
the page were still needed, but this was no longer enough. You
needed to have many other sites linking to yours, to show that
your site was important. Incoming links are still very important
if you want more website traffic from search engines.
What type of links they are matters too now - more than ever.
The old idea of reciprocal links - where you trade with another
site - is no longer such a great idea (though still of some value).
Those search engine algorithms have been adjusted for the fact
that sites started trading irrelevant links just to boost rankings,
and decided that one-way unpaid links are a better indication
of a "vote of confidence."
Many experts still claim that you get links by having great
content. The theory is that people read your page, like it and
so link to it to share their discovery with the world. Another
nice thought, but it isn't common for this to happen. There are
several things wrong with this plan.
To begin with, how do the readers find your page in the first
place, so they can then decide they like it enough to link to
it? With no incoming links initially, the search engines ignore
you, so how does anyone find you? If some visitors do make their
way to your pages, will they have websites to link to you from?
Many if not most internet users either don't have a website or
they barely know how to create a link.
Worse news: serious webmasters are hesitant to link to other
sites too often. To start, they don't want to link to possible
competition. Also - and more importantly - a given page can only
has just so much "voting power" according to search
engine algorithms, so naturally owners of sites like to divide
it up in beneficial ways - like by linking to their own pages.
Incoming links are the way to get more website traffic, but
they are hard to get, so what can you do? Pay for traffic? With
many sites this is impractical. Suppose your site makes ten cents
per visitor and you pay fifty cents to get one. Your just throwing
your money away.
Before I tell you how to get more traffic, let me add an encouraging
note. Despite what some are saying, good content is not irrelevant,
so don't listen to the skeptics. A recent opinion piece by one
webmaster said the old idea of "building a great website
with great content" in order to get traffic was "foolish
nonsense." But it isn't foolish at all.
When we search for things online, we want great websites with
great content, right? To the extent that they can, this is exactly
what the search engines are trying to point us also. They don't
do it perfectly, but that doesn't mean they aren't getting better,
and as they get continue to improve, you want to have the kind
of site that they are looking for. So if you're thinking long
term, have good content.
Now, what is the best way I've found to generate more website
traffic? Write simple articles like this one, and submit them
to a few article directories. You get some readers, and some
of them may even take it and use it on their websites, creating
valuable one-way links (it happens every single days with my
articles). This helps with your search engine rankings, and those
who see the articles and like them enough to want more will click
that link in your resource or "about the author" box
at the end of the article, arriving at your web site.
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