1:44 PM

3 Ways Increase Traffic using SEO

Steps to Increase Website Traffic using SEO

Such a good looking website but no traffic! Sounds familiar?

Improving your website's ranking (using Search Engine Optimisation) and getting onto the first page on Google can be a long, technical and tedious process, normally braved only by technical people. There are several things you can do yourself to improve your SEO!
We have spent many months researching this, invested in software, tested on websites, and now want to share some of what we learnt. Firstly, a few facts:

Websites have become "common" and it is estimated that there are now more than 110 million websites hosted on millions of servers throughout the world.
Google, Yahoo, Bing and others have developed search engines because we cannot check out all 110.000.000 websites when searching for something.
A search engine is a computer program that matches "people's search phrases" with the "content of known websites"
If your website is not found on the first or second of the results pages then it is very unlikely that the person who is searching will ever see your website.

Firstly, 3 important questions

Does the website work properly and has its engine been built and optimised by a professional website builder? The code, content management system, images, upload time, links, speed, and loads of other factors can all influence how your website is ranked. Search engines do not always give good rankings to badly built websites.
Does the content of the website appeal to "web-crawlers", and does the content match what people are searching for? Search engines will rank you high if your website has been optimised for certain very search-specific keywords. Remember, if you expect to be found for a particular keyword but you don't use it in your text, then you probably won't be found for it.
Does your website convince or urge visitors to do something like buy your product, call your company, send you an email or make an enquiry? Or do your visitors quickly hop to another site?
Once search engines find my website and I get traffic - Does my site convert?

Must Read: 11 SEO Tactics Every Blogger must Know

The SEO Process In a Nutshell

The process (simplified) to increasing your website's performance is really quite simple:

Know (or find out) what your customers are searching for (known as "search keywords")
Alter / write your content on your website to match those keywords
Wait for Google to see your changes, analyse the results, edit/tune your text, and repeat.

Of course it's not quite as easy as that, however having relevant & well-written content on your website is the most relevant factor to improving your SEO, and it is the most common thing that website owners tend to overlook.

Key-Word Research

Q: What is a search keyword?
A: A word or phrase that people actually key into the search box when they are looking for a product. - What will my customers search for?
There is a fine balance here between too short and too long. Here are 3 examples of this:

The search for "B&B" will get 1.240.000 results. The 1-word keyword B&B is too short to be of any use, and and generally not very effective.
The search for "B&B Taradale" narrows the results to 10,900 which is much better and more common. Most search phrases used consist of 2, 3 or 4 keywords.
The search for "B&B Taradale queen bed no kids" narrows the results to 1. This is a very targeted phrase but probably too specific.
You have to select a good spread of 2 - 5 word Key-phrases with 3-word phrases being the most used.

Each website owner needs to be very specific about this, and brainstorm targeted keywords. Ask friends and clients, check out your competitor's website and test the keywords you come up with by doing searches and checking the results.

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Select as many different key phrases as you think fit, put them on a spreadsheet and rank these in order of importance.Allocate to each page of your website 5 of your best keywords relative to that page, then start optimizing each page with these keywords.
Trying to optimize your content without doing keyword research is like firing a gun with your eyes closed. Usually very ineffective and sometimes dangerous!

First the Landing (Home) page then the other pages.

Your landing page is the page where most of your customers will land and where you lay-out your services.

This page must be "the honey that attracts the bee" otherwise you will get little traffic. It mustlook superb, efficient and direct your visitors to "what you have to offer" on the other pages. The tour operator will specify that he offers walking tours, bus tours and wine tours and the B&B's landing page will lead to pages describing the rooms, breakfast menu, swimming pool etc. We must help the visitor along by linking them through to your other pages.
Now first optimise this landing page followed by your other pages with good text using your specific key phrases for each page.

Optimization Tips

Your Blog Seems Caught On A Dead End – What To Do?

Deal systematically with each of the following aspects to see results:

H1 Headings - Start your page with a H1 heading of 5-10 words.

