SEO And Internet Marketing Basics

Internet Marketing is just a really scary way of saying “Promoting Your Blog To Get More Traffic.”
When you start a new blog it’s unrealistic to expect that you’re going to become a marketing expert or that your blog will be #1 in Google with millions of hits per month. If that’s what you’re thinking, *sigh*…

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO is the practice of getting your blog to rank better in the search engines. There are many types of SEO, from the words in your posts to the way other sites link back to your site, and even making sure that the search engines can find the information on your site.
Search engine companies spend a lot of time making sure that their results are relevant, useful, and accurate. What that means to you is that you need to make your blog’s content relevant, useful, and accurate.
Want a successful blog? Your goal is very simple…

Become a trusted source of high quality information for your readers.

Top 3 Ways To Market Your Blog

One of the best things that you can do to show the search engines that your blog is important is to promote yourself. That means getting your blog out there and sharing your posts with other people.

In Content SEO

In content SEO is structuring your posts and using the right words so that the post gets ranked in the search engines. The words we use and how we use them in our blog posts are critical components in our SEO strategy.

Social Media

Social media is here to stay, so if you’re not already active on social media sites, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get busy.

Email List Building

You may not think that having an email list is important, but it’s still the best way to share and communicate with your audience and time after time, when it comes to making money with your blog, the money is in the list.  So start building your list now.

Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using Pinterest

5 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Using Pinterest

Are you using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog?

Pinterest has the ability to drive massive amounts of traffic to websites – this includes blogs. In fact Pinterest has become the highest traffic generator for some blogs. An example is Ana White’s carpentry blog where Pinterest is the top referring site, sending 6000 visitors a day.

By implementing the right techniques to optimize your website for Pinterest and promoting yourself directly on the social network, you can also divert a lot of traffic to your blog. I have shared 5 effective techniques below that can help increase the traffic your blog receives through Pinterest…

1. Add Images to Your posts: The only way to make a post shareable on Pinterest is by adding an image or images to it. If there is no image on the post, it will not be pinnable. So add images to each and every post on your blog.

Here are a few tips on using images to optimize your blog:-

a) Image size should be a minimum of 80 X 80 Pixels: The minimum size of a pinnable image is 80 X 80 Pixels. An image can only be pinned if it is of this size or bigger. So make sure one or more images on your blog posts are of the minimum size (at least) to encourage people to share them. Of course there is a post on Kissmetrics that contradicts the minimum Pinterest image size, but just to be on the safe side make sure your images are at least 80 X 80 pixels.

b) Create Unique Images:  One way to get more people to share your images is by creating unique ones. There are tons of images being shared on Pinterest everyday and if you want your images to be pinned and repined you need to make the extra effort to get them to standout. So create images that are different. This could be taking a good photo, great screenshots or designing quality images from scratch.

c) Install the Pinterest Pin it button for Images: Pinterest Pin It button For Images is a Plugin for WordPress blogs. When you add, activate and set up the button on your blog a pin it button will appear on each and every image when you scroll over it. A similar effect can be found when you scroll over the images on a post on Brit+co. You will notice that a Pin It button will appear on the right corner of the image. This can encourage people to share the image. If you have a WordPress blog you should try out this button.

For more tips on creating Pinterest friendly images check out how to create highly shareable Pinterest pictures for your business and creating Pinterest Images people love to share.

An example of a blog using images effectively is the one I mentioned earlier – Ana White’s blog. On each and every post on the blog there are several images that liven up the post. First, there are a few images of the finished product. This is followed by step by step illustrations on how to build the product.

On one of her posts – Wall Kitchen Cabinet Basic Carcass Plan – you will notice that the post starts off with a few pictures of the cabinet and this is followed by step by step instructions and illustrations on how to build it from scratch. The post has more than ten pinnable images which makes it highly shareable on Pinterest.

In a similar way make sure your posts are filled with several unique and high quality pictures and images.

