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3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic

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Amongst the commercial blogosphere there is huge interest in the dark, and mysterious art of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. There shouldn’t be. Not because paying attention to Search traffic is bad, or that wanting to rank higher in Google is evil, simply because it’s not rocket science, and anyone can do it. Even you.

If you want get more traffic from Search engines, this post is for you. Read on….

The Big SEO Secret: It’s Easy

Before we get to the list, (I don’t mind if you scroll, but this next bit is important too…) let me explain what i mean by “it isn’t rocket science”: Manipulating Search engine rankings for sites that naturally find it difficult to get incoming links and attention, say affilate sites, many ecommerce type operations and much of the web1.0 shopping experience sites is very hard, and it takes a lot of skill and knowledge to achieve.

It’s become harder and harder over the last few years to game Google, and many SEO’s are now wondering if it’s time to give up trying to “manipulate” G results and simply start feeding Google more of what it wants — the unfortunate result of which is a huge increase in workload, namely copywriting and Linkbaiting.

That’s the thing most SEO’s won’t want to tell their clients. That there is no magic wand, mystical powers or Search engine hoo joo to be had anymore, it’s all down to 3 things:

  1. Copywriting
  2. Links and
  3. Networking

That’s not to say those tasks don’t require skill, but it really is that simple.

I’ll give you a full checklist in just a minute…

Avoid the Snake Oil Merchants

There are still die hard SEO’s out there that spend all their time trying to game the system, but most of them are pretty shit at it, only a very few have enough resources to manage it. There are also, a whole slew of con merchants masquerading as SEO’s, just as there are fake designers in the web design field, basing their credentials on the fact that they’ve read a few articles, or bought a keyword tracking tool.

These people are idiots, and should be avoided at all costs.

At the end of this article I’ll point you in the direction of a few quality resources for further reading.

3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic

Now you’ve patiently read though all of the above, or impatiently skimmed to the bottom, it’s time to get into this list.

1. Write Better, More Specific Copy and Linkbait

Good copywriting encompasses many things, titles, subject matter, the post and url’s to name the most important. It also goes hand in hand with The Art of Linkbaiting. Here’s a checklist for more search engine friendly copy:

Title’s are everything.

  • Titles should be short, snappy, and attention grabbing – think about how you skim through your RSS reader every day, and bear that in mind when writing titles.
  • Preferably, title’s should contain keywords related to your topic — that should come naturally, if you have to jam them in there, its either a bad title, bad copy, or you’re a lunatic.
  • If your blog software writes titles like this: My Blog Title | My Post Title, you need to change them to this: My Post Title – My Blog Title. Many people will tell you it’s even better to ditch the “My Blog Title” bit all together, in order to not dillute the important keywords in the title, but they’re forgetting the importance of branding, and with blogs, establishing some brand recognition goes a long way toward gaining links and attention.
  • Titles are akin to advertising, and the best ones make promises, and deliver

By far the best resource out there for blog titles is Brian Clark’s Magnetic Headlines series of posts on the excellent Copy Blogger site.

Body Copy
There’s been much written, both online and off about copywriting, and as a writer of small talent, it’s not for me to get into the in-depth details of it. I am good at linkbaiting though, and am constantly studying what kind of post are being linked on del.icio.us, Digg and other “link sites”.

It’s the much discussed art of linkbaiting that this post will focus on. Remember, we’re talking about getting search engine traffic right? Here’s a checklist for writing good linkbait (we’ll discuss why links are important a little further down).

  • Study the popular bookmarks on del.icio.us to get a feel for what people are linking to
  • Such things as HowTo’s and Lists are always good fodder for linkbait and you should be aiming to get onto those pages by writing appropriate copy. (you want to be there, because being there will gain you links, and links = traffic, more on that soon…).
  • Use html lists, headlines and other visual means of breaking up posts in order to make them easier to read and skim
  • Link out, link often and link generously — Really, forget any rubbish you may have heard about depleting page rank, or any concerns you have over sending away traffic, and work on providing links to great resources your readers will love — they’ll thank you for it, and link to you for it.
  • Fight bloggers block by getting inventive, and doing some research.

Some of the best blog specific resources for copy writing, and linkbaiting are:

2. Make it Easy for People to Link to You

All of the above tips on writing more attractive, useful and linkable copy are geared to two things:

  1. Providing what your readers want
  2. Gaining links

Links are the currency with which one trades on the web, the lingua franca of the internet and key to ranking, and traffic. Hint: They’re really, really important ok?