This heading should include at least one of your major keyword(s). Use H1 only for the most important heading in your text. This is important for the human eye and the same goes for SEO, so give this a lot of thought. Don't waste your H1 heading on "Welcome to..." but use it for "Tours through Wellington Harbour for Japanese Tourists".

Subsequent headings in your text should generally be H2 & H3. Bare in mind that the more headings you have, the more "watered down" the effect of these headings become.

Other headings, bold text & italics.

Write your text with care, using the less important headings H2 → H6 for headlines and titles of sub sections. Include the keywords you are optimising the page for and use bold text and italics to draw the visitors attention to something important in the page.

Number of words and keyword density - How many words should I use on a page?

There is no hard and fast rule here, besides that "very short" content could mean that your page will look insignificant to search engines and "very long" content could mean that it is long winded and your visitor may get bored.

Why Is SEO Important In Order Have Top Position in Search Rank

Good advise here is to have a look at the competition, I mean by spying a little bit on the websites that do well with search engines. Check the word count, the use of bold text, the size, the use of italics and headings; have a special look at the Keyword density (keywords as a % of total words). These sites rank high so they must be doing something right. Do not copy their content under any circumstances as this can be easily traced with modern programs, but if the high ranking websites use between 500 and 800 words and you are only using 100 then you may want to increase your text. If their keyword density is between 2 and 5% and yours 15 then you may be overdoing it a bit. Same for bold and Italic text.

So take your queue from learning from the opposition, remembering that the text has to look natural at all times.

Links inside my website

Search engines give preference to websites where the pages are well-linked (having lots of links between them). These are called "internal links" and it is important to lead your visitor through your site with these links to the other pages. Read through your page and ask yourself "what's next?" - If your article is about "walks" then give the reader the option to select another type of walk (beach walk on a page about forest walks), link to your bookings page or to the "Choose your Guide" page. Try not to use the "click here" as the link but use one of your keywords.

"Book a forest walk here" is a better link with forest walk being a keyword.

Links to and from other websites

Search engines rank your site higher if there are other sites that link to yours (external links), especially if those website have a higher page ranking than yours. Contact your colleagues, suppliers, customers and friends and ask them to put a link on their website to yours. Remember that it should be a link from a related website to your business and not any old or dubious website. Work out how you would like to feature on your suppliers web page (many websites have a link page).

How to Create Viral Content

Do not buy links from link-farms as it will drop your SEO ranking eventually, and may even get you banned from Google.

"Packit, a superb manufacturer of packaging products". This would be a good link because it includes the business name and the keyword 'packaging products'.

Search engines think highly of well linked websites - both internal and external.

Get linked from well known Search Directories

There are thousands of websites all over the internet that allow you to add your business details and get a link to your website from. Unfortunately most of these websites have no actual relevance to how your website is found as they are considered not important by Google.

Describe your images

Search engines typically cannot see your images, but do read your image description ("alt tags"). Pay attention to this and put your keywords in your image description.

So if you are offering a beach walking tour and you display the image of a gorgeous looking girl who is obviously having fun on the beach, then the search engine - unfortunately - is not able to see this image but reads the image description that you have provided.

You need to be creative and descriptive here and instead of using a plain "girl on Beach" you could use:"On our guided beach walks along the Kapiti Coast we often see gorgeous girls having fun". You have covered some keywords and provided a useful description.

Optimize Your Blog with Keyword Rich Content

Meta Title - Create a great title for your page.

It is the first introduction of the Search engine to the content of your site and this title is generally displayed in the linked text of the results page. It is important to create a meaningful title for your page and you need to include your main keywords.

Example - "Decorative Wedding Cakes for Wellington Brides" - This has the keywords Wedding Cakes and Decorative in the Meta Title and specifies the area.

Meta Description - Describe what your page is all about.

This description is important for search engines so you should again include some of your keywords here. Work on this description so that it best describes what the page is all about. Humans may see this description too as it is sometimes displayed in search results.