2. Add the Pin It Button: According to this study by BrightEdge Technologies, web pages with share buttons are seven times more likely to be shared, than ones without. Therefore if you add the Pin It button to your blog posts, the chances of your post being pinned increases. And the more pins you get will lead to more traffic. This button can be manually added to each and every post or you can use the Digg Digg plugin (if your blog runs on WordPress). This plugin can help you automatically add the button to each and every post you publish.

3. Invite Board Contributors: Another way to drive traffic to your blog is by adding board contributors. When you add several board contributors to your board and all of them together add a lot of content to it, it will attract a lot of board followers and fans. So when you pin an image from your blog onto the same board the board’s followers will help promote it by repining. This can help increase your blog traffic. For best results share blog posts from your blog and other sites on the same board instead of having separate boards.

So spend some time identifying your most active fans and invite them over to join your boards.

A great tool that can help you easily find your most active fans is Curalate. Using Curalate you can find out who your most active users are and see what they are sharing, both from your website and your brand page. You can also check what your most popular boards are. This information can then be used to invite Pinners who are enthusiastic about promoting your blog.

4. Verify Your Website: When you verify your website your entire URL appears on the brand page and a tick mark appears beside. These two factors will make your website address more prominent than the usual tiny globe sign it is represented by. This can help increase the click through rate of the website address on your brand page and if you add and verify your blog’s URL it will automatically result in more blog traffic. To learn how to verify your website, check out this post.

An example of a verified blog URL on a brand page is of The Next Web’s. As you can see the full URL of the blog, along with the red tick mark, gets it to standout on the brand page. This will get more people to notice it and will lead to more clicks which will increase their blog traffic. If you stick to your brand and pin images relevant to it, the traffic you receive should be quite interested in reading your blog’s content.

5. Add your blog post URL to your description: Usually when someone wants to visit the source of the pin (website where it was pinned from) they have to click on the pin first, wait for it to enlarge and then visit the source which is usually located at the top of the pin or on the pin itself. This seems a little time consuming, doesn’t it.

This process of finding the source can be simplified by adding the link to the description. This way they won’t even need to enlarge the pin, all they need to do is read the description and click on the link. As this is easier and faster, it should lead to more clicks on your pins.

For this to work, always make sure you add the full URL and not a shortened one, as shortened ones in the description are quite often rejected as spam. To have an even stronger effect have a call to action that urges the reader to click on the link and check out the blog post.

Someone who does this really well is Jo Barnes. If you visit her board, Social Media Updates, you will notice that there are several pins which have live links that lead to the source. This makes it easy to visit the blog post and can be very effective in increasing blog traffic.

Implement all the above techniques and you should see a rise in the blog traffic you receive from Pinterest.

How to Optimize Images for Your Blog

Bloggers know how critical it is to use sound SEO practices in order to charm traffic from the big search engines. But did you know that the images you use on your blog can also be a great source of search engine traffic?
Google Images is just one example of an image-based search engine. In fact, Google will happily display a row of image results for the keyword phrase entered – at the top of the first page of the search results.
In order to take advantage of this type of traffic, you will need to know how to properly optimize your images. Once you know this “hidden” secret for boosting SEO, you’ll never view images for your blog the same way again.

Alt Text

Since the search engines can’t actually see your images, it’s up to you to tell them what the photo or graphic in your blog post is. This one tip alone will put your SEO efforts ahead of the majority of bloggers out there who either don’t know, or don’t bother, with this step.
Alt text, short for alternative text, is how you can help the search engine figure out what your image is all about. Before you begin, you will want to have your keywords or keyword phrase handy.
To include alt text with your image, add: alt=”your alt text description”. In html, it will look like the following:
<img src=”shiny-red-wagon.jpg” alt=”Shiny red wagon in the driveway”>
If you are using blogging software like WordPress, adding alternative text is even simpler. When you insert an image into your blog post, click on the image then select Edit.
Under Advanced Options, you can add your alt text on the appropriate line. If you choose, you can also add a caption as well as a title tag for a little extra search engine juice.
Click on Update when you’re finished!
Now, any time someone mouses over your image, the alt text will appear.

