How to get search engine traffic.

Search Engine Traffic.

Specifically, traffic from google.com, yahoo.com andsearch.msn.com - the leaders web searching.

Since visitors from search engines find sites on their own, thetraffic is top quality and the conversion rate is excellent. Andsince it is without cost, search engine traffic simply cannot be beat.

In this article you'll discover how YOU can maximize traffic fromsearch engines. And no, I do not have a trick or overnightsolution. If you are looking for that, you can stop reading now.But what I will share with you today WILL increase your searchengine traffic. I can all but guarantee it. Sure, it will takesome time but believe me, it is well worth a little patience.

So let's go...

The first thing to consider is how the best search sitesdetermine where to send their clients -- the searchers. It doesnot happen by accident. In fact all search engines have complexalgorithms that determine how they rank sites.

But after all the smoke clears, I can point directly to ONEessential component that leads to ever-growing traffic from themajor search engines...

QUALITY.

Quality is what matters most to the top search engines. They wantto give quality results to the people using their search engine.

Read that again. It is important to understand. As a webmaster,quality is something you need to be very concerned with. Andthere are two specific areas where quality really counts...

1. Quality of Content AT your Website

2. Quality of Links TO Your Website.

Let's talk about those two components in a bit of detail.

Quality Component #1: Informative content at your website

A quality website with solid, reliable and substantial contentwill always do better than sites trying to "trick" their way togood ranking. Think about it for a moment. Why do the top searchsites have such a huge market share? Simple. They provide qualitysearch results. That's how they got more people use them to findwhat they were looking for.

Therefore, websites offering lots of quality information areusually the first sites presented in their search results.

There is no secret to this. And providing quality content takeswork. I do it by writing articles like the one you are readingnow. And you can do it by writing articles for YOUR niche marketand posting them at your site.

If your site focuses on collectibles, don't just post up youritems and hope to sell them. Instead, write an article about aspecific collectible every week. Tell it's history and why it isworth so much. Write about how to tell an original from acounterfeit. You get the idea.

In a year you will have 52 keyword-rich web pages (or more) thatwill help grow traffic to your website. In two years you'll have100+. And this content is the cornerstone of your website.

[Tech note: As you post each article at your website, make surethe new web page links back to your main page. Also make sureyour main page has a link to either a site map or an articlelisting. That will help search engines find all that greatcontent when they spider your site.]

I've been writing about this aspect of web marketing for sevenyears now. And I can remember a few years back when many expertswere writing, "Don't waste your time on content, just put up asingle page sales letter." But what would the web be like if itwere just a network of single page sales letters?

The web is all about information.

Let's face it, nearly ALL people online are here to getinformation. Not many people want to pay for it either. Afterall, you can find in-depth information on any subject imaginable.Sure, you sometimes have to pay for the best quality information,but if you surf long enough you can get to the truth of anysubject using the World Wide Web.

If you are a website owner, the paragraphs above translate into asimple strategy. Feed the search engines that facilitate locatingthis valuable content. Create content for your niche market. Growa website that is information rich and the visitors will come. Itmay take time but they will come.

Of course, there are ways that you can move the process along abit. The best way is to show search engines what your content isabout and how important it is. This is done by building...

Quality Component #2: Niche links INTO your website

You may have heard of the importance of getting other sites tolink to yours. And yes, getting lots of links coming to your siteis important. But the QUALITY of those links is even moreimportant.

I will not get into Google page rank or any other specificalgorithms on any search engine. The fact is, NOBODY is privy tothat specific information. But I can say for sure, based onexperience, that the quality of links coming to your site is VERYimportant.

When it comes to the actual links, quality is measured primarilyby these two factors...

[X] WHICH sites link to your site[X] Exactly HOW sites link to your site

The first one is the toughest nut to crack. Getting quality sitesto link to yours is not easy. Naturally, you need a quality siteyourself. (More proof of my advice above.) Once you have aquality site in place, you can start getting links to it.

[X] Getting the right sites to link to your site...

Building a link strategy at your website is an important stepthat will help you more than you realize, especially as time goeson. So make it one of the first of your Internet marketing steps.

But getting links is not an easy task. In fact, getting qualitysites to link to your site takes a bit of originality. You can'tjust slap up a "link to us" page and hope the job gets done.

Below are two strategies I use. I invite you to emulate thesestrategies at your site...

a. Pre-license all your best content.

