How to generate free traffic
15 December 2007
So, you have a site or a blog, you have some original written content, but you don't have much incoming traffic.
This is a familiar condition for every webmaster out there, but it's especially daunting to bloggers. Blogs don't make much or any profit at all, so buying ads just doesn't make sense. What you need to do, is find a way to generate free traffic.
In this post, I'll talk about the White Hat way to do this. You must understand that before applying any Black Hat techniques, your site needs to be optimized "in the correct way". Without basic optimization, even the smartest tricks won't generate you much traffic.
Targeted free traffic obviously comes from search engines. Or in the real world, simply Google. To generate free traffic from Google, you need to play by Google's rules. Luckily, the basic "legit" approaches are simple, and I'll describe them in a few steps.
5 steps to generate free traffic from Google:
1) Before you write, choose a topic and find keywords for it.
So yeah, you can't write about anything and expect people to search for it. People search for specific information, and they usually end up typing similar or identical search terms. These are called "key phrases", and not any combination of words is a key phrase people search for. The right key phrase can generate you lots of traffic if you optimize for it.
So, before you start writing, chose the central idea of your text, and describe it in 2 or 3 keywords. This is still not your final key phrase, but luckily, there is an easy way to obtain the right one.
2) Use a keyword selection tool.
The key to generate free traffic, is an application that "knows" what keywords, specifically, users search for.
Everyone's favorite is the Overture Keyword Selector Tool ( http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ ). If you want something else, a Google search will get you much more of them. Surely, there are premium tools, that can cost a lot of money, but the free ones work just as well.
Type the keywords you chose in step 1 into the selection tool, and wait for suggestions to appear. What the tool gives you, are the exact phrases people search for, ordered by the number of searches containing them.
Don't chose keywords from the top or bottom of the list. The bottom ones aren't going to get you traffic, and the top ones are probably already taken by other highly optimized sites. Chose a key phrase from the middle of the list, and make sure it is as close to the central idea of you text as possible. This is important, because you'll have to use the exact phrase in you text more than just a few times.
3) Google for the keywords you selected, and look for competition.
Check out all the search results on the first page. Look for visible optimization for the keywords, and a high page-rank. Searching the pages for the keywords can give you an idea of how much SEO is in place.
If most of the sites are optimized, and some even have a high page rank - you don't have much chance of beating the competition. Return to step 2, and chose a different key phrase.
Also, notice all the Adwords ads on the left. If you see many of them, but you don't see much competition in the normal search results, you're on the right track. If you are happy about you key phrase, you can stick to it now.
4) Write, and don't forget your keywords.
What makes the right key phrase to generate lots of free traffic, is your optimization for it.
Optimizing for a keyword is easy. Make sure it appears all along your text, and most importantly, in the titles. Google pays more attention to keywords in the <h1>, <h2> tags than it does in normal text. The <title> tag is also very important, since it's what the links at Google will read like. The path to the web page is also a bonus. For example, http://mysite.com/blog/traffic_generation_tactics is much better than http://mysite.com/sys/index.php?id=124.
Repeat the main key phrase in every other paragraph of your text, and remember to apply some variations as well. The worst thing you can do, is exaggerate in it's use, and scare your readers away.
5) Give your post a push.
After you publish, post a link to your page somewhere. Social networking websites are the best. A link from Digg, for example, will be caught by Google in no-time, and put you on the search results quicker. Even if your story doesn't get any ratings or attention, Google will still treat this link "with respect".
The steps above WILL generate free traffic every time you use them.
"How much" depends on how popular your key phrase is, and how much competition there is for it. If you write about something people want to know, but can't find it anywhere else, you'll obviously get a lot of attention.
Happy optimization!
Posted by: kGen | In category: General SEO | Comments (0)