File Size

The file sizes of the images you are using can have a massive effect on the load times of your website pages. Search engines will take this into account if your pages load slowly.
In order to maximize the speed at which your pages load, you can adjust the image file size to be as small as you possibly can without sacrificing on quality.
Any number of photo editing software programs can help you with this, including some very good free tools like Pixlr Express and PicMonkey.
If you skip this step and use your browser to resize the larger image to a smaller size, it won’t help. Visitors will still have to download the larger image before it can be resized.

File Name

Another area that is easily forgotten when it comes to image SEO is the file name. You are probably used to seeing the generic file names that your camera automatically assigns your photos and the unintelligible string of letters and numbers that stock photo websites give their images.
Before you upload your image to your blog, rename the file. You can use something descriptive and include keywords, as well.

Captions

Captions themselves will not help or harm your search engine rankings. However, they do tend to be one of the most frequently read sections of your web pages, after the headlines. Well worded captions can help hold your visitors’ interest and reduce your bounce rate.
There’s no need to spend your time perfecting your blog posts only to skip out on the opportunity to maximize your search engine traffic. At most, following these basic steps will cost you just a few minutes, but the rewards will continue long after you hit “publish.”
Zoe Anderson is a marketing assistant at StudySelect. She’s keen on learning about new branding strategies and digital marketing tools.

Best free ways to Boost your Website Traffic

I had pretty much nothing to do at this moment and just thought to write in something useful to help you guys who have setup a website and/or blog but, some of you must be very confused to know how to promote your website once after you are ready with your website.
If you own a website or a blog, that doesn’t just means that your job is done. You will have to promote your website using following good possible ways in order to boost your web traffic to get  some eye balls on your website content. I will be shortly discussing the  

Top 20 ways to boost your website traffic.
1. Submit your website to Search Engines
The very first thing is to Submit your website url to all top search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask etc. Search Engine Submission means, that you are telling or permitting the search engines to crawl your website and get it listed on their search service, resulting in some instant quality traffic. In order to submit your website to 70+ search engines FREE use following url:
http://www.submitexpress.com/free-submission.html

2. Directory Submissions
You must submit your site to all major directories. DMOZ which is (was once was the most important directory). But however the trends have changed, and DMOZ has lost its value to some extent, because especially Engines like Google no more require DMOZ to list a website in order to get it listed, like it once was. But still, directory submission could be very helpful in getting some little PR. To submit your website to few major directories on the web go to: http://freewebsubmission.com/

3. Submit Articles
I believe that Article submission plays a very very important part in getting good quality traffic plus gets your good Link Value in terms of SEO (search engine optimization). Some of popular article directories are Ezine, Article Base or Go Articles which can instantly boost in your website traffic, with good SEO impact. What you need to do is Write a detailed article of 350-500 words describing your website blog or its services, and at the end give in your website url. This way when search spiders reads your posts it transfers High value to your links resulting in better SEO and better chance to get listed higher on google.

4. Submit your Sitemap to Search Engines
Submission of  sitemaps search engines like Google,  Yahoo, or Bing is a very important part, to get your website listed as quickly as possible and as well as in complete details. When you submit your sitemap to a search engine, which than quickly crawls through all pages of your website and list them all. (if you don't do this than possibly search engines will miss out some very important pages of your website.

5. Ping Sites
To get your website listed quickly in search engines, service known as PING SERVICES can also help your website get listed more quickly. Pinging actually tells the search engines that you have updated your website content.
Search engines like Google and Yahoo, Bing always like and prefer the freshly updated content. So all you need to do is Ping your website using once of following popular ping services: Ping.o. Matic,  Technorati Ping, Pingoat Ping, Feed Ping, King Ping, Blog Flux Pinger etc.

