There are many kinds of traffic for your website, such as social traffic, direct traffic, search, referral and paid traffic..and some of them may or may not be healthy to your page rank.
If you want to get ahead of your competition, you must always consider search engines. Search engines are those that give you organic traffic.
It means that people search for a string of keywords, and with the help of directories and search engines, they drop to your site and find the answers.
But.. there’s always a multitude of sites that contain answers to a single question.
These other sites are your competitors, and even on search engines, they may go ahead or behind of you.
Learning to rank well in search engines then is critical to your website’s performance.
As of January 2014, I get 13-15k unique visitors per day and 80%+ of my traffic comes from search engines. These are the methods I usually use to optimize my site and the content.
Just follow these proven tips and rank better in search engines. It will take some time (few weeks to months) but if you do these consistently, you will definitely drive more traffic from search engines. Take a look at these quick but essential tips:
Nothing works better in reputation than a content that is well-written, original, and useful to the readers.
If you want to rank better in search engines, then provide the right answers in the right way.
Originality means that you got a content that is at least presented like no other, and usefulness comes when that presentation is logically prepared to meet people’s needs.
And if you want to necessarily help people more with what you can provide, you may also want to enlarge your database of content. This means that you must keep your site fresh and updated with things that might interest people and even answer their queries.
Maintain this tactic and you’ll harvest more people than you can imagine.
To be a master to your niche, you must concentrate on that niche—at least for a valuable time, enough to earn your badge.
Learning to properly impose keywords on a single webpage is tantamount to the difference between having a better rank or none. Keywords must be placed on the most critical elements of a webpage, such as:
Google recommends to use (-) hyphens instead of (_) underscores.
Aside from optimizing your web images so that they load faster, you must also know that not all images get loaded on absolutely all devices.
Some would even prefer the images NOT to be loaded, so you would only have to make them see what’s ‘behind’ them.
Though some may require registrations, most of these would be free of charge.
Since this will also have your site enlisted, this will also help search engines better find you even in maps and other devices.
Check out https://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/ for more information.
With Google’s provided way of adding authorship to your site, you not only get (hopefully) a picture stamped next to your site on search results. You also get quick links for people to easily communicate with you, more if they love you as an author per se. Here's an example:
See how my Google+ profile picture shows up in search results? That's what you want to do!
Google provides a quick tutorial on how you can tweak some HTML codes to implement this effect. Otherwise, you may use my tutorial. The latter also provides full screenshots and some additional tips!
You must feed the top search engines with more items about your site. You must give them more pages and links to get indexed.
Furthermore, get listed to some of the top directory sites and see your traffic grow.
Note that whenever you submit a site to a listing, you must always choose the proper category so that people will look for you in the right place; putting your business in the wrong category is detrimental to your site!
Note also that you don’t need to fill in the fields with keywords or anchor texts because they don’t really need them.
Lastly, fill in as much fields as possible! If the listing requires more URLs, pour in!
Listed below are some of the best directory sites, which will really help. They may cost you something, but they are worth the participation:
Moreover, aside also from the authorship tip given above, you may also want to improve your content’s pagination if it will be a thousand-word long article. Lastly, a logo is almost like a requirement also for you to join the new hype.
Learn more details about this feature from Google’s own blog today.
See how I can determine the top keywords on my site? "Proxy Websites", "Instagram Photo Size", "About Me Examples"..etc. When people enter these keywords on Google or other search engines, my site shows up on top results. These "top keywords" gives me ideas on what to write about. I can also see the bounce rate, the visit duration, new visits vs old visits.
Reviewing these statistics actually helps me understand what my readers want and how I can serve them better.
Google is in constant improvement, but sometimes, it is not perfect; some pages may not be crawled properly.
Learn to create a sitemap (or use a tool, such as an online sitemap generator and submit them.
At first, know that meta tags don’t guarantee you an instant hike in ranking. It’s just there to assist search engines in assessing what kind of content you have and what people will get out of it.
Also, if you want people to click to your link posted in a results list, give them the confidence and a reason to.
Read Google's tutorial on how to set your preferred URL.
For example..
You changed your URL from this link: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2013 to this one: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2014.
See how I changed 2013 to 2014?
So to ensure you don't lose the value of the older page, use this 301 redirect method to send the older page to the new one. So when you go to this link: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2013, you should be redirected to: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2014.