Example - Harry's Tours in Whangarei include a Harbour visit with a 30 minute boat trip. Free transport to your accommodation in comfortable coaches. Our guides speak many languages.

Conclusion

If you would like your website to produce good results, then it is important that you not only have a professionally built website, but that you pay special attention to the content of your pages.
It is vital that you first undertake "keyword research" and proceed with optimizing your pages for these keywords. You need to continue testing your site and see how you and your opposition in the searches are doing. Keep making smaller changes to fine-tune and update your pages fairly regularly. Search engines like "fresh content" and favour regularly updated sites.

SEO is a very fluid skill and owners of Search engines do not exactly advertise how they work out their preferences - they often change them so as to confuse those who engage in unethical practises to get to the "top spot". What will never change though is the respect a search engine has for a well written and designed website!

Internal Linking SEO 2015 – What, Why and How?

SEO should be undertaken on a regular basis if you want good results from your site.
You can do this yourself (this article will have given you some useful tips) using your website's CMS, alternatively Techno Joy can provide this SEO service for you as our software can research your site very quickly and professionally. We would:

Select & weigh the effectiveness of keywords. Are they good or bad keywords?
Adapt your content to relect these keywords in a way that is "attractive" to both Google as well as potential customers.
Report on how individual pages have been optimized - what is my keyword density, how much bold text has been used, are the headings effective, etc.
Rank website and analyses performance against top competitors.

Optimization is not a "quick-fix" but a slow dedicated process and we usually do this work over a 6 month period when we are able to "measure and tune" the website whilst giving you monthly progress reports.

Recommended to You: How To Get Your First 500 Loyal Visitors #InfoGraphic

7:17 AM

Volunteer Virtually and Watch the Rankings Grow

As a blogger, you know how important it is to have links to your blog out on the web. Likely, you’re already doing many things to get more of those links, including having interesting content that will spread among the social media platforms and writing guest blog posts so you can link back to your blog.

However, there is one form of internet citizenship that you probably haven’t thought about yet: virtual volunteerism. The internet is full of non-profits who need content written and organizations that couldn’t write a blog post to save their lives. There are even online newspapers that can’t seem to fund themselves and need a lending hand. Volunteering in exchange for a byline link or an author’s page isn’t just self-serving altruism, it’s smart.

The trick is to create a symbiotic relationship where both parties flourish. Find what they need (photos, an editor, stories, a webmaster), and tell them what you’d like in return. If they’re willing to pat your back, give them a hot stone massage with scented oils. By going above and beyond, they’ll be grateful to you and more likely to help you out.

If you’re a student, talk to your career services department. Even if you’ve gone the online education route, it’s possible someone at your college can help you find a great place to volunteer.
Another thing to consider is that you’ll want your blog topic to match up as much as possible with your charity. If you blog about home life, look for opportunities that deal with tutoring children, building houses or even focus on domestic violence. Bloggers who tackle environmental projects will find plenty of opportunities to work with international wildlife organizations and animal shelters.

Since many adoption decisions are made based on animals’ photos online, shelters are finding they need better photographers to work with. Since many photographers rely on their blogs to bring in clientele, they’re in the same sort of predicament. They need more exposure, and the animals need better exposure. Shelters will be more than happy to link to your site if you become a regular photographer for them. If you can’t actually visit their location, you can give them tips on setting up shots and have them e-mail you the raw files so you can edit them. You can also jump in with writing cute descriptions and editing them.

There are a myriad of projects available, so it’s no surprise you’ll need a way to sort through them. Volunteer Match is just that tool. You can search based on keyword and then check the box to specify that you’re only looking for virtual volunteering opportunities. Search for just the word ‘blog’ and 124 opportunities immediately pop up. Of those, there are certainly opportunities for everyone.

