A lot of people still think that simply putting up a blog or website will automatically bring traffic. Unfortunately as the Internet continues to mature, it’s becoming harder and harder to get free traffic, but don’t give up! There is hope if you are willing to put in the time and be persistent about it! Don’t expect results immediately; instead chip away at it, thinking that it’s a long-term project because it is.
Unless you shell a ton of money on advertisement or buy expensive links, you are going to be working SEO for the long haul. Even if you have cash to dispense you should still think for the longer term. Don’t sweat it, and remember enjoy what you’re doing! If you can have fun creating your website or blog, people will notice and they’ll be back just by seeing your enthusiasm! Plus, you won’t be discouraged just because you don’t have thousands of people coming to visit your site everyday.
Search Engine Optimization (hereafter, SEO) is key in having a successful website. There are many components to SEO but there’s no need for me to throw out a million topics at you, and you should do yourself a favor and keep it simple. You need to do three main things. First, create a quality website with quality content. Second is link building. Third, make it easy for other websites and search engines to find you.
Step 1: Creating A Website that will Have People Coming Back
There’s enough junk in this world that it’s really hard to find quality products and services. Even many “professionals” are hardly professional and often don’t know what they’re talking about, even if they’re a really good speaker. It’s tough for the general public to distinguish the garbage from quality. On the other hand, it can be extremely obvious, and there are far too many garbage websites out there that were created in the hopes that it would produce an income from minimal work.
If you’re a blogger, do your research and be sure to edit your articles. If you want to write quality you should be backing up your arguments with solid information and possibly links to respectable websites that can act as support for your arguments. Take time to proof read your writing instead of posting everything you write without a second though. People care about spelling and grammar, use Microsoft Word or anything with a grammar and spell checker.
If you’re writing about a topic that has been written about a million times, write it your own way with a twist. Be original, no one wants to read something that they’ve seen on a hundred other pages, if they came to your website, chances are they want to see if you’ve taken the time to write something even a little different to help them find what they’re looking for.
Write often, but make sure it doesn’t lower the quality of your writing. I write for several blogs and I don’t write very often but when I do I try to take time and write something respectable. I am by no means a professional writer, but I take time writing outlines, editing, and proof reading my writing. If people are going to spend time looking at what I write, I want to respect my readers and show them my appreciation by taking time to write quality articles.
Spend time looking at great sites and think of what makes their design appealing. Is it simple? Is it flashy? Does it look professional? You don’t want to have a website that comes off as a cheap website, you want people to come in and think, ”Wow, this looks like a website where the Webmaster spent time on creating the website, therefore his content might have a good chance of being good.” You want quality across the board, not just in your writing.
Of course, you can always buy a ready-made website or hire someone to create a professional looking website for you, but it could cost you a lot of money depending on who you hire and the size of website that you’re looking to have created. Plus, you might not even be happy with the finished product!
Great Links to Help You Write and Create Quality Websites:
The 5 C’s of Quality Writing:
Clear, Concise, Compelling, Consistent, and Correct. A great place to start to get a strong foothold on how you should be writing quality articles.
Checklist for Writing a Quality Blog Post
Another great read on focusing on what constitutes a quality blog post. This goes beyond the writing and gives you some tips to keep your readers coming and not get bored of your writing.
12 Steps to Creating a Professional Web Design
A great read about the 12 steps to creating a professional website design. It really gives you some detailed ideas on what to think about. You will probably need some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and more to really make a superb website but if you’re willing to spend the time to learn it will definitely be worth it.
Remember, great sites like htmlgoodies.com is always a helpful place to go to for the basics!
Step 2: Link Building
There are tons of ways to build links and I will introduce a few here and link to some other sites so that you can get a better idea. You don’t have to do everything, find what you’re comfortable with at first and build on that. Take it in strides and soon enough, you’ll be happy you spent the time and effort.
First off, never spam. There are some that believe that spamming other webmasters for links, or spamming other blogs and message boards is the way to go, nothing can be farther from the truth. You want quality links, not just anything. If you spam, you’re creating a bad reputation for your website and that’s probably the last thing that you want. You can of course be helpful and post useful information on forums and other blogs and then be discreet about your website information. If someone really likes what you wrote, they’ll actually spend time looking to see if you have website information posted.
You often read, writing in forums is a great way to go. I completely agree, if you can write something useful then by all means go for it! But don’t post boring things like “I totally agree” or “What he wrote.” That’s going to do very little to help your reputation, if you agree or disagree with something take the time to actually create a proper response on a forum post, you’ll be appreciated much more that way.
Some very useful links on Link Building:
Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Website – Link Building
A wonderful resource. Aaron Wall is a respected SEO expert has some great free articles and this is one of them. Take a look. He also has a great program that requires a membership and you can sign up for his free newsletter that will give you some great insight into SEO. His paid program is $300 a month, and might seem pricy at first but it’s worth it if you are looking to build big websites or are planning on creating several successful websites. Start with the free signup if you are considering it.
131 Legitimate Link Building Strategies
Here’s another excellent resourcewhere you’ll definitely find a few ways of link building that you can work on. Take a few minutes reading this article that has a wealth of information and great links to other websites to really give you a strong idea of what to do to create solid links to your site.
Step 3: Make it Easy for People, Other Websites and Search Engines to Find You
You should have your own domain name where possible. Creating a free blog or website is fine, but you’re often giving free traffic to the website that is hosting your blog or website. Instead, you should be directing all that traffic directly to your own website. You can register a domain $6-7 a year even on reputable sites like Godaddy.com. Just be sure to do a search on Google for “Go Daddy Coupon Code” as you’ll find the most recent coupon codes for domain names. That last I checked you could get domain names with .com endings for less than $7 a year.
Be selective of your keywords. Don’t put every single keyword that your website or Blog might be remotely linked to, instead be extremely specific. For example, instead of “Nice shoes” use “Nice red Nike Shoes with green shoe laces”. Ok that might be a little long, but you get my “being specific” part. You will get focused traffic and actually have a much higher chance of ranking on Google and other search engines if you use specific keywords.
Be sure to use Meta Tags for every single page on your website. Meta tags have kinda gone downhill in the past few years because of all the spammers, but every little bit counts. You want every edge you can get, so be sure to take advantage of it!
Here’s a good introduction on Meta tags which also shows you how to implement them on your website.
http://searchenginewatch.com/2167931
The greatest way to create free traffic is social networking sites. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can drastically help you create free traffic if done right. It does take some commitment however since you need to be somewhat active by creating content for your website, and creating useful information for your followers. This shouldn’t be too hard since in the midst of researching for your website, you will come across very useful information which you can also write about on Twitter and Facebook.
There are several ways to getting fans and followers. You can actively search for them, get people to come with good content, and follow other people, which will sometimes lead to people following you. Feel free to add me on your following list!
Conclusion
Everything you do, it’s about quality. You want to write and create a quality website. You want to create quality links. You want to use quality keywords. And you want to give out quality information to have people coming back for more. If you try to take it easy on any of these fronts, you might be mildy successful, but you won’t make it big. It takes a lot of work, and I’m still in the midst of doing it myself, but it can be done.
Never give up and enjoy what you do! Remember persistence is the key to success.
I hope this article was helpful to you, if it was be sure to share it with others ☺