While there are a variety of ways to increase
targeted website traffic, every business owner should consider optimizing their
website for the search engines.
Instead of putting all of your eggs in one
basket, it's best to drive website traffic through several sources. This way,
you can cast a wider net, resulting in more traffic, and track the efficacy of
each source.
Before you begin, you should understand the core
concepts of Search Engine Optimization (and Search Engine Marketing). In order
to increase your website traffic and attract qualified prospects, you need to
understand three things:
1. Everything
related to SEO starts with an understanding of what a "keyword
phrase" is.
Anytime someone conducts a search on Google, or
another search engine, they enter some text to start their search. In SEO
terms, the entered text is called a "keyword" or "keyword
phrase."
If you know what keyword phrases your prospects
are entering when looking for the type of information, products or services you
offer, you will know what phrases to optimize your web pages for.
2. Websites
are not indexed or ranked by the search engines... each web page is indexed and
ranked independent of any other.
This is commonly misunderstood but so vital to
understand! Just because you have one web page that ranks really well in the
search engines, that doesn't mean that your others will also rank well.
Each page of your website must be uniquely
optimized for a handful of keyword phrases… keyword phrases that are searched
upon and those likely to attract your targeted audience.
If you pay close attention to the optimization of
each page, you should see a dramatic improvement in terms of search engine
placement.
3. Like
it or not, you're competing against others!
Some have a harder time with this concept than
others but the truth remains the truth... in order to get your web page listed
on page one of Google, you have to kick one of the currently listed web page's
off!
This is valuable information because it will help
you understand what you must do to achieve the ranking you're after.
Thorough analysis of the web pages currently
listed for a particular keyword phrase will tell you how hard it will be to
overtake one of them. You need to pay close attention to a number of elements
including:
•
How well is their
page optimized for the keyword phrase?
•
How old is their
domain (the older the better)?
•
How many links can be
found that point to the page (the more the better)?
While there are other elements involved, these
three are of primary concern. If you find you can outdo your competitor's web
page in at least two of the three areas mentioned, you can probably kick them
off the page and take their place.
After ensuring you are optimizing for a keyword
phrase (or phrases) that are likely to bring you the kind of traffic you want,
you'll often find it is the quantity of backlinks that make the real
difference.
Of course, the quality of the backlinks is
important too but if you are going to concentrate on one objective, it should
be the building of links. Ensure your text links use the keyword phrases you
are optimizing for and you'll find you quickly climb the ranks of the search
engines.
Sources
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