Resources:
An 404 Error page is a web page that does not exist. When people go to a broken or wrong link, they will be sent to this page: "Error 404: Page Not Found". Here's an example:
404 pages are unavoidable at times - due to mistype URLs, broken links, etc. and this is why creating a user-friendly 404 page is a must. But the real question is "Why do you need this for SEO?" You need this because Google indexes this page as well and you need back links as much as possible to increase the number of your indexed pages.
So instead of using the generic and boring 404 page, setup a custom one with the same layout & design as your main site.
Make sure to include: link back to your site's main page, contact link/form so people are able to report broken links, add a search box, and probably a sitemap! And don't forget to tell your users that the page they're looking cannot be found.
Just a note though, do not include your 404 page in your sitemap!
Resources:
If you want to get ahead of your competition, you must always consider search engines. Search engines are those that give you organic traffic.
It means that people search for a string of keywords, and with the help of directories and search engines, they drop to your site and find the answers.
But.. there’s always a multitude of sites that contain answers to a single question.
These other sites are your competitors, and even on search engines, they may go ahead or behind of you.
Learning to rank well in search engines then is critical to your website’s performance.
As of January 2014, I get 13-15k unique visitors per day and 80%+ of my traffic comes from search engines. These are the methods I usually use to optimize my site and the content. Just follow these proven tips and rank better in search engines. It will take some time (few weeks to months) but if you do these consistently, you will definitely drive more traffic from search engines. Take a look at these quick but essential tips:
Ultimate Guide To Increase Traffic From Search Engines
1. Create original and useful content
Nothing works better in reputation than a content that is well-written, original, and useful to the readers. If you want to rank better in search engines, then provide the right answers in the right way.
Originality means that you got a content that is at least presented like no other, and usefulness comes when that presentation is logically prepared to meet people’s needs.
And if you want to necessarily help people more with what you can provide, you may also want to enlarge your database of content. This means that you must keep your site fresh and updated with things that might interest people and even answer their queries.
Maintain this tactic and you’ll harvest more people than you can imagine.
If you're running out of topics/ideas, you can read these articles I've previously written: Resources - Don’t Run Out Of Topics or Types of Blog Posts You Can Write About
2. Stick to your niche
You may want to be the jack of many trades, but where are you really a master at? Google and other search engines love mastery, meaning, you’re a considerable expert at something.For example, you choose "SEO" as your main niche. Focus on that topic and write a lot of useful posts related to SEO. For example, "How To Increase SEO Ranking", "How To Get Traffic From Search Engines Fast", "On-Site SEO Tips", "Off-Site SEO", etc.
Furthermore, being an expert means authority, and that will give you a higher page rank. To be a master to your niche, you must concentrate on that niche—at least for a valuable time, enough to earn your badge.
3. Use Keywords Wisely
Learning to properly impose keywords on a single webpage is tantamount to the difference between having a better rank or none. Keywords must be placed on the most critical elements of a webpage, such as:- Main Heading. Place your best keywords in your main heading which is the < h1 > tag and you should only use this tag once per page.
- Subheadings.Dividing different parts of your content using subheadings (H2,H3,H4) will help you describe the focus of your content. So make sure you take advantage of using these elements to rank better in search engines. Optimize these by using short but descriptive and relevant keywords. Take this article as an example, see how I list the the tips using subheadings?
- Title tags. Cutting out no more than 65 characters.
- Highlights. Important words within paragraphs or sentences must be emphasized. If these are keywords, then bold them up.
4. Improve your site structure
If you want a page to be friendly to the readers or visitors, make the page URLs friendly and compact. Check these examples:Ugly URL: http://www.twelveskip.com/index.html?id_sezione=390&sid=8jk5i49857ebka691ft2
No Good: http://www.twelveskip.com/seorules.
GOOD URL: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-rules
5. Speed up your site
People want fast, instantaneous, and straightforward response. People want reliability and consistency..and so search engines. Here are the tools I personally love:- Google's PageSpeed tool: check your site’s loading speed.
- Yahoo's compressor: minimize your CSS or JS file.
- HTML Compressor: minify your HTML code.
- Be sure also that images are optimized for the web. For PNG optimizers, I use tinyPNG.com (online) and ImageOptim (Mac Users). You may use Dynamic drive’s optimizer (GIF/JPG/PNG). For more image optimizer, click here.
- Optimize your videos also using Handbrake. Check out this tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0d-o7nS8W8
6. Make Images SEO-Friendly
Aside from optimizing your web images so that they load faster, you must also know that not all images get loaded on absolutely all devices. Some would even prefer the images NOT to be loaded, so you would only have to make them see what’s ‘behind’ them.
