MaryEllen Tribby: Getting Your Website Traffic From Google (without Paying For It!)

The #1 factor holding all online businesses and websites back from making gobs of money is visitors.

Regardless of how much or little of it you have, more is always better. Especially when it’s free!

In this article, I’ll be sharing with you the secrets to getting your website placed at the top of Google for any search phrase, and making sure you get tons of qualified traffic.

Getting your website traffic through a process called “Search Engine Optimization” has become an integral part of most online businesses in the past few years.  In this information age, Google has become a one-stop shop for anything you need; from booking a hotel, finding the best deals on clothing or even finding out how to fix a leaky faucet.

What phrases do you want your site to show up for in Google? Let’s say you’re selling running sneakers. You should look at phrases like “buy running shoes”, “comfortable running sneakers” or “new running shoes”.  But go even further and get creative with it.  Then, you’ll come up with phrases like “how can I run faster“ or “my running sneakers smell bad.”  When you expand your thought process like this, the possibilities become limitless.

Would ranking for phrases like this help your business?

Sure it would! One fellow “optimizer” helped a home waterpark business top Google for ‘home waterpark”.  Two months later they landed a contract from Celine Dion to build her a $10million waterpark in her Las Vegas backyard!

People search right when they are ready to consume information or buy products and services. And, they trust Google’s results.  This is why it is so important that your site is seen here, as it is some of the best quality traffic your site will ever receive.

There are two basic things you must tackle with your website and articles in order to rank high in Google.
They are On-site Optimization and Link Building.

Tips for Getting Traffic from Google

To ensure you are doing everything you can to take advantage of this free high quality traffic source, follow the following steps:

1.  Use Google Keyword Tool

Google gives you the exact amount of searches of any specific phrase that is made every month. Before writing an article for your site, visit the keyword tool, plug in a few phrases you think would be good. You will see about 100 results with their search volume. Find one with over 1,000 searches, and that is your ‘target keyword’ phrase.

2.  Put your ‘target keyword’ phrase in the title of all posts and articles

First and foremost, your title should be interesting to humans.  But, it should also contain your keyword phrase. Google, rightfully so, assumes that your title is a good way to tell what your article is about.

3.  Use the keywords in your first and last sentence

If your keyword is “running shoes,” then make sure these words are in the first and last sentence of your posts.
This is the ‘primacy-recentcy’ factor. Google assumes introductory and closing sentences are top signals of what your content is about. Do not overlook this small but crucial step.

4.  Use the keyword in H1, H2 or H3 headers

Articles often have what are called H1, H2 and H3 tags. These are simply headlines and subheadlines inside your article that act as focal points for your reader. If you are using WordPress or another CMS, there is an option inside the post/page to add these tags.  Use this tool and with the click of a button you will create these subheadlines. If you are on another website platform then ask your webmaster or do a Google search for “add h1 tag to” and whichever platform you’re using.

Google’s algorithm reads these headline tags as a primary factor in deciding how relevant your content is for specific keyword phrases. Make sure to use your keyword in at least one of these headlines.

5.  Use Rich Media with Keywords in it

Adding content other than just words is a great way to beat your competition. Put in a picture or two or find a YouTube video about your topic and embed it into your page. Audio files can be found in podcast directories on virtually any topic and make your posts more engaging, unique and seen as higher quality to Google.

When adding images it is important to name them correctly. First, you’ll want to name the image the keyword. So,  the file name could be shoes.jpg. Once on your site you will add an ‘alt tag’ to the image. Make this a bit more descriptive of the picture and try keeping the keyword in it. It could be ‘Nike running shoes.’

6. Optimize your URL

Now, you’ll want to make sure your URL has the selected keyword phrase in it. If you’re optimizing for ‘red running shoes’ then your page URL could look like this: www.domain.com/red-running-shoes.

It’s OK if it’s longer than that. Best practice is to keep your keyword as close to the beginning of the URL as possible.

7. Link Building

Now that you have your on-site optimization taken care of, it is time to build links to your site.  This signals to Google that other people find your content interesting enough to link to. Google then rewards your content with higher rankings and more traffic.

By a ‘link’ I mean any other site that puts a link from them to your site. When building these links you need to take be aware of what’s called ‘anchor text.’ This is the text of the actual link. An example is when optimizing for the keyword ‘working moms’ we will build a link like this: working moms.

The content you have just written and optimized for your website you can submit to article directories. These are huge websites that house articles of various topics and will post it to their site, with a link back to your site.

Here is a list, with links, to the top article directories you should be submitting to:

•    Article Base
•    Article City
•    Article Pool
•    Article Alley
•    Article Snatch
•    Article Trader
•    Deoracle
•    Article99
•    eZine Articles
•    iSnare

They are all free to submit to. It just may take some time to go to each one and do yourself. A great paid solution is articlessubmissionservice.com. For $12 you can have them submit your article to all those above directories plus an additional 831 article directories! It is a great value at $12 and I highly recommend it.

The next form of link building you should utilize is blog commenting. This is a fun way of getting into the conversation of your vertical and gaining notoriety. The best method for this is signing up for Google Alerts. Create an alert with your keyword in it and Google will send you all the newest blogs related to your keyword. Visit them, read the blog posts and then add a valuable comment with a link back to your site.

The key here is to add a truly valuable comment. This ensures most of your comments are accepted by the webmasters and your links will show up. The rule here is: post comments that add value to the page you are commenting on.  If you do that you’re on your way to SEO success!