6. Yahoo Answer
Yahoo answers has become basic Asking place for most of newbies and new internet users. Those people who are looking for some thing they dont know mostly ask their questions on Yahoo Answer service website. (go to: answers.yahoo.com) .  So keep checking this website regularly and look for people who are looking for such useful stuff, and possibly you can share your own website links to answer them what they need.

7. Review your own website/blog
You can write some reviews about your own website, describing about it services and features and offerings. Write in detailed reviews based on merits and post these on reviews on other websites or blogs (maybe you can pay another webmaster) or ask them to do a review exchange. This way you will surely get higher Search Engine value, plus high website reputation in front of your visitors.

8. Google Reader
Google reader is a fast RSS Search Engine Submission service provided by google, which can help your website to get listed fast using your website RSS url. If you have a RSS feed link, than you must submit that using Google Reader service (www.google.com/reader)

9. Email Signatures
Lol! this might seem a bit too childish but believe me these small things can actually help you a lot in the long tun. But setting up your Email signature containing your website URL can get at-least some of valuable traffic where your friends of colleagues will probably remember your website url.

10. Blog Commenting
Commenting on blogs can earn you some good valuable baclinks (start from here, do comment in my blog), which will bring both Direct Traffic and Search Traffic to your website. Just keep track of top and popular blogs, and prefer to post  your own website URL in comments section (which is Free). But remember not to SPAM and do bogus publicity or you can get banned from that website. All you need to make sure is to only post your url when a someone is looking for information which your website already has. This way you can get targeted traffic and good search value. Go to (LondonClicks to get some backlinks)


11. Forum Signature
Mostly the online discussion forums hold a high PR value of which you can take full advantage by adding up your link url as your forum signature. Lets suppose you run a “Cars Review Website or blog”, now all you need to look for a popular CAR/Auto vehical related Discussion forum website, and join in as a member.  Once you have done this, now setup your Forum Signature containing your own website URL. This gives you many back links, which can divert good traffic as well as search value.

12. Create Groups
All search engines inlcuding Google, Yahoo or Bing have their own group services (just like Google Buzz) where you can setup a Group of people with similar mind set. (.e.g all Gadget interested people considering you have a Gadget selling/reviewing website).  Now, make a group and share all your related stuff maintaining your own social circle.

13. Buy Links or Traffic
Considering you have little money to invest, this could help a lot in buying some good Link Backs from Quality PR5+ websites which could result in High Google Page Rank of your own website, and also get you good traffic directly from a website. BUT Make sure that you should buy Targetted traffic which is the most important thing. If you have a Cars/Auto related website, than you should get a backlink from a car/auto related website itself, otherwise it wont be of any good use.

14. Link Exchange
Dont have money to invest to buy traffic ? Than probably Link exchange is more viable solution for you. All you need is to contact other webmasters (maybe friend webmasters) or you can contact any webmaster through their website contact form (but keep it mind, only those websites with Link exchange with you which will have Same traffic as of yours). Because big websites will not link exchange with a small traffic website, obviously. So keep this is mind, but link exchanges with small websites can make a small website get big traffic at some point.

15. Traffic Exchange Programs
Do you know that you can get some traffic for free from Traffic Exchange programs, which are completely free. Today there are a lot of websites with huge traffic mainly sourced from Traffic exchange website such as: MGID. Yes join MGID, put their Photo WIDGET on your website. Now when a visitor on your website clicks on their Widget, in return you will get 2 visitors back to your website from theirs. For more details goto: http://usr.mgid.com/demo/

16. PPC Advertising Program
Pay per click advertising can be very very usefull in getting targetted traffic to your website, but on other hand can be very costly for those who have limited advertising budget. However i have seen and heard of success stories from people who did advertised on Facebook through there PPC advertising program, and got quality traffic in return.

17. Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking can get you quick backlinks. Social bookmarking sites like Digg, Twitter, Reddit and Stumble will help you get many quick backlinks. Try this as well.

18. Squidoo and HubPages
These high PR web 2.0 websites can do a lot to increase the traffic of website or blogs. You simply need to go to Squidoo or Hubpages, signup for an account, and write in a 500 words article containing 1 or 2 back links in those articles back to your Main website. This way you can get some traffic as well as search PR.

19. Press Releases Submission / Distribution
Get your website promoted by Press Release distribution networks such as prweb.com (though this is not free) but will get you huge exposure throughout the world even through Print media.

20. Free or Paid Classified
Advertise your website or product through Free classified websites or paid ones. Google this out for more details…

My reason to write this article was to just throw in a simple reminder of any points or ways which i could remember could help you get some traffic. Unfortunately i do not have enough time to throw in deep details all these 20 ways to boost website traffic,  but all i did was quick details to be pointed out, so that anything might click your mind and remind you something important which you could have missed otherwise.

How to Increase Your Website Search Traffic for Free

Want to increase your website search traffic?
Who doesn’t want? I’m a big traffic lover and I always love to find proven methods to increase website search traffic. Over the years, I’ve tried so many website traffic strategies ranging from creating guest posts to using infographics to increase website search traffic. Although website traffic generation strategies change time to time, there are still few evergreen ways to increase your website search traffic.
I’ll be covering such website traffic generation tips in this detailed guide (over 2,000 words) to increase website traffic from search engines. Let’s jump into the details without much ado.

Tips to increase your website search traffic in 2015 and beyond

Google loves WordPress sites

Always prefer WordPress over Blogger or any other blogging platform.
Why WordPress Is Better than Blogger?
Most bloggers ask me this question – which blogging platform should I go for? WordPress or Blogger? I certainly recommend them all to use “WordPress” content management system. Not only because I used both WordPress and blogger platforms, but I know why WordPress is way better than the Blogger platform.
So why is WordPress better than Blogger platform?
There are millions of bloggers who use WordPress as their blogging platforms, the percentage of people who use WordPress is more than that of any other blogging platform. WordPress certainly has few great assets than other blogging platforms, in this article we are discussing few surefire reasons why you need to prefer WordPress over blogger.
FIVE reasons why WordPress is better than Blogger
1. More power to you
In blogger platform, you don’t have much control over your sites, it means you have all the risk while monetizing and maintaining your sites. Whereas in WordPress, you have all the control over your sites, you are your own boss. No one has the ability to stop your blogging efforts, because you own your own domain name and hosting.
2. Professional look
Agree with me or not, WordPress blog designs look way better than that of blogger platform.
You will be able to use thousands of themes which are ranging from free to premium. The good thing about WordPress themes is even free themes look amazingly great. There are thousands of free (good looking) themes in the WordPress themes directory.
You can also use search engine friendly themes like Thesis, Genesis to enhance your rankings in the search engine results.
3. More control over SEO
Blogger platform doesn’t have great SEO options by default. And you can’t take your SEO campaign to the next level using blogger platform.WordPress platform is well-known for its search engine optimization to rank high in the search results.
Moreover, you can always take charge of your SEO rankings by using premium search engine friendly themes like Genesis or by using top class SEO plugins like easy WP SEO, long tail pro etc.
So by using WordPress you will definitely rank better than the bloggers who are using blogger platform with these functionalities.
4. Easy to customize, update and maintain
WordPress blogs are easy to customize, even if you are not a tech savvy you won’t find it hard to customize your own blog design or whatever it is. Frequently WordPress updates its versions and thus you will get rid of all security threats or minor defects time to time. By just one click you can update your WP versions, there’s no blogging platform that’s so easy to update like this.
5. Free blog hosting = so many problems (in blogger)
The worst part about blogger platform is this: you never know when Google will suspend site.
The people who use blogger platform risk having their account suspended for breaching Google’s TOS – this happened to many blogger platform users till date. Another big risk by using blogger is: if you want to sell your site, it’s hard! Because you got a free hosting, it means you have NO control over your sites, you have to spend a lot of time in managing your stuff to sell to others.
All these problems can be overcome by WordPress. If you don’t have any more interest in blogging, it takes few minutes to sell your WP blogs. It’s that easy! And I said earlier in this post, you have all the control over your sites and blogs, no one will ask you for violating terms!