This is with the help of using the ‘ALT’ tag. Click here for code.
To help your images help your site in exchange, how about placing some keywords also? Note that for these tags, you don’t want to write too long. 7. Use Internal Linking
Internal linking means that you put some links of other pages into that page you’re working on. If you have a lot of other content that is somewhat related to what you’re writing down, have them pinned!However, don’t add more than 100 links per page. Count your links using Submit Express Link Counter.
For some sub-tips about internal linking: - Pages or posts that ranked higher before are good tools to help your current page rank higher. Choose them above the other related posts that you want to link on.
- Use keywords “site:www.yoursite.com [keyword]” in Google to help you find relevant posts within your own site and use the best-ranking ones on the page you’re working on.
8. Write Better Anchor Text
Who thought anchor text would help your site hit the marks? Instead of the usual anchor text and generic hyperlink words (such as ‘click here’), you might also want to incorporate some keywords. For example: “…for more video tutorials on HTML.”9. Submit Your Site To Search Engines
This means that you must get your website (or your online business) properly and officially indexed by the famous search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.Though some may require registrations, most of these would be free of charge.
- To submit your site to Google: http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/website-owner/
- Yahoo Site submission: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
- Bing: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url
10. Use Google Places for Business
If you have a business and you want to be better seen with the help of search engines especially Google, you must make your business enlisted much like you’d do with a directory.Since this will also have your site enlisted, this will also help search engines better find you even in maps and other devices.
Check out https://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/ for more information.
11. Setup Google Authorship
If you own a website and you want people to recognize it in a more ‘interpersonal’ way, set authorship.With Google’s provided way of adding authorship to your site, you not only get (hopefully) a picture stamped next to your site on search results. You also get quick links for people to easily communicate with you, more if they love you as an author per se. Here's an example:
See how my Google+ profile picture shows up in search results? That's what you want to do!Google provides a quick tutorial on how you can tweak some HTML codes to implement this effect. Otherwise, you may use my tutorial. The latter also provides full screenshots and some additional tips!
12. Build Backlinks
By using backlinks and exchange links, you can help other people help your site gain more traffic. Google and other search engines also parse these links to check for your site’s authority. These are done by a lot of various ways:- Guest blogging. Go and visit your competitors’ blogs. Do they offer a guest posting feature? Write something helpful for free, and in return, you get some additional authority, which equates to better traffic.
Also, write for sites or blogs that have good page ranks (PR) of at least 4 and higher. There’re a lot of tools to help you quickly learn the PR of a domain. For Google Chrome users, check out PageRank Status. If you’re using Firefox, try PageRank 2.0.
- Guest participation. Create or join forums, discussions, and even social media sites. Create a solid, professional profile with your link on it. Comment on blogs. Pin some of your own content that you think might help someone in a discussion.
- Freebies. Who doesn’t like freebies? Give your audience some good gifts, and ask for a little generous effort of a link exchange.
13. Submit Your Site To Quality Directories
You must feed the top search engines with more items about your site. You must give them more pages and links to get indexed. Furthermore, get listed to some of the top directory sites and see your traffic grow.
Note that whenever you submit a site to a listing, you must always choose the proper category so that people will look for you in the right place; putting your business in the wrong category is detrimental to your site!
Note also that you don’t need to fill in the fields with keywords or anchor texts because they don’t really need them.
Lastly, fill in as much fields as possible! If the listing requires more URLs, pour in!
Listed below are some of the best directory sites, which will really help. They may cost you something, but they are worth the participation:
- Directory Journal: Choose between a permanent or annual listing, and opt between getting featured or just a regular listing. Price starts at $59.95 a year.
- Alive Directory: Featured or regular? Annual or permanent? Want additional links? Price starts at $49.95 a year.
- AbiLogic: Choose from three packages namely: Express Listing ($14.95), Express-5 Listing ($19.95), or Premium Listing ($34.95). All of these are one-time fees and are not time-limited.
- Jasmine Business Web Directory: Choose a category for your business. All listings are permanent and costs you one-time. Price starts at $49.
- Aviva Directory: One-time payment or annual? Price is either $149.95 or $49.95 respectively.
- Hot Vs. Not: Depending on the category of your business, listing usually starts at around $50.
- Ezilon: Choose a country or region, then your category. Depending on the chosen options, price usually starts at $69. Inclusive of human editor review fees and yearly reviews.
- DMOZ: A very common directory submission site, DMOZ is also free and very simple.
- Business.com: A company profile, a dedicated business category—all for $299 a year.