When you contact a non-profit, be completely clear about your intentions. You want to paint it in the best light possible, but you also don’t want to stick a condition on your volunteerism at the last minute. Let them understand that you’d love to help out, but that you’d appreciate a little link love as well. Avoid being a spammer, and offer to help them regardless of whether or not they link to your blog. However, don’t continue assisting them if they continue to be unwilling to help you out as well.

Remember that being a good citizen has more benefits than a boost in rankings. You want to put genuine heart into your work and do your best. Don’t just shoot for the minimum to scrape by; realize that you have the power to help and take control of that power.

5:05 AM

SEO Techniques to Use in Your Blog Writing

Implementing SEO techniques into your blogging has the potential to generate a good amount of traffic for your blog when it’s done right, which can help to result in a higher Page Rank. And that is the ultimate goal of every blogger, isn’t it? Well, that and earning money for writing about what you know and love. By adding SEO into your everyday posts you’ll help to optimize your content and hopefully accomplish both of those things.
So how do you do that?

Start with keyword research. If you’ve looked into SEO practices at all you’ve no doubt heard countless people tout the importance of utilizing the right keywords. So take some time to do your homework and find out which keywords are important to your blogging niche. There are countless keyword research tools out there to help you narrow down which keywords you’ll want to use.

Once you’ve determined which keywords are going to be most effective in boosting your blog’s traffic start implementing them. The very first thing any reader is going to see when they stumble upon your article is the title of the post – so drop an important keyword that corresponds to your post in the title. This will help your post to be picked up by search engines more easily.

You will then want to write your opening so that you can include either the same keywords from the title or ones that correspond to the title. Why? Because when a search engine picks up the title, it more than likely will include at least part of the opening paragraph from the post – having keywords in there will help to bolster the SEO content.

Take some time to think about your metadata as well – adding keywords into the meta tags and meta title will also help to boost your SEO. If you can, try to incorporate some keywords into your content as well.
All that being said, though, you don’t want your sole focus be on using as many keywords as possible. You want to try to use the ones that pertain to what you’re writing about and will supplement your content making your post natural and fluid while also integrating keywords. Writing for the sole purpose of implementing keywords will just make your post sound stilted and stiff. Search engines may still pick up your blog but your readers will be turned off by this type of writing, making it a waste of time in the end.

SEO copywriting can be an enormous asset to your blog writing when it’s done right; you just have to be sure to not lose the focus and humanity of your blog when you’re doing it. Keeping your writing organic while also optimizing it is the best way to maintain SEO optimization success.

5:50 AM

Boost Traffic With Facebook

Are you on Facebook? You should be. Despite the stigma Facebook has as being a social networking sites for school kids it is a powerful ally for your marketing arsenal. Facebook is being utilized by online marketers young and old, and for you to benefit from the same you need be there.

If done right, you can boost traffic to your site with the help of Facebook time and time again. Facebook is the largest social networking sites on the planet and has even outgrown Google’s traffic numbers.

Below are some ideas to help you boost your traffic with FB:

Facebook Ads

Facebook PPC ads are a cost-effective way to market your business. Bear in mind that the TOS are pretty strict and not every type of business is allowed to advertise. Work from home and MLM schemes will find it tough to get approved as there is so much rubbish among them.

Facebook Pages

If you run any business, regardless whether it offline or online based you should have a Facebook Page. You can design them at no cost to you. Once your Page is designed and launched you need to find fans. You can do so by inviting your existing Facebook contacts to take a closer look.
You can also network on similar niche forums on the site to grow your circle of influence over time. As more people take notice of you, they will join your fan club.

Facebook Groups

Joining Facebook groups is as easy as doing a keyword search for a related niche. If you are “peddling” electrical contracting you can join groups with like-minded people to extend your reach. By helping others for free you are likely to gain a steady following of people over time, people who will become your avid readers and eventually your clients.

Install Tracking

When you promote your message on Facebook make sure you use some kind of tracking stats to determine what works and what doesn’t. The easiest way to do this is by signing up for a free bit.ly account. You can use specialized URLs and track how many clicks you get, where the traffic came from and much more. Unless you know what works you will be wasting your time.