Rock Your Blog With These Essential WordPress Plugins

Have you ever wanted to rock your WordPress blogs with few plugins?
One of the best things about WordPress is that you can use a wide range of plugins to take your blog to the next level. Again it depends on how many plugins you use and what plugins you use to take charge of your blog.
After all, the less plugins you have the more site speed you can acquire, so here are few plugins to increase your website traffic in 2015.
1. Digg Digg: There’s a reason why I’m placing this plugin no.1 in the list. Social media sites are becoming popular, to bring more traffic you must use social media sites to the most. If you give your readers easy to share your posts on social media, the chances of getting more shares on your posts will be huge. This plugin lets you place the sharing buttons in most prominent places on your sidebar to get more shares and visibility.
2. W3 total cache: If you want to clear all the caches on your blogs to make it loading faster, this plugin is for you. It improves the user experience of your site by increasing server performance, reducing the download times and providing transparent content delivery network (CDN) integration.
3. SEO by yoast: SEO is the key to making any successful blog, without search engine optimizing, you won’t get long lasting traffic to your sites. SEO by yoast is the premium plugin which does all the things for you to get an avalanche traffic from search engines, and it’s absolutely for free (it has all the features of a premium plugin, it’s why I’m calling it as a premium plugin).
4. Akismet: No one likes to get spam on their blog comment section. Not only spam will create more burden on your database (which makes your site loading time slower), but you will also give a bad user experience. Akismet is used by almost every blogger (yea, it’s one of the most used WP plugins in the blogosphere). It will control the spam comments to give the better user experience to your blog readers. Using GASP plugin along with Akismet can 99% reduce spam on your blogs.
5. Contact form 7: If you want a great looking contact form, this plugin is the right choice for you. Not only this plugin enables powerful security options, but it also looks easy to use.
6. nRelate thumbnails: The most effective way to boost your page views is to display your related posts or links at the bottom of your posts. This plugin serves you the best to display them using images to get more clicks on your old posts.
7. Google XML sitemap: A must have WP plugin for WP users. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.
8. Jetpack by WordPress: If you want to get your analytics right, install this plugin. This plugin enables you to analyze your page views, search terms and who clicked on what etc. to give you a detailed data of your WP blog readers.

Write keyword rich contents no matter what

Search engine optimization is the key to building a profitable blog. Without search engine traffic, your blog won’t last long. To make your prospects buying and to generate more leads, it’s a MUST to bring organic traffic.
Luckily, the WordPress users have a great edge with SEO because there are so many great WordPress SEO plugins available, and most of them are free.
Post consistently: If you want to become a top blogger in your niche, post consistently. I don’t mean that you need to post daily to succeed, but you have to be CONSISTENT with your blog posting frequency. Who will like to read your blog if you update blog posts inconsistently? The best way to know your blog posting frequency is by “testing”.
Testing is the key to know the perfect blog post frequency on your blogs, know what works and what’s not. Take the help from your readers and other bloggers if you need. Use online survey tools like Survey monkey or use your email list to ask your readers “when to update”. This way you will have a better idea on what to write and when to update on your blogs.
Write unique points: Get them talking about your blog posts. But how? Always write engaging content that solves your readers problems and give genuine value to your targeted readers. No one will like to read your blog if you post “generic contents”. Write unique posts that will create great impact on your blog readers in the long run. Take some time to research the topics that you are writing about and deliver the ‘best’ information to your readers. Create your own writing style to stand out from the crowd.

