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Building Web Traffic Is Really About Building Relationships

So many people have just one question in mind when trying to figure out the secret to building significant and relevant web traffic. What’s that question?

How much will it cost to get number one rankings on the search engines?

It’s a good question, but if it’s one that perhaps sounds all too familiar to you, then this is probably the perfect time to dig in and take a look at what’s really behind getting great rankings and lots of targeted, results producing traffic from the search engines.

There Are Several Ways To Achieve Ranking Results.

While most of these are inconceivably out of reach for most businesses, let’s consider all of the possible ways results are typically achieved:

Be a major branded company. Major company sites for well known household brands seem to have an automatic advantage in search (and this is on top of the millions they probably spend every year on additional web advertising). This is just something you either are or you aren’t.

Have a whole department worth of web experts on staff working overtime to create your own proprietary solutions to attracting traffic. Great idea, but this tactic is also incredibly expensive!

Pay a fly by night internet marketing “guru” to create their guaranteed number one rankings for your site. There’s a major disclaimer you should be aware of though, if you’ve been attracted to such an offer—there’s no such thing as guaranteed number one results! If there was, it’d be way too easy for everyone really. Anyone promising specific and unrealistic results is most likely just looking at their own financial results and not your needs. Plus, if they are able to deliver anything even close to the deceptive promises, they’ve probably used unethical (and sure to be caught and penalized) tactics to achieve them.

So the options above don’t really look that appealing, do they? Well, don’t worry—there are great traffic building strategies for the rest of us too!

Genuine Traffic Growth Starts With Better Relationships.

By adjusting and building your website with a customer-first mindset, you’ll automatically be well on the way to building better relationships and creating better traffic. But it’s kind of a give and take proposition. For example, some sites tend to settle on just building a website that has very basic company information and that’s about it—kind of like a company brochure or flyer.

For some with really basic web needs, this concept is possibly acceptable. However, for results driven web professionals, the real key to success is building websites chock full of accurate information and friendly customer content. This could mean providing step by step suggestions of solving a business related issue. Or, it could mean offering a video online that demonstrates exactly how a product offered by the site is used.

Either way, this kind of customer-focused content is exactly how customer relationships are built and barriers to trust are broken. With this mindset, and by following a practical and realistic approach for success with the search engines, the foundation for building web traffic is securely formed.

What Are Keywords All About Anyway?

Do you know what keywords are all about when it comes to your website? Well first of all, to be clear, we’re not talking about the traditional meaning of keyword, which basically means “insider jargon.” When it comes to the web, keyword is instead defined as the words used to perform a web search. And most importantly, keywords are actually the key to your success with search on the web!

Let’s take a deeper look at some of the more frequent questions revolving around keywords on the web:

Question #1: What is the difference between a keyword and a keyword phrase?

Answer: Simple—a keyword is just a singular word that is searched for, while a keyword phrase is a string of a few words together that form one search term or query.

Question #2: How are keywords used within my site?

Answer: Well, first and foremost, you’ll probably want to work with your SEO provider to develop a list of the exact keywords and keyword phrases that will help your particular site perform superbly within its unique niche. Then, the keywords are strategically used throughout your site to help certain pages perform well for related searches, as well as boosting the overall presence of the website in its topical category.

Question #3: Is it better to use broad keywords or more specific keyword phrases?

Answer: Ideally, a quality SEO strategy will involve using both broad keywords (for example “exercise” if your website is about exercise equipment) and using more specific narrow keyword phrases (like “commercial grade exercise equipment” if it’s an area your business focuses on). More specific keyword phrases don’t attract quite as many searches, but in turn, there’s also less competition. The key is to achieve an optimal balance.

Question #4: What is keyword stuffing?

Answer: Keyword stuffing, also known as keyword spam, is the frowned upon practice of using a certain keyword or keyword phrase too many times unnaturally within a web page’s content in order to unfairly influence the results of a search engine. It is considered a black hat SEO practice, and overusing keywords will ultimately get your site banned from the engines.

Question #5: How many times is too many times when using a keyword in a page?

Answer: Depending on the website’s niche or overall topic, there really is no specific definitive answer. Quality SEO companies know the right balance of keyword usage to attract searches and visitors while still remaining in full compliance with search engine policies. A standard rule of thumb says that if a reader notices a certain keyword phrase as they read the page, it’s probably too repetitive. Keep it as natural as possible.