Remember the content we talked about earlier? Well as you createyour own tips and articles for your website or email newsletters,consider pre-licensing it to others. Pre-licensing it for othersis as simple as including a short footer after your work. Itlooks something like this:

"You have permission to reprint what you just read. Use it inyour ezine, at your website or in your newsletter. The onlyrequirement is including the following footer..."

*Article by YOUR NAME, visit www.YourWebsiteUrl.com for moreoriginal content like this.

This takes no extra work on your part since you already wrote thearticle. A simple footer like that lets you pre-licensed it tothe entire web. Your links will be growing continually with noextra effort. There are lots of websites in need of decentcontent. Supply it and you can benefit greatly - if you do itright!

And the beauty of this strategy, is that only sites in your nichewill use your content. This means your links will be high qualitylinks from sites in your niche. This goes a long way with thesearch engines.

Note: If you need to see this strategy in action, visit myarticles archive at: http://www.bizweb2000.com/articles.htm

b. Bribe webmasters into linking up.

The next strategy that can work very well is the "bribe". In anutshell, you simply give something of value away to webmasterswho links to your site.

When done correctly, this strategy can be extremely powerful. Allyou need to get started is a web page with a few text links thatwebmasters can use to link to your site. When they link up, givethem a report or ebook about your niche. It does not have to beanything elaborate, just something that helps them learn whatthey came for in the first place.

Of course you want to let these webmasters know that they need asite in the same niche as yours. You really do not want unrelatedsites linking in, just sites in your niche.

You can even automate all aspects of the "bribe" and save lots oftime. See my "Internet Marketer's Resource Directory" at  http://linksmanager.com/bizweb2000/ for how I've done that.

My directory bribes my visitors into linking to one of my sites,by offering two distinct rewards... a directory listing for theirbest Internet Marketing Resource, and a free ebook on permissionemail marketing.

Note: The tool that automates my link building strategy is calledLinksManager. While there are many automated solutions available,be careful when selecting yours. Many are not search enginefriendly and using a link network or link farm designed to tricksearch engines, can be detrimental to your link campaign! The oneI use is simply a time saving tool. It sends emails to newsubmissions, checks their site for a live link to mine, and givesaway my ebook when the link is verified. When visitors link to mysite, their links are set up directly to my site, so it is searchengine friendly. I've been using it for a few years now withgreat success. And no, I'm not an affiliate. ;-)

If you have an Internet Marketing resource to promote, submityour site to my directory so you can see how it works. After yousubmit your listing, pay special attention to the page that giveswebmasters the exact link code to paste into their sites. Youshould use a page like that at your site as well. It makeslinking very simple, even for new webmasters. In fact, feel freeto copy the layout of that page and customize it with your ownkeywords and links for YOUR site.

Now let's get to that other aspect of quality links...

[X] Exactly How Sites Link to You.

For sure, text links are better than banner links. And text linksfilled with your best keywords are better than any old text link.

For instance...

If you were trying to build links to your, let's say... fishingequipment site, how other sites display links to yours isextremely important. To decide what you want those links to say,you need to research keywords a bit. The word "fishing", wouldseem obvious but it undoubtedly has a ton of competition. So abetter idea is to find more specific words. You can do that byentering your main keyword into the tool at WordTracker.com or athttp://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ andyou'll get a list of related keywords. This particular testshowed me that the keywords "fishing tackle" or "fishing lure"get quite a bit of searching as well. So those would be a betterchoice of keywords to use in your incoming links.

But how do you decide what those other webmasters will write whenthey link to your site? That's easy. You do it by giving thosewebmasters the exact code they can paste into their sites, as Ido when someone submits a URL to my directory above. In the caseabove, the code they would be asked to put on their site would bea short sentence such as "Down-south fishing lures - clevertackle for clever fish." The term "fishing lures" would behyperlinked to the fishing site. ;-)

In Closing...

OK, so is everything in this article all you have to do to moveyour site up the ranks of the major search engines like Google?Well, not really. There are lots of other considerations such asthe title of your site. Your title needs to include your bestkeywords as well. And so does the text of your pages. But I'llsave the details on these for another article. For now, get busybuilding quality content and quality links. They are two keys tothe success of your website.

That wraps up today's tip! If you take one lesson from itremember, QUALITY CONTENT plus QUALITY LINKS will bring you