Network with Top Marketers in Your Niche

If it is possible to network with top marketers in your niche, do it. You need to understand that you can’t simply send them messages saying “hello,” “great to meet you,” and stuff like that. For you to be noticed by a top maggot you need to offer something; your time, your energy, your support, free work, etc. These guys are busy and they simply won’t respond to every Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to seek their friendship.

Design a Killer Profile

Unless your profile stands out among the competition you will only ever be another number in the crowd. The best way to stand out is to make your profile page in-your-face. Be outspoken, be hilarious, be grumpy, be different. Whatever it takes to achieve this. Today, it is getting harder and harder to be a unique entity because of the sheer number of people who market online.
Having said this, it isn’t impossible. You can put on your creative hat and start thinking about ways to attract people’s attention without being nasty, aggressive or abusive to them.
Have fun!

5:47 AM

10 Clever Offline Tactics for Online Traffic

Marketing your online business can be a very time consuming and drawn out process. Most of us get so consumed with our online social media sites, article marketing, etc., we forget there is a whole offline world to which we can market our products and services.
There are many ways you can effectively market your online business to the offline world. Some strategies will require more aggression and work but will produce results. Making the transition from online to offline marketing can sometimes be difficult and outside our comfort zone, but to succeed with your business you need to expand. Start with one or two of the ideas below and as you make progress start increasing your marketing arsenal.

1. Have a Networking Party – Plan and invite your local and surrounding area business owners to a networking party. Brainstorm together to cross promote each other and bring leads to fellow business owners. Working together with other business owners can bring you a remarkable amount of success.

2. Brochures/Flyers – You can make your own brochures/flyers at a very nominal cost and they can help build your business. Always carry them with you so you can hand them out at every opportunity. Include them in all your mailings and post them on bulletin boards where allowed. Hand them out at parades, community events, sporting events, etc. Be sure to add a call to action so your potential customer will take action. NOTE: Always check to see if you are allowed to distribute or hand out advertisements before you do so.

3. Advertise on Public Vehicles – Many of us have seen buses and other public vehicles plastered with ads. This could work very well for your business as well. Contact bus companies, taxi companies, utility companies, etc. to see what they would charge for your ad.

4. Sponsor Community Events – Children’s sports, charity events, picnics, fundraisers, etc., are all good events to sponsor. Getting involved in your community will definitely give your business a boost. Not only will you get excellent publicity but you will get additional networking opportunities as well.

5. Freebies – Freebies are always a good way to get your url out into the world. Offer people ink pens, mouse pads, coffee cups, calendars, etc. Give as many out as you can! Be sure to give out freebies people will actually use.

6. Letterheads – Your url, business name and logo should be on all mailings, letters and envelopes that leave your house. You can design your own stationery and envelopes. Greeting cards, postcards even the monthly bills should all have your business info!

7. Business Cards – Business cards are a great tool for you to spread the word about your business. Be creative. Use short but powerful testimonials. Add your url and logo. Offer a coupon/discount code for first orders. Add a special tip, motivational quote or personal message. Hand them out to everyone!

8. Discount Radio Shows – Many radio stations have local shows where they offer various coupons and discounts to listeners from area businesses. Call the radio station and find out how to participate. Offer specials on various products and/or services.

9. Public Restrooms – An unusual advertising idea that seems to be spreading is to post ads from various local businesses in the restrooms of stores, restaurants, etc. Call these places to see what it would cost to have your ad in their restroom. I know I read those ads all the time – what else is there to do. Also, ask restaurants about ads on their placemats.

10. Your Vehicle – Add a painted or magnetic sign to your vehicle. Be sure you use your url and add a short tagline. Even a family fun day can bring you some new business!

The offline marketing ideas are endless so always be on the look-out for new, innovative methods to spread the word about your online business. Spread your wings and go outside your comfort zone! You will be amazed at some of the results.

OLBlog