Give importance to readers and search engines

Readers and search engines both are important. You simply can’t ignore both of them, readers will give your blog immense support to buy your products and search engines can bring you more readers in the long run for the potential keywords.
Know your targeted keywords before writing a blog post, write for the readers first, then optimize the contents for the search engines. I don’t suggest anyone to use “keyword stuffing”, instead use long tail keywords to generate quality traffic from the search engines.
You will definitely have more impact on search engines when you use long tail keywords like “blog tips for new bloggers”, instead of using just “blog tips”. Then build quality back links to your sites either by guest blogging or by writing link baiting posts which will naturally attract other bloggers to link to your posts. This way you can bring great traffic from the search engines in the long run, remember that, search traffic takes time to reach your blog. You simply can’t expect organic traffic flowing through your blog posts within 2 days.
Use social media sites to boost your presence: By now, you should know the importance of social media sites like Facebook, twitter, Google+ etc. They are great resources if you want to quickly build a brand around your blogs. You should be dedicated enough to engage with other bloggers and influential bloggers in your niche using social media sites.
Always share the best stuff around your network to grab other bloggers attention to click on your links. No one will care to read your stuff if you post generic contents, make sure you are spending enough time to read and write the best contents to solve your readers’ problems.

Guest blogging is a weapon – use it wisely

If you want to succeed in blogging, you need to get more online visibility no matter what. The best way to get more visibility in no time is this, guest post on other blogs which are better than yours!
Guest blogging is going viral in blogosphere. Everyone is talking about guest blogging and more bloggers are entering into guest blogging to get more attention.Guest blogging will be fun and useful if you know how NOT to pitch your guest posts. In this article, we will discuss how not to write a guest post. You will better understand about your targeted readers if you once analyze your targeted blog posts.
Guest blogging will not only give you links, visibility and traffic, but you can also create great relationships with other bloggers which will be helpful for your blog’s success in the long run. Try to create targeted guest posts to grab more readers attention to reach your blog posts. Make it easy for them to subscribe and become your subscribers.
So what are your thoughts on this massive post increase website traffic? Do you have any more tips to increase organic traffic to your websites, please share them in the comments.

Feeding Search Engines To Rise in Rankings

Search Engine Optimization or SEO. While many businesses may have an idea of what it is, they may not understand how it works or, at least, how to make the most of it for their business. Every business wants to get to the 'top spot' in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. but to do that you have to first understand how SEO works.

Understanding Search Engines

Understanding how search engines work is critical when trying to improve the search ranking of businesses. Without this understanding it is primarily a guessing game and businesses need their SEO strategy to be based on knowledge, not a guess.
Crawling: To begin the process, search engines do what is referred to as Crawling, which does just what it sounds like - it crawls across all the information on the Internet and locates new or updated sites and information. Using Google as an example, they have an enormous set of computers that handles the search portion of their function which is called the Googlebot. By using those infamous Google algorithms, Googlebot "crawls" through all of the data across all of the Internet looking for sites, data and information that was not there previously.
Indexing: When Googlebot compiles all the new words, sites and information that it found during its "crawl", along with the pages where that information was found, it is called Indexing. It is during indexing that things like title tags are processed and compiled as well.
Serving Results: When someone goes onto Google, or any search engine for that matter, and enters keywords to conduct a search, the search engine will then locate all the pages that have the words that were entered into the search and pull out the pages and/or sites that are the most relevant to those keywords. The more relevant the page content is to the words in the search, the higher up in the results that page will be displayed, otherwise known as page ranking. This function also uses the predetermined algorithms as a part of its final determinations.
Now that you understand a little more about how a search engine crawls a business website, it is time to start working on creating a website that will appeal to the search engines.
When you take into consideration the mass of information that search engines are sifting through across the Internet it should make you realize even more why an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and content strategy are so important.

