Want to Increase Traffic to Your Site?

It'll Take Some Effort...And It Should!

Everyone promises a quick fix to increase traffic to your site

Not me. You see, it's the same old story: if increasing traffic were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Here are some things the quick fixers might not be telling you:

• More traffic requires more pages. Why?
• More pages require more content. Why?
• Content has to be high quality. Why?

Also...

• Backlinks help. Why?
• Backlinks need to be high quality. Why?

Lots of information leads to lots of traffic

1. More traffic requires more pages

Listen, half pint: When your girlfriend tells you big isn't necessarily better, it's because she's still hoping you'll learn to vibrate!

Most sites practice wishful thinking. Their owners hope one page will attract traffic for numerous popular keywords.

It doesn't work that way. When search engines comb through billions of webpages, they get to be very picky! The page that wins for Chicago termite treatment is NOT going to win for Chicago termite inspection.

Check for yourself if you don't believe me.

If you want to increase traffic for both keywords, you need to create separate pages for both keywords!

(More on the keyword-traffic connection.

2. More pages require more content

The engines are pretty good at catching duplicate content. Duplicating most of the wording from your termite treatment page to your termite inspection page is not going to increase traffic. It's only going to result in lower rankings for both pages.

That's why I say...

3. Content has to be high quality

The search engines are getting pretty good at figuring out what your page is about. But here's something new...

They're getting better and better at figuring out how well your visitors like your pages! It used to be that you needed to write content that would please the engines in order to get them to send visitors.

But now, the engines are studying those visitors' reactions to your site. If the visitors don't like your content, i.e. they bounce right back to the search engine, your rankings start to drop!

You wanted to increase traffic, but your dismal content is causing it to decrease. Which, I should point out, is as it should be.

Maggot, I just visited your site. I've read license plates that made more sense!

If visitors are unimpressed with the information you offer, the engines can and will punish you for it.

Time Out!

"Ouch! Did someone say my website has to have information? That sounds like a hassle!"

Well, the internet is nicknamed The Information Superhighway for a reason. And that "search" in "search engine"? It refers to the search for information.

It's about the content, stupid!

Are you able to get your head around having a new, informative website built for you from the ground up?

If you agree that web design should start (not end) with content, go with Sitesell Services instead of the same old web design/SEO gang who got you where you are (googling increase traffic) today.

Prefer to try to make your existing site work? Need some professional copy? Some options...

• Offshore it! Contract for cheap copy with the freelancers at Elance.
• Get killer content from the pros at Killer Content.
• You've gotta love a copywriting service called Bulldog Creative. Tell Michelle you heard about her from me. She's expensive but amazing! Use her for your sales pages.

To sum up...

• More pages require...
• More and better content, resulting in...
• Higher search engine rankings for...
• More keywords, leading to...

Increased Traffic!

Backlinks matter

1. Backlinks help increase traffic...here's why

It's obvious that if another site links to yours and that results in traffic, that's a good thing. But the real value of backlinks is what they signify to the search engines.

Many people don't know that Google's algorithm began with backlinks. (I highly recommend reading John Battelle's The Search. It remains highly relevant today.)

Larry and Sergey, faced with a mess of webpages, had an idea for ranking them. To egregiously oversimplify, they decided that the websites and pages with the most backlinks win!

It was brilliant. The data was right there in the links. The theory was that when a site links to another site, that's a vote for the importance of the other site!

Of course, it didn't take long for webmasters to catch on, and so was born a frenzy of reciprocal linking and the like.

But of course, Google doesn't stand still. To increase traffic...

2. Backlinks need to be high quality

Most links count for something. But some links count for a lot.

If your pal the birthday clown links to your civil engineering site, well, that link probably doesn't count for much.

But if you can get the municipalities you've worked for to link to you, that's powerful stuff! It's generally agreed that the best links are those from

• government sites
• libraries
• educational institutions, and
• sites focused on your niche.

We hear a lot about link popularity - and, indeed, the more links the better - but link quality is equally as important. If a site links to everybody it probably isn't worth much.

Private, she ain't your girlfriend if she's engaged to the football team!

And of course the way to score quality links is to have quality content that webmasters want to link to!

That's the magic formula to increase traffic.

Increase Our Traffic home.