How to Get Natural Traffic to Your Website

Search Engine Optimization or "SEO" is the process of developing the volume of search traffic to a website via search engines from natural search results. Generally the goal is to move the target website as close to the top of search results as possible. If you have an online business this is a crucial part of getting visitors to your website so you can sell your product or service. Search engine optimization has been a huge industry in recent years with experts having much to say as search engines evolve to provide users with the best results possible.


KEYWORDS
Well we can't talk about SEO without first diving into the most important aspect, namely keywords, which are basically words or phrases which help a search engine identify your site. Sounds simple enough but as many who've gotten it wrong before will tell you its not always that easy. Many businesses end up making the mistake of choosing keywords that have more to do with the inner workings of the company rather than anything a customer would actually be looking for on a search engine. Another mistake is the use of generic keywords which will have high competition making it more difficult to reach the top. These terms will also result in a very low conversion rate. An example might be a web hosting provider using the term: "hosting" as a primary keyword. This term by itself is utilized for a number of purposes outside of that industry so you would end up with a lot of potentially useless traffic. A good bit of advice when choosing keyword phrases is that you shouldn't necessarily use the most popular, instead try to include something relevant but unique enough that you won't be competing with a ton of people for that top position. Tools like Googles Adwords keyword tool are extremely useful for picking relevant, high traffic terms.

CONTENT
Another thing to remember is that content is extremely important.Search engines like Google want to make sure they are providing users with what they are actually looking for so make sure the content on your site is "as advertised" so to speak. Pictures and flash are great eye candy but you also want to have a good amount of relevant text containing your priority keywords. Besides that your content should be unique and updated regularly. Some search engines check for duplicate content and this will definitely count against your site in the rankings.

BACKLINKS
Backlinks are incoming links to your website and are used to gauge the popularity of your site. It's best to make sure these links are relevant to your site and market. Specifically the linking site's content should be comparable to your own as far as keywords are concerned. You should also make sure you link out to quality sites as well. When it comes to backlinks some are definitely more valuable and too many of the wrong kind might actually be detrimental.

ARTICLE MARKETING
Article marketing is the act of writing an article which has something to do with your respective industry for advertising purposes. A relevant, well written article of around 600 words along with a link to your site in the resource box is really all it entails. Not only will these writings help your site gain much needed backlinks but this is also a great way to get traffic, as many readers will be compelled to visit your website if they found your article useful. Sites like ezine articles, ehow and isnare are a good way to get started.

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING/NETWORKING
Myspace, facebook, digg and a number of other social sites are an excellent tool for getting your website out there. Joining and using these sites will pay off in the long run. Putting bookmark buttons on your site will be an important part of this process as well. One reason these sites are so useful is the fact that they provide a human driven system of tagging and classifying your site versus search engine spiders. Not only can this be more accurate, it is a good way of getting your site noticed even if it hasn't been picked up by spiders.