Having a solid keyword plan is a basic component of advanced SEO—a practice that helps websites find search success.

Q&A: Understanding The Web Search And Directory Environment

When you go to do a web search, do you think much about the behind the scenes process of how websites are listed or actually become a part of the listings resulting from your search? Don’t fret—most don’t give the process a second thought—just as long as the search delivers the desired results.

The thing is, as a website owner, it is important to consider how the web search and directory environment actually works to begin to experience success online. By learning the ropes and then being a keen observer of the whole process in your own day to day web usage, it will be much clearer on how much good web technique can actually help your site.

Here are a few commonly asked questions and simple answers when it comes to search engines and web directories:

What is the difference between a search engine and a web directory?

Search engines generally seek out and find your site through their own processes (and sometimes with a little help through search optimization). They decide what your site is all about and display listings for individual pages that match their searchers’ needs.

On the other hand, web directories are niche topic sites or general sites organized by category. It is often necessary to apply in order to have your site and its description listed within the directory. While searchers don’t tend to use this type of service as much as they did in the earlier days of the web, being listed in top-quality and highly relevant directories helps to encourage the major search engines to look upon your site more favorably.

Do web directories still matter for attracting visitors to my site?

Again, web directories still play a substantial part in an overall traffic building strategy for any site. While they don’t necessarily play a huge part in directly sending visitors to your site, they do help build your site’s link popularity and increase its overall presence online. Some experts place more stock in this philosophy than others—often even paying a hefty premium to ensure listings will appear within major directories. Either way, it would be foolish to disregard the impact web directories can have.

What directories should my site be included in?

Well, it really depends on the topic of your website or business. Securing listings with highly-respected industry web directories is a good idea and often incurs no additional application fees. Applying to the major directories like Yahoo! Directory (not to be confused with Yahoo! Search) can come at an additional cost. The Open Directory Project, commonly known as DMOZ is a popular free directory, but securing inclusion in the directory is quite difficult.

Can I improve my search engine rankings by being listed in directories?

Absolutely—although we touched on this a bit above, it’s important to make this as clear as possible. Directories are essential to a site’s overall search engine optimization (SEO) plan. Being listed in popular directories helps search engines find your site and can help increase the chances of ranking highly in the search engines results.

Tricks Of The Trade – Building Link Popularity Counts

Are you familiar with Google PageRank? For awhile a few years ago, it seemed like the whole world revolved around achieving the highest possible score according to this industry-standard indicator. The thing is, all of the energy that was put into getting a high score by so many well-meaning webmasters was not actually based on improving their websites, but rather, trying to beat the system.

We all know in the long run, the only way to achieve real success is to play the game with good sportsmanship—or in other words, when it comes to PageRank, “beating the system” by buying links and setting up shaky backlink schemes and partnerships just wasn’t the way to go... and it’s still not. Google adapted their PageRank system quickly to stay ahead of the black hat practitioners and make sure that the system continued to serve its intended purpose as an accurate indicator of a particular site’s value to searchers.

If there’s one way to describe this whole philosophy in just a sentence, it would go something like this: You can’t buy popularity on the web—instead, you have to earn it. Building link popularity the old fashioned way—through lots of effort and hard work—is not only more economical than trying to buy it, but it actually works too. It’s a foundation of search success.

How Is This Achieved?

There are several excellent tricks of the trade when it comes to building link popularity. Here are just a few...

Attract Natural Links – By developing a first quality, content rich website, the site itself will actually do much of the hard work. Basically, other websites and directories will find your website through its informational content and eventually link back to your site in order to provide value to their own visitors. Search engines love this organic method of link building. Plus, it has a real snowball effect over time.

Link Exchanges With Relevant Sites – While some web pros now dismiss the tactic of exchanging links with relevant, quality websites, it still does provide value when used responsibly. If your site and a topically-related site are perfect complements to each other—and if you’re on friendly non-competitive terms with the other site’s owner—exchanging links is a great idea. Just make sure the links are not hidden away on the sites, but are actually on the up and up.

Article Directories – Submitting original, high end articles on a regular basis to a few of the major article directories is a timeless tactic for building link popularity. This means that you give the article directories and other websites that affiliate with them the permission to post your articles freely as long as they publish an included link to your site.

Keeping a simple and well-intended philosophy when it comes to link building is the best way to help earn high search rankings. Trying to trick the search engines—and ultimately visitors—just isn’t the right thing to do, nor will it work in the long run.