Essentially, you’re looking for this:

  • Links coming to your posts, from many different sources
  • Links preferably have relevant keywords in the text used to make the link and again preferably come from sites on a similar topic
  • Links from trusted, authoritative sites

Apart from writing great linkable copy, there are a few things you can do to make sure that your posts get linked, and hence ranked aswell as get more bang for your buck per link.

  • Encourage readers to submit your posts to Digg and del.icio.us, or more specific link sites depending on your subject matter. Those categories in del.icio.us for example, are exported by users to their own blogs (targeted, keyworded link text = good), and they often kick off a knock on effect [pdf] that can have wild implications for your Search traffic.
  • There are varios widgets for most blog software to do the above for you, just have a search through your blog softwares list of plugins.
  • Where possible, make sure your urls contain your keywords. Contrary to popular opinion, this is not because Search engines pay particularly more attention to urls with keywods, but because people often just paste urls into comments, blog posts and forums where they are automatically linked by the software. Those links, contain the keywords, and it’s keywords in links, from authoratitive, trusted sites, that are what we want.
  • Place a “link to this post” widget on your blogs templates
  • Ask other bloggers in your niche for links — but don’t make a pest of yourself, nobody likes to be hassled, and some people turn down link requests on general principle (me for example..). See Trisha’s thread in the Performancing forums on link exchanges for a lively discussion on the merits of the dreaded link exchange. — My personal advice is dont bother, do the other things listed here and all of it will fall into place.
  • Network like crazy, see below…

Although there are lots of posts out there on links, I couldn’t find much that would add value to what i’ve written above. If you have resources to share, please post them in the comments.

3. Networking, the Unsung Hero of Blog SEO

You read little about networking in this context. Many bloggers into SEO are facinated with the technicalities, despite it being a very simple thing to do and thus miss one of the biggest opportunities to gain links, readers, and traffic.

Done right, a well built network of contacts, friends and like-minded bloggers can seriously help you get the link love you need, both directly and indirectly. Here are a few tips and resources for working your network for better Search traffic:

  • Read Chris Garrett’s Networking for Blog Success
  • Comment and participate on blogs within your niche — Get to know the people around you
  • Email with them, LINK to them, they’ll reciprocate, trust me.
  • Expand outside of blogs — find forums, newsletters and groups in your topic
  • Use social bookmarking sites to discover related topics (see right hand side) and hence expand your groups, newsletters, forums and blogs search even further
  • Above all: Be generous. If you respect your network, and work hard to be part of the community surounding your topic, the rewards can really pay of — never abuse it, it tends ot backfire in all kinds of horrible ways.

4. Bonus Tip

There’s always a bonus tip, didn’t you know?

If you’re really set on learning more, more than my overview here — and if i really can’t dissuade you from getting caught up in what i consider a massive waste of time for the majority of bloggers (technical seo) then at least pay attention to the right people 🙂 Here’s a list of my favorite, and most authoratitive SEO blogs:

The Art of Linkbaiting

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Ever found it hard to get other bloggers to link to a new blog? Sure you have, it’s not easy sometimes. Even established blogs need to expand their traffic and influence on a regular basis, and linkbaiting is one way to do it. It’s not without potential perils, but the time honored tradition of being contrary, in order to get attention is well proved, and done right, it’s a killer way to break into a new area. There are also safer ways of linkbaitng, they’re just less fun 🙂

In order to bait a link, you need a hook. Hooks come in variety of flavors, some of the more popular would include:

  • News hook
  • Contrary Hook
  • Attack Hook
  • Resource Hook
  • Humour Hook

There are others, but you see the point. There are two main types of hook in there, the nice hook, and the nasty hook. I’d say in most cases you can get away with a contrarian viewpoint, but not an attack. No one likes an arsehole, so there’s no real benefit, as sure you may get a ton of links from outraged blog peers, but they’ll likely ignore anything else you write.

Saying that though, it’s a judgement call. I’ve often slammed someone on a blog, but you need to be able to judge it very well. Go just a little too far, and you’ll do more harm than good.