14. Write In-Depth Articles
Google is currently working on the new “in-depth articles” feature that allows visitors to explore more information about a subject matter being searched, all within the same results page. Though Google seemed to have worked this feature only on select topics or subjects, you may still want to try and see if your content can be delegated on this prestigious list.Image Source: Google
Google suggests the use of Schema.org article markup to help your content get optimized for this new feature, particularly for some basic attributes such as the headline, image, description, and body. Moreover, aside also from the authorship tip given above, you may also want to improve your content’s pagination if it will be a thousand-word long article. Lastly, a logo is almost like a requirement also for you to join the new hype.
Learn more details about this feature from Google’s own blog today.
15. Track Your Traffic Stats
The WebMaster Tools and Google Analytics are the free but superb tools to help you assess your site’s performance especially in relation to Google as the search engine. One thing you must learn to assess about is the keywords.- What are the keywords that gets the most impression?
- The most-searched ones? The most visits or clicks?
- What can you conclude from your current stats?
- What are the people looking for?
Hitting what is currently ‘hot’ will help you decide which content to write about and which people to target to.
Here's an example screenshot from my Google Analytics account: See how I can determine the top keywords on my site? "Proxy Websites", "Instagram Photo Size", "About Me Examples"..etc. When people enter these keywords on Google or other search engines, my site shows up on top results. These "top keywords" gives me ideas on what to write about. I can also see the bounce rate, the visit duration, new visits vs old visits. Reviewing these statistics actually helps me understand what my readers want and how I can serve them better.
16. Create A Site Map
Site maps, or technically called as XML Sitemaps, are these little frameworks we provide for Google to help our site get the proper indexing and crawling.Google is in constant improvement, but sometimes, it is not perfect; some pages may not be crawled properly.
Learn to create a sitemap (or use a tool, such as an online sitemap generator and submit them.
17. Optimize Your Meta Tags
You probably heard about this a thousand times, but it still deserves a honing because the technology is constantly evolving.At first, know that meta tags don’t guarantee you an instant hike in ranking. It’s just there to assist search engines in assessing what kind of content you have and what people will get out of it.
Also, if you want people to click to your link posted in a results list, give them the confidence and a reason to.
- Title tags should be more or less 65 characters long, including spaces. Keywords will be on the first few words of the title; use ‘pipes’ (|) to separate them. Each page must have unique title tags. Lastly, your domain name or brand name usually must come last if necessary.
- Description tags should be kept within 155 characters, though a little longer sometimes works. Again, place keywords on the first sentence as much as possible. Make it sound short but enticing as well. If you have alternate keywords that seem highly relevant, you can opt to place them here.
You can use my favorite tool (free): Meta Length to count the length of my title and description tag.
18. Set Your Preferred URL domain
Your URL should be either with www or without www. I set www.twelveskip.com as my preferred URL format over twelveskip.com (non WWW), so when you type twelveskip.com, you're redirected to www.twelveskip.com. My preferred domain tells Google which version of my site URL should be crawled and indexed.Read Google's tutorial on how to set your preferred URL.
Bonus Tips!
19. Use 301 Redirect When You Move To A New Page
If you change or move to a new page, you need to redirect your old one to the new one or else this will create an error page, which can affect your search rankings. It can hurt you if you have too much error/invalid pages on your site, so you need to be careful about this.For example..
You changed your URL from this link: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2013 to this one: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2014.
See how I changed 2013 to 2014?
So to ensure you don't lose the value of the older page, use this 301 redirect method to send the older page to the new one. So when you go to this link: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2013, you should be redirected to: http://www.twelveskip.com/seo-tips-2014.
Resources:
20. Set A Custom 404 Page
I almost forgot about this method, thanks Neil for reminding me that!An 404 Error page is a web page that does not exist. When people go to a broken or wrong link, they will be sent to this page: "Error 404: Page Not Found". Here's an example:
404 pages are unavoidable at times - due to mistype URLs, broken links, etc. and this is why creating a user-friendly 404 page is a must. But the real question is "Why do you need this for SEO?" You need this because Google indexes this page as well and you need back links as much as possible to increase the number of your indexed pages.So instead of using the generic and boring 404 page, setup a custom one with the same layout & design as your main site.
Make sure to include: link back to your site's main page, contact link/form so people are able to report broken links, add a search box, and probably a sitemap! And don't forget to tell your users that the page they're looking cannot be found.
Just a note though, do not include your 404 page in your sitemap!
Resources:
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