Technology has changed how businesses conduct their activities in order to increase their bottom line.
These days, having current content on a blog can increase web traffic to a website specifically, and overall.
Let’s face it, having a blog and trying to increase the number of visitors can be a very daunting task that takes a while before any hints of success start emerging.
There are number of tips that a business blogger can do in order to increase traffic to their website very quickly, and in some cases – and over time – in a matter of minutes.
Back in the day, performing programming tasks and SEO work to rank at top of the first page of Google – well, it was easy. In fact, just making sure you had the right keyword density (number of keywords repeated on a page) was enough to show up fairly quickly. And, if not – just adding some incoming links from article directories would do the trick.
In 2011, with the social inter-webs, time have certainly changed. While the core concepts of SEO (content+links) are still true, you’ll have a hard time getting listed on the first page of Google without using different strategies.
What can you do?
Links drive the web. For users and search engines, it’s like the central nervous system. Learn how to build links for business using your personal hi-touch.
Online competition is the norm of today’s web-based world. With so many sites and users online, it’s hard to see through the clutter and to implement a necessary process for quality relationship building. But, in this current landscape, generating links, connecting with others in your space and utilizing a link building process is a key consideration for long term survival online.
Success of any kind of online business will be impacted by the visibility and ranking of specific search phrases across many platforms, from organic search results, local search, video search, news search and in social network platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Additionally, for every web property, presenting an engaging user experience once the visitor finds you, becomes a full-time job as well. It is thus advisable to create an easily navigable and conversion-driven website. Make them want more, and to bookmark and share you web site.
Are consistent, top natural search engine rankings possible?
You can and will get high SERP (search engine results pages) positions, if you focus on the right approach for link building. Google’s PageRank link analysis is well known (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank). Quality links are achievable by means of organic methods and in developing partnerships in the community you operate in (niche market). It’s should not be an automated approach, but a personal one.
The more you build the relationships (offline and on), and the more quality incoming links a webmaster has to their site, the faster you will show up in searches, and stay there. These links will also receive direct clicks, and generate more traffic back to the web site. They will show up as referrers (incoming links) in your web analytics.
There is no short cut to success, however. If considering an SEO company to help you, don’t get fooled by those who offer fast visibility, as there are no guarantees. Once a company is selected, you must develop good relationships, work closely together, and even expect to lose money at the beginning of a campaign. But, each campaign and marketplace is different. Make sure to include good tracking and baseline reporting (rankings, traffic, conversion numbers) before starting, and measure as you go.
What Can Webmasters do to build Quality Links Using a Social Web Approach?
In Conclusion:
Paying attention to this relationship link building can prove very beneficial for an owner or webmaster who wants to generate quality transactions online. It will pay off over time. Just don’t quit.
Final Tip: Register with several forums (Google & Yahoo Forums) and research to understand the latest updates on the subject matters in your niche. Track activity via Google.com/alerts. The system automatically sends you the change information directly via email, or into your favorite RSS reader. Forums are also important in building relationships and visibility/links for yourself.
Presently over 50% of all B2B (business-to-business) leads are generated through the Internet. To stay competitive in today’s market a business needs to be present on the search engines. PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is not only a very effective marketing tool, but is also an excellent way for businesses to establish a website’s Internet presence.
A PPC (pay-per-click) campaign designed for B2B (business-to-business) is much different from a campaign designed for B2C (business-to-consumer).
Instead of relying on the high volume of traffic that a B2C campaign generates, a B2B campaign is designed to lower costs by filtering out irrelevant clicks that don’t convert into sales. The strategy for a successful B2B pay-per-click-campaign consists of driving quality leads to optimized landing pages which ultimately results in higher conversion rates. These assets will be used for PPC and SEO both.
The benefits of focusing on high value leads rather than the volume of CTR (click through rate) are that the cost per click is minimized while the sales generated by quality leads are maximized. Understanding some key components of what drives pay-per-click advertising is vital for a successful campaign.
Here are the 5 tips for a Successful B2B PPC Advertising Program:
If done right, pay-per-click advertising costs are well worth the money spent. Not only does pay-per-click advertising help to establish a website’s Internet presence, but it is also a highly effective way for businesses to communicate with one another. B2B PPC helps businesses improve their website’s traffic and visibility on the Internet and continues to be one of the most popular marketing tools being utilized today. Your business can be up and running on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing in minutes!
Learn more about Pay Per Click Management for Business here.

photo credit: kevinmarsh
After you’re done reading this post, you’ll understand the importance of copy and and persuasion thinking, both on your website, and off. You should also recognize that there are many variables that can and will imply specific user actions externally, and on your page – from the brand itself, usability, navigation, page layouts, offer, pricing, site design, shopping process, the competition and more. Start with the basics though, get your copy down tight. Using a simple guide – AIDAS can help you. (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action and Satisfaction).
A robust SEO strategy uses multiple ways to drive traffic to your web site. Relying on keywords for search engines to find your web site organically (your first step), is a must – and, optimizing a web site or page relies on understanding the relationship between effective copy and how it is presented – both on the page (what the viewer sees) and what’s in the code (what the search engine sees). Fast loading pages is another potential “signal” now used by Google.
The key to writing effective copy and driving traffic, repeat visitors for SEO is creating content that is both relevant and value-driven. Relevance refers to matching what viewers are looking for to what you have to offer. This is accomplished by implementing keywords in the title of each web page, variations in the URL, Metadata, page description, and image and video descriptions, if it’s included – and we suggest you do. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine, and it’s a straightforward process to add an “embedded” video on your page.
Additionally, keywords in the content need to be placed in prominent positions, early on the page, such as in titles of pages, subtitles, and within leading sentences of paragraphs. This not only helps determine relevancy, but also can structure the content into a more organized and presentable format for users and search engines.
Value-driven content focuses on the legacy of the copy, which will determine how useful and re-usable the copy is for readers. Part of that is formatting the copy into shorter paragraphs, structuring the content with bullet points and sub-headings, using active and not passive words, and providing descriptions for graphics, charts, and other multimedia. This is also where structure influences SEO, as creating easy-to-follow content adds value to your site and can help promote traffic to other pages within your site.
In order to effectively provide value, you should structure links to other pages within your site and organize them in a way that is easily accessible and readable. Adding links within your copy makes it easier for readers to go from one page to the next and acts as an open door to the other areas of your web site. Getting quality and slowly built merit-based citations will add tremendous value, and over time. Search engines make adjustments all the time, and Google allegedly, daily.
Don’t simply add directories, for example, but use a combination of press releases, blogs (don’t just mass-comment), articles, syndication of custom content (to partners), email marketing, ad swaps and social media platforms (no spamming).
Think about where the user is coming from, and what their mindset is. You have different visitors coming to your site, from the ones who know what they are looking for, to those more in a “browse” mode, and do have a general interest, to those looking for something, not sure what they want, to the visitors with no interest at all. If you provide quality and consistency, these visitors will share content and link to you. Don’t miss this important point.
If performed diligently and accurately, the combination of these factors will create an effective SEO strategy that will result in increased traffic levels to your site.
Think of link building as Public Relations (PR), not Page Rank (the other PR).
When you do this, you are thinking about quality for your brand and online presence. But, none of the link building effort is worth it, or frankly, matters – if you don’t have a relevant page and strong offer/content to provide to your visitor that is searching for that information. If you do this right – you will get rewarded *everywhere*, from Google, user stickiness, sharing of your information, and opportunity for link reputation, while providing value.
To prepare, ask these questions below – about your page content, about your service, about your product and overall positioning. Can you offer a unique value (or sales) proposition? Are you clearly calling this out in every content piece? (without spamming, of course)
These are important questions to ask, and creates a solid foundation for everything you do. Not easy to answer for most, but a necessary discussion along with a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats). This will help keep more visitors on your website, and keep them coming back too.
So, here are reasonable tips that anybody can do.
Controversy tends to work well, but you’ll be amazed how well this can work against you as well. As Matt Cutts (thanks for tips here) at Google says, “it can be okay to uncork a good rant sometimes” but don’t use this as a norm. You’ll be like a boy who cried wolf, hey, look at me, pay attention to me, over here, etc – be careful.
You can use humor or bring something original to the table, that’s a lot better. (Dilbert comic strips are classics)
A great way to get links, is to participate in the community. Answering questions on LinkedIn, for example, can work really well for you. If you know the answer to something and say: “hey I know that – I can help you!”. People will be more receptive to clicking to your site and seeing what you’re up to. Answering questions to help other people is really cool. Try Yahoo Answers and even groups in the social media space.
Original research is another great way to create hooks to your site. Danny Sullivan created a comparison of all the spam out there for about 30 days of different e-mail providers and he documented that. He blogged it and a lot of people linked back to him.
You can go out to Google groups, Yahoo! Groups, and other places in the social media space where people are discussing your topic to see what they’re asking.
Social media is really cool. You can enjoy a participation on friendfeed and twitter and look where people are spending their time. Perhaps it’s more on the Facebook and Twitter – then spend time there. If you have a video and you spoke at a conference, for example – you can you can list that and people will see it. It helps to create trust and visibility.
The ‘ol “Top 10 lists” are are good, but they have been overused and lost some of their their allure – so you might want to look at that sparingly.
Make sure you get yourself a blog. I set this one up WordPress from an open source download. But, you can try either on WordPress.com, Blogger.com or download the source to install it on your own domain. Update it a couple times a week at first. Then, make sure you join the community and share your blog as appropriate. In the social sense, it’s more about “them” than you, remember that. Your blog can also be a great asset to establish yourself as an authority and thought leader in your business.
How to and tutorials are always great. People are looking for information on the Internet. Your site can be a great way to get awareness to you and your business. And, keep in mind – if you build this out as useful, quality content pages, you don’t have to think too much about top keywords only – but long tail keywords – that tend to draw really quality traffic can help you tremendously.
You can make a product or a widget and give it away for free, like a Firefox extension or a WordPress plug-in. Those types of things can be really good. People tend to link back to you as a thank you. You do the work once, and then lots of people can access it and download over time w/links.
Make sure that you have easy access to your site both from a search engine perspective and from user perspective. The site architecture, navigation and structure are very important. Make it easy to get to and links within it. 2-3 link depth is good.
Make sure to create a couple of videos. Short how-to tips or information about your space uploaded to YouTube and others – easy to do.
That’s it!
Stated simply (there’s more to it) – link building pertains to the SEO model where one way back links to a website are made. These are in essence incoming links to your page, and these links act like a VOTE for your page and site.
By creating links from related and authoritative sites back to your own web site you not only inspire additional internet traffic, you can raise your page rank (PR 1-10), and it may help with search website results pages. Some of the most successful link building systems are blogging, forum posting, article marketing and bookmarking and content baiting (writing inspiring content) on related and high quality traffic web sites.
FAST OR SLOW – WHAT’S THE RIGHT PACE?
But – do remember – fast, synthetic development of one way links is suspect so it is much better to form your links steadily as one would expect of a natural site and back link development effort.
It’s much better to use 2 heavy traffic (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com) article directory sites than to submit your articles to hundreds or maybe thousands of directories as this can create a great quantity of copied content which is devalued by the search site algorithms.
HOW ABOUT DUPLICATE CONTENT?
It’s also a mistake to put articles on your internet site that you have used for repeat marketing purposes because this would create reused content on your site. While you definitely need the advantage of back links to raise your search website results page ( SERP ) rankings, you want to consider other options which can influence your SERP position; like fresh, unique, frequent web copy content.
You can write blog articles on your own blog as well as write comments and postings on other peoples’s blogs that link back to your site.
LINK BAITING
Link baiting is an indirect link building technique in that you don’t immediately place the links, but encourage others to link back to your internet site or, more distinctively, a selected article or page on your internet site. Link baiting is attained by writing interesting, educational, funny or controversial articles that others are probably going to link to from their web sites or blogs. Ask what other info you can offer that may benefit others and lure them to link back to the data.
Discussion, humor, Top 10 lists, How-To articles and controversy are always preferred. Running a web contest is another link bait method, so too is writing free how-to reports, providing unrestricted access to an internet software application, or doing something new on the web that’s interesting or useful and grabs attention. Writing or revising informative articles for online encyclopedias like Wikipedia may also be a good link bait system.
WHAT WORKS FOR YOU?
Link building and link baiting are both effective for SEO, as well as traffic building strategies. If you strategically link one way from topical internet sites back to your own, you’ll gradually enhance your SERP rank as well as increase the number of visitors to your site and so your profits. You can’t optimize your site effectively and forget the significance of back links. It is starting to become more difficult to manipulate Google and other search websites by employing synthetic systems so it is vital to form natural links so as to gain lasting benefits for search site results rankings.
Social media is all the rage these days. No wonder. It’s what everybody talks about, and it’s a press-darling too. It sure does work well for some companies.
However, it’s a lot of talk, and – it’s as if they forget all the other ways to drive traffic, and more importantly, build conversions on your website.
Well, now you have a chance to test and see if you can leverage the true, tried tested methods for driving traffic quickly to your site, while you build the (sometimes slower) social media programs. (Big note here: not to be discounted, you should leverage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others while you test the multi-channel marketing).
You can meet the experts that we have worked with at previous conferences. And you do it all from the comfort of your own home or office.
Small businesses need a presence on the internet and that means they must rank decently in the search engines. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) proves to be so helpful. It aids in boosting the presence of the small business’ website in the rankings. From this, a potentially large stream of organic traffic can be tapped to flow to the site. Of course, there’s a balance between traffic keywords and “buying” keywords. We want the most targeted keywords possible, so good keyword research is imperative.
Increasing search engine rankings is based on several factors. Link building and integrating proper keywords into the text of the website remain the most important of components. Thankfully, it is not all that complex to implement such steps. The process is affordable which means your business can earn significant income with less cost than, for example, rising PPC costs, or expensive Media Buys.
(Slightly tongue-in-cheek here, but read on…) 
Are you familiar with this quote? It’s the Bessie Stanley Quote, but often erroneously attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s what SUCCESS is attributed to:
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
If you can use this in your daily life, apply to your business, to your friends, to your family, to your religion, to your physical and spiritual being, you may indeed become the most spectacular SEO that ever bore fruits on this planet.
P.S.
So, the next time you do your keyword research, write a piece of (awesome) content, hunt down quality links, interact with your clients or co-workers, give a little extra. You’ll feel better.