How To – Increase Website Traffic – The Basics
This article covers all the basics from Identifying your niche market, to what software to use to driving traffic.It includes links to free and paid for software and other related articles.
Your Blog or Website needs to have a target Market
Most people refer to this as a “Niche Market”. The questions you need to be able to answer BEFORE Starting your Website are the following:
- What is your site going to be about?
- What is its purpose (to make friends, to make money, to tell the world something important?)
- Who is your audience?
- Why will they come to your Website?
- What are their Needs?
- What will make them come back?
- Who are your competitors?
- What can you offer that they don’t?
- What is the language that people using when looking for information about your Niche Market?
You need to decide how important this project is to you
- How much time are you willing to spend on your Website to start it up?
- And daily and weekly after that?
- Be honest if you want it up in a day and automated that’s fine. Then Say So.
- How much money do you have budgeted for you Website?
- To start it up?
- To market it?
- To keep it going?
- If you want to spend the bare minimum then be honest with yourself.
- If you can afford to spend xxx then make that your budget.
You Need to do Keyword Research before writing content
When I said that you needed to understand what language people use when searching for information or products in your niche market what I was referring to is doing “Keyword Research” . Chances are when you go to Google or yahoo to search for a product or information you type in 1-4 words. Those are Keywords. That is what the search engines use to find the information you are looking for. If they don’t do a good job then you will use a different search engine next time you search, so they try to find exactly what you are looking for.
For example If I am looking for information on a black Labrador retriever I would type in the key words “information Black Labrador Retriever”. The Search engine will try to find sites that have information on black Labrador retrievers.
Therefore if I have a Website about black Labrador retrievers then I want to make sure that I have keywords That tell the search engine that I have information on black Labrador retrievers. The more convinced that the search engines are that your site is the best site to fill the need for “Information on Black Labrador Retrievers” the higher your site will be on the list of the results they show the searcher and the more people that will click on the link to your site and they more targeted traffic your Website will get.
Here is a link for an article on this Website that tells you everything the latest version of Keyword Research Pro will do for you. It is the best keyword / niche market software out there. It is pretty cheap but worth its weight in gold::
http://www.keywordsoftwareguide.com/category/keywords-software-articles
If you are on a super tight budget (I don’t recommend cutting corners here but if you are) here is a link to an article that has 5 of the top free keyword research tools. All of them together do not do half what Keyword Research Pro will, but they are free:
What I have just defined for you is Niche Marketing, Keyword Research and Search Engine Optomization all in a dozen sentences. So how hard can it be? Easy right?
You need to Create valuable content.
OK, now that you know what your niche market is and the keywords that you need, it is time to write articles, blog entries, stories, etc, for your Website or blog that will give people that are interested in your niche to come to your Website and read your articles and then want to stay around and read some more, either because they like it, they want to know it, they find it interesting, whatever. Hopefully all of the above!
For each new article you should decide what it will be about and what keyword(S) you want to make sure that you are getting across. If it is about training black labs then make that the title. And refer to that term for clarity whenever possible. Just throwing the term “training black labs” around a hundred times in a nonsense article will just piss people off and they won’t come back.Yes some people do this as they just want people to get to their site, as many as possible, so that they will hopefully click on an ad and make them some money. But it is a poor plan if you want to make money over time.
Your Website is like an investment. The more you put into it over time the more valuable it will become. That value can be thru getting your message out to more and more people or it can be thru selling more and more stuff. The value is created by the age of the site, the quality of the information, the amount of other sites that link into it over time, etc. This raises the page rank in the search engines and you get more and more traffic.
Try to fool the search engines and they, and the people, will eventually figure it out and your Website will never increase in value.
Use Wordpress if your Website is a blog (ITS FREE) and learn the plugins to start with.
You can get wordpress as a FREE download at:
http://wordpress.org/download/
One reason Wordpress is so great is that it has hundreds of free “Plugins”. Plugins are tools that lets your Website do cool or important things. For example. Want your Website to create an XML Sitemap (this is a map that tells the search engines whats on your Website and where so they can come check it out)
SAY YES to wanting a sitemap. OK. Just automatically download and click install on the “Google XML Sitemap Plugin”
.A Website that looks sharp with great features is a competitive advantage
Pick a Website design that makes sense. If You are using Wordpress there are plenty of Website designs (Called Themes) for any occasion. Don’t use a hi tech modern design if you want to write about ancient Egypt.
You can get free themes from the free wordpress download. You can also buy a professionally designed theme. I have used both but hands down the professionally designed ones are the best. They look better and have more options that you can configure to make your theme the way you want it to be.
Here is a link to a site that has a lot of good deals on Wordpress Themes. It also has a lot of free information on how to set up the wordpress Website and how to make simple changes to your theme, etc. www.wpthemesdeals.com
You need to Optimize your Website for the Search Engines (SEO BABY!)
OK. I gave you a preview of SEO earlier and there really is a lot more to it than just keywords and articles. BUT if you use wordpress you are at an advantage. You can install the platinum SEO plugin for free and it will do a GREAT job of handling SEO for you. Also there is the SEO smartlinks plugin for wordpress as well.
BUT automation is not a substitute for knowledge. We will be posting a article just on SEO in a few days (But most people consider SEO keyword research and placement. But it goes way beyond that).
You need to create a sitemap and submit your site to the search engines
With Wordpress if you want your Website to create an XML Sitemap (this is a map that tells the search engines whats on your Website and where so they can come check it out) whenever you add a new post or article you can do so with the “Google XML Sitemap Plugin”. Just automatically download the plugin from the “add Plugin” option within wordpress and you are on your way (OK you have to click install and then go into the options to do a few settings).
Also, go into the “Pages” option and create a page called “Site Map”. Don’t put anything in it. Almost all of the Wordpress themes will include this with the pages in the header so people will see it and the site map generator plugin will fill the page with a link to all the articles posts and categories that are on your Website so people can look around easier.
Remember, you can have the best information in the world on your Website but
- If no one can find the site it does no good.
- If the people who find your site were looking for something else it does no good
- If once the people get there the site has useless or copied information it will do little good
- And if People have to much trouble getting around your site it will do no good!
You need to submit your site to directories, and to social bookmarking sites and promote it for BACKLINKS and that will help get you the “link juice”(as some like to callit) and that will help get your site MORE TRAFFIC!
But doing all of this can be a pain in the butt. It is a slow and tedious process.
I recommend using Miracle traffic Bot because it is automated and does it all. As I state elsewhere on this site I have personally spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on different products that don’t do any of this as well as Miracle traffic Bot. Here is a link to a short Review of it. It is another paid for product that is worth its weight in gold:
http://www.affiliatestoreguide.com/how-to-increase-Website-traffic
You need to keep working your site Content! Submissions! Links!
Once you have done all this you won’t get the traffic overnight. It takes a while for the search engines to “crawl” your site, and start sending you traffic and for people to start clicking on the articles that you submitted to the article sites and to the links you submitted to the directories.
In the mean time keep writing new and interesting articles. If you purchased Keyword Research Pro you can keep using it to find keyword phrases to write focused articles around. If you are using Miracle traffic Bot you can keep submitting articles etc.
You can also start to tweak your website. Learn how to add pictures. Learn that you can add keywords to the picture descriptions and names to add more relevance to your site. Browse the Plugin directory for more cool plugins and experiment to improve your site.
Get the Easy Google Analytics plugin, get a google analytics code and start tracking your website with google analytics. It will tell you how many people are going to your website and what keywords they use to get there etc. Just go to www.google.com/analytics and follow their instructions
And I could go on forever. ENOUGH FOR NOW!