The easiest, and safest is the nice hook. And when i say easy, i mean it. Have a look at some examples of each type of hook i’ve listed:

Resource Hook

  • A comprehensive list of blogs in your niche – link out, and links will come in, i promise.
  • A practical/useful or even fun tool related to your niche
  • A How To based on your niche
  • A compilation of news stories on a theme. Sprinkle a little analysis in there, and you’re good to go.

News Hook

  • A genuine Scoop. Get to the news first
  • A compilation of news, as above, its a resource aswell as a news hook.
  • Expose a story for a fraud, or to be flawed. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water if you can debunk a popular meme

Contrary Hook

  • Be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product.
  • On the same theme, post “Why <insert prominent blogger name here> is WRONG about…”

Attack Hook

This works much the same as the contrary hook, you just get to be much, much ruder. It’s a tough one, because just posting about such a thing could land me in hot water. But then im not here to play nice, i’m here to talk about gaining traffic, and whilst an attack hook is 99/100 NOT the way to go, sometimes it’s absolutely killer, and can gain you credibility and reputation overnight.

Really though, careful with that one. It can just as easily go the wrong way.

Humor Hook

These kinds of hooks are just too easy.

  • Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject
  • Post “10 thing i hate about…”
  • Post “You know you’re a <insert here> when…”

Funny thing is, those things always get links, it’s like people never seem to tire of them.

Give and thou wilt receive…

All of the above is utterly useless without being seen by your peers though. Link to them in your post, then click those links if you have absolutely no traffic. You need to get their initial attention.

Send emails, post to delicious, myweb2 etc – just make sure that at least one prominent blogger in your niche reads and links to you and the rest will follow.

Now, what i want to hear is this: What other types of link bait do you use?

Where’s the WTF’ing RSS?

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I’ll be the first to admit that maybe I just don’t get Technorati’s WTF, Im still trying to work out what the purpose is and whether it’s really useful, but one thing I did notice, is that there is no rss feed!

If im understanding this right, it’s popular topics at Technorati anotated by the community to “explain the buzz” — and if that’s right, then why can’t I get this in Google Reader?

Do tell…

Filed Under: RSS

Five Minute Podcast: All Google, All the Time

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Five minute podcast (no production, one take, one subject, five minutes) on using Google exclusively for day to day blogging needs and why this freaks me out a bit.

PS: Im working on the format. There should be a nice little flash player, and I cant work out why it wont show. If I dont get boed off stage I’ll have that fixed for next time 🙂

Do let me know what you think.

Snap Respond to my Anti Preview Anywhere Post, but Popups Still Annoying

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Snap’s Jason Fields has responded to my anti SPA post which got Dugg and consequently garnered unexpected, but appreciated support in the broader community.

In a nutshell, our product is intended to enable users to “look before leaping”, saving many people a wasted click. I will however be the first to admit that this is a product that some people don’t like, and this is why we have made sure to include a simple method to opt-out for those who don’t like it (click the ‘options’ menu in the upper right of the preview bubble).

While there are certainly others who agree with some of the comments here, there are literally thousands of people signing up for SPA every day AND we have served more than 100+ million previews since the launch of the product – and all of this for free.

We are improving SPA almost every week with features aimed at giving site owners and end-users greater control in how to implement (and indeed “if” to implement) and interact with SPA. In the weeks to come, we will be:

(1) Making improvements that will reduce the confusion about whether a link is SPA enabled, or not.
(2) Make it much easier for a site owner to point SPA to a particular type of link.
(3) Enabling the site owner to totally customize a link, image, css, etc.

We here at Snap are acutely aware of the issues described in these comments and we have several enhancements scheduled to release over the coming couple of weeks that, in different ways, will address them. Rest assured that your viewpoints have been informing, and will continue to inform, the ongoing development of this product.

This is all well and good Jason, but the inescapable truth is that popups are annoying., and no amount of hopeful evangelistic cosmetcs will change that.

Please remove Partners Code from your Blogs

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As I beleive eveyone knows, our ad network closes today. Please remove the code from your blogs , but do watch this space. I dont/cant make promises, but i really believe we had something with the Partners program and that with a little tweaking, and the right kind of partnership, we could make this profitable for publishers and us, right out of the gate.

If you want to talk to me about that, email [email protected]

  • Final Publisher payments and commissions have been made.
  • Advertiser refunds are in progress.
  • Please dont contact me about either for at 48hrs but if you do suspect an error, or need help, email [email protected] early next week. Thanks!

Im sorry it came to this guys, next time we do something, we’ll get it right 🙂