Learning Stuff About ‘building web traffic’


Google Key Words for building unique web traffic

In this post I will address some more the matter of google key words for getting web traffic. In the prior post on getting unique web traffic, I mentioned that I wanted to flesh out certain points. That is what I’m trying to do here.

I advised taking a strategy where you focus on getting ranked in the search engines with key words that are not too competitive. Competitive does not only mean that the key words are very popular. It also has to do with how hard it would be to have your site outrank the other sites that also rank in the search results for these specific words.

In this post I will introduce you to the google key words tool which will assist you in choosing key words. In another post, I will explain how to tell how difficult it would be to obtain a better page rank than the number one result of this search query, or than any of the other sites in the search results.

The google key words tool is really meant for advertisers, to aid them in selecting the key words they want to target for displaying their ads. Nevertheless, this free tool can be very useful even if you’re not an advertiser.

All you do is enter a key word, or phrase into the google tool, and hit the button. You will then get a list of various key words related to what you entered, with some statistics associated with it. By default, there are two columns displayed which show statistics related to the traffic volume per month for these set of google key words. I would suggest you filter the Match Type to Exact to get a more accurate indicator of the kind of traffic you can expect from these key words. You can also see other statistics by selecting the available options in the Choose columns to display selection box.

Now if you see a very high traffic volume, then it is very likely that these key words are very competitive to rank for. So you will want to set your sights somewhat lower initially. Remember, the idea is to tap into some of the traffic available by managing to get your site ranked well for key words that do have some traffic. Once you can do this, then you can repeat it for other google key words, and steadily build your web traffic, not just traffic, but unique web traffic.

Ok, so now you have a tool to help you decide on key words you can target. What you now need to be effective, is the knowledge for how to check if you have a chance of ranking well with these google key words. That is what I will explain in another post to come soon. So stay tuned…

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Unique Web Traffic To Your Website -You can get it!

Everyone wants to get traffic to their website, if they have information or knowledge to share. In this post, what I want to focus on, is not just getting traffic, but getting targeted unique web traffic.

The importance of this should be clear. For while repeat visitors to your site is important, to expand your reach, what you really need is unique website traffic that is targeted.

I am going to look at a couple ways of achieving this goal. The first requires time, dedication and careful planning. The second requires some amount of money.

Perhaps the best way to get unique web site traffic is through the search engines. This not only gives unique visitor hits, but also targeted traffic. You want targeted traffic because this increases the likelihood that the visitors are interested in what you have, and will benefit from what you are offering.

So how does one go about getting search engine traffic? The solution is easy to say, but difficult to implement. Simply put, you need to get your page/site ranked on the first page of the search results and the closer it is to number 1, the better. And how does one get her page ranked this well in the search results? Well it is a combination of multiple factors, but there are two that are key and will take you a long way. These are, key words, and backlinks. Backlinks are links from other sites to yours.

I have elsewhere addressed the importance of backlinks or incoming links, and how to get such links, so I won’t reiterate here. On the matter of key words, you need to decide which words you want your page ranked high for when the search engine user enters them in his query. Now there is a strategy to this. You want to select key words where you can compete in. Chances are, if you targeted the key words, ‘make money’, you will not be able to get your page ranked near the top because there are already many sites targeting these same words, and which already have a solid base of backlinks which will make it very difficult for you to out do them.

It is best to choose key words that are not very competitive, yet are likely to be searched by more than a few people. Naturally you would not expect to get as much traffic from ranking high in this search phrase, as you would if you could rank high in the popular search phrase. However, do this enough times for different pages of your site for the less popular key word searches, and your trickle of traffic will eventually coalesce into a steady stream or even river of healthy unique and targeted web traffic.

The second way to get unique web site traffic, would be to pay for it. For example, there is google adwords. You pay google to have your ad shown when certain key words are found in the content of web pages. This is an effective way to generate the traffic you want. So if you have money for this activity, why not try it? Yahoo also has a similar adword model. So does kontera.

Aside from the adword models, there are a number of sites that make it their business to funnel targeted traffic to your site. You basically decide how many unique visitors you want and then you pay for the package that will meet that target. Do some research into this if you’re inclined to go this route.

So having looked at the two main ways of increasing unique web traffic to your site, you can see that the easier and quicker route to take for results, would be to pay for it. However, if you cannot afford to do that, you can invest the time and effort needed to increase your ranking in the search engine results. And of course, you can combine these two methods when it makes sense.

I intend to add future posts that will flesh out some of the points made here.

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Building Web Traffic -Getting backlinks

Now that we understand the importance of backlinks to your site, let us explore some of the ways for getting backlinks.

Perhaps the easiest is if you already have another website that has some amount of visibility, then you can simply add a link on it to your new site. Try to make the link relevant to your site though. If you must start from scratch, then you can try the following:

1. Visit forums that have some relevance to the content of your site. Post on the forum and interject a link to your site when it is appropriate. Don’t violate the rules, and don’t spam. Make sure your post is relevant, and linking to your site is seen more as adding value than simply trying to advertise your site. Or instead of trying to include the link in the main body of your forum submission, include it in your signature and profile (if there is a profile facility).

2. Find sites that are related to yours in terms of content or service, and make a request to the webmaster to do a link exchange. This means you will include a link to the other site on yours, and he/she will in turn link to your site from their own.

3. Make comments to posts on various sites/blogs and where appropriate include a link in your comment. Usually you are given the opportunity to specify your website along with your name when making the comment. Be aware however, that quite often when you include a link in a comment, the link is a nofollow link so won’t be counted towards your page rank by search engines. Webmasters do this is to cut down on spam. But a link out there in your comments still can be useful, as someone reading it might just decide to check out your link, especially if your comment is sensible and relevant.

4. Alert sites like Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon of your page(s). Each of these sites basically allows you to share your content with the world. The way they work, is by submitting a title and a little description of what your page/site/article is about. Your entry is then visible to the thousands of others browsing these sites, and they may either rate it good or bad. The more good ratings you get, the more visibility your entry gets. Now, keep in mind that even if your entry doesn’t get anywhere in terms of popularity on these sites, it still helps you because the search engines love these sites, and you’ll quickly become more visible in the results of search engines like google. Bear in mind that if the site is a nofollow site, then it won’t do much to increase your ranking in the search engines. However, even with the nofollow sites, it does seem to help in getting your site indexed, in case your site is not yet indexed.

5. Bookmark your site. Bookmarks count as incoming links. There are sites that actually allow you to store your bookmarks online. This can also be good for getting backlinks to your site. Join up with a site like del.icio.us (or delicious.com) and add bookmarks to the sites you want promoted. Search engines are able to see these bookmarks, so it can possibly improve your search rankings. However, these bookmark links could very well be what are called nofollow links, which means that they don’t carry weight in terms of page rank. In another post I will explain how you can determine if a link is a nofollow link.

(You can see more example sites that allow link sharing by putting your mouse over the Share/Save icon at the bottom of this post).

If you have any other ideas, please do post them in the comments, or even do your own post submission.

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