What To Include In The SEO Strategy

• Keyword Research - using words from the business's niche market as well as for the industry and target audience
• Content that is optimized, client-focused and helpful, not just marketing-based
• Optimized pages and posts

Start With Keyword Research

This is where strategy should begin. Find out what keywords customers and potential customers are going to input when they are looking for a business's product or service. Thankfully there are a number of things that can assist with this.

Online Keyword Research Tools

• SEO Book Keyword Tool
• Keyword Eye
• SEMrush
• Ubersuggest
• Wordtracker

Social Media - see what people are talking about on social media about the business's niche.
The customer service and sales staff - they are on the front lines of any business and have the most direct interaction with customers. They can provide the questions customers are asking or items they are most looking for.
Customers - while the sales and customer service staff interact with customers daily, make a direct connection with them as well to find out their needs or any problems a business's product or service can solve.

Create Content That Readers Can Trust (And Feeds The Search Engines)

People go to businesses they can trust and that can help them. One way to create trust is by becoming a thought leader in the industry through creating content that is relevant to the reader and something they would actually search for on Google (Ex: How to SEO a blog post).

Content Ideas

• Blogging on "how to" topics
• Creating FAQs pages/posts
• Resource pages for specific geographic areas

You'll want to make sure to use keywords within the content which should already be part of a business's local SEO strategy. Be sure to check any old posts on the site and ensure they have been optimized and, if not, change them.
To keep website visitors on the site, each page or post should also include at least one link to another page within your site to keep them moving throughout.
In addition to creating SEO focused content, it is also necessary to optimize title tags, image names and image descriptions. Even though these are not visible to website visitors, this information is important to search engines as the information is indexed as they crawl the site.
I realize that this seems like a lot to do, but remember, the search engines are crawling every piece of information on the Internet and a business needs to be optimized to stay relevant in search results.
The SEO strategies outlined here, when implemented, will increase site optimization, attract more visitors, and keep those visitors on a site longer. All of which is what is needed to move the rankings higher on search results.

Why Every Business SHOULD Be Marketing On Linkedin

With over 390 Million members, and an average income of $120000 American, Linkedin has a ton of lead potential that is sorely underutilized. Linkedin has become the social network for businesses and job hunting, for the fact that it is designed and focused on connecting people to getting hired or doing business, rather than a hod podge of information being shared, like on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.

Did you know much of the Fortune 500 and their senior leadership are Linkedin users? Every second, 13 new users sign up for an account. On Facebook, statistics say only about 1% of their users who engage a brand make a purchase as per this study. How much higher could the buying power be of a much more affluent market? This post will list the ways Linkedin can help your business increase leads, sales, and build the power of your brand.
Here are the reasons why every business SHOULD be marketing on Linkedin.

Why Every Business SHOULD Be Marketing On Linkedin

1. Lead Generation Opportunities

To generate leads on Linkedin, the best tactics involve a keyword rich profile within your niche, as well as actively prospecting or outsourcing prospecting of members of your network. These members of your network that you want to find, are ones that could potentially be interested in your product or service. The key is to be conversational and not jump immediately into your offering.

2. Increased Sales

These will result from your lead generation efforts, as well as activity in Linkedin groups when you put yourself out there. Like most social media marketing on other social networks, it increases your positioning as an authority on Linkedin.

3. More Business Partnerships

Increased accessibility and positioning will likely lead to more opportunities. These opportunities could be affiliate marketing, collaborations, or to being hired for work.

4. Increased Brand Awareness

Aside from being able to create a robust profile, Linkedin has many business oriented groups. In participating in a group on Linkedin, you get increased brand exposure from being active about curating and sharing content on Linkedin.
A common question I get is: How do these actions lead to more leads, sales, and a stronger brand? The answer is: It depends. You can use your Linkedin company profile as a place to refer people, and send them to your website, or you can directly engage prospects from your profile directly.
As you can see there are numerous benefits to using your Linkedin account as part of your digital marketing mix, and not just another social account.