How does free search engine traffic work?

This is something you’ve experienced first hand countless times. You load up Google or another search engine. Enter the words you’re interested in. And then you visit one or more of the sites that show up. That website owner has just enjoyed the benefit of free traffic. What need to figure out is how to get you free traffic.

Most people only click results from the first couple pages. Actually, almost 100% of the free traffic goes to this first page of results. And believe it or not, the first 3 results receive over 70% of the traffic.

This means that to get any real traffic you need to be on the first page in Google. And this means Google needs to “rank” you as a top 10 result. And this bring us to…

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is a measure of how well Google and other search engines think your website matches the search terms people are typing into their search boxes. The intricate formula Google uses to figure this out is really only known by Google. There are several factors that we do know.

Getting indexed

Before you can get ranked, Google has to first know your site exists. This is called getting “indexed.” When your website gets indexed, Google stores information about it in their massive database.

To get indexed, you have to help Google find your site. Links from other sites are the easiest way to accomplish this. Google will actually follow the links on sites it already has indexed to find new sites and index them.

A couple of great places to do this are in your Twitter or Facebook profiles. Google visits these sites many times every day. So any new links will be followed right away.

Gaining ranking

Once you have been indexed, you will start working on increasing your rank. Google has billions of pages indexed, so just getting into their database does not mean anyone will see you.

The 3 factors in getting ranked:

• Content
• Links
• Activity

Optimized content

This is the SEO you do on your site itself. And it means that the content on your page matches the keywords you’re targeting. Clearly this article is about search engine optimization. One reason Google knows this is because the words search engine optimization appear inside it. Another reason is because there are related words, like website traffic, too.

The title of the page, the domain name and other pages on your site are also important. Each of these plays a roles in Google determination about your site.

Link juice

Next, you need to pay attention to the links to and from your site. The links coming in and the links going out are included in this. It’s very important that you have more links coming in than you have going out. So the number of inbound links is important.

One great way to get lots of inbound links is through web 2.0 sites. With this strategy what you do is write an article about the topic you’re targeting. You have to also write several different versions of your articles. Because you’re going to post a unique copy of it to lots of different websites. The more sites you can do this for, the more links you’ll get back.

Getting activity

Finally, we know that Google gives you credit for the activity on your site. Static pages that just sit may rank at first, but will fall off over time. Google expects you to be updating your site regularly. You can do this with RSS feeds and news posts.

But the best way is with active discussions on your page itself. This means you need to get real live people to your site, as well. An easy way to do this is from forums.

What you need to do is sign up with several forums in your niche. And post their often. And link back to yourself in your signature file. This generates even more links back to your site. And it will also get real visitors to your site.

Conclusion

All of the above is important. But let’s face it, writing multiple versions of the same article. Setting up tons of profiles on forums. And posting your content all over the web is time consuming. Which means you probably won’t end up doing it.

The good news is that there are automated software programs out there that will do this for you. So, use your time wisely and automated to tedious tasks. Otherwise, you won’t do it at all. By taking these steps you practically ensure you’ll get free traffic from Google.

How, then do you get traffic to your site?

Here’s a short list of great, free traffic generating methods:

• Web 2.0 Methods
• Article Marketing
• Video Marketing

Let’s talk about each of these.

Web 2.0

By web 2.0 we mean any site where the users actually create the content. The exciting thing about Web 2.0 sites is that you get to add your own content and it becomes part of these sites. And because of the highly interactive and popular nature of these sites, Google and other search engines “index” their content regularly. The benefit of this to you is that your content is now considered as part of these sites. And any links in your content that point to your own sites count as a strong “vote” in favor of your sites – lending you credibility in the search engines. That’s the real benefit of adding content to this sites – search engine ranking means ongoing free traffic. Getting free web 2.0 traffic is a big topic that we’ll discuss more later. This is good overview of the reason to get into it, though.

Article Marketing

The next thing we want to talk about is article marketing. Article directories fall under the category of web 2.0 sites. Just like web 2.0 sites, article websites allow you to upload your own content – as articles. Just as with the other web 2.0 sites, having your content included gives you immediate traffic and search engine ranking. And in addition to this, other users can take your article and place it on their own website. And in return for getting to use your content, these other users include links back to your website that gives you further search engine ranking and more free traffic. In order to get the most free traffic make sure you:

• Figure out what keywords you want to go after
• Write your article for the keywords you’ve chosen
• Use anchor text links in the article and the “resource box”

Video

Our discussion would not be complete without talking about video. Here to we’re really looking at a web 2.0 sub-category. And it carries all the same benefits of article marketing. The extra top secret benefit of video marketing is that it’s much easier to rank for competitive keywords than in any other medium.

Here’s how to get free traffic using video…

• Get a YouTube account
• Make your profile uncluttered by turning off all the modules
• Use the tags in your profile to enter the keywords you want to rank for
• Include a link to your main site in your profile
• Add at least one video to your profile
• In the title, the description and the tags for each video, include your main keywords

In closing…

If you take action on the items listed here you’ll have free traffic in no time.

Traffic is useless . . . unless…

Keyword research is really the first step in getting traffic to your website. Why? Because you have to target these keywords if you are to have any hope of actually generating traffic for them. Which means you need to put some thought into the keywords you’re targeting.

A couple things to keep in mind when doing keyword research:

• Will you be able to rank for these keywords? Take a look at the “strength” of others websites (and how many) are already targeting these keywords.
• Are these “buying” keywords? Certain keywords are good for generating a lot of visitors who don’t buy anything. This is not what you’re looking for.
• What about affiliates? Nothing brings more buyers like an army of affiliates. So, it’s important to also target affiliates in the keywords you go after.

Of course, this all takes time if you plan to do it yourself. And hiring an expert is very expensive. And that’s why most people skip this step! What I recommend is using website traffic software to save the time of doing it yourself and the money of hiring someone else. Using tools like this speed up the process and improve your results, too!

OK, now we can talk about traffic…

Only after doing your keyword research correctly can you start targeting these keywords to get you traffic.

Here’s a short list of sneaky traffic techniques:

• Something you may not have ever considered is Surveys
• “Help” Websites
• Video

Surveys

Here’s the thing – people love surveys. It’s human nature. And if you make it interesting, other people will post your survey on their website. And when they put your survey on their site, they will include a link back to your website. This allows you to get free website traffic from other people’s sites! Most people think surveys are just for collecting data, but in this case you don’t even care about the answers. Just make the question interesting enough that people will want to share it with their own visitors.

“Traffic Traps”

Maybe you’ve seen these help sites where people post questions and other people answer them. However, you’re interest in these sites is not to ask and answer questions. The other thing they can be used for is to get traffic to your site, leads for your business and sales! Now, you can do this all by hand – visit a classified ads or answers site and one by one copy and paste contact info. So, if you’re smart, you’ll use website traffic software to do it all for you. Then you just get a daily batch of fresh leads delivered to your inbox.

Video Sharing Sites

Video is huge and sites like YouTube and Vimeo are extremely popular. In fact, YouTube has over 2 billion videos watched per day! If you’re not taking advantage of this rich source of website traffic, then you are really missing out.

And don’t worry if you don’t have any idea of how to make a video. You can even take a webpage or article that you’ve written. And use free screen capture software to record yourself reading it. And like anything else, there is software available that will turn articles into videos for you automatically.

Summary

It’s not that hard to get traffic to your websites. Use your noodle and come up with things other people aren’t doing. Plus, there’s lots of great software out there to help you.

Don’t waste any more time:

• Step 1 is researching your keywords
• Set up some viral surveys
• Take advantage of the “help” sites
• And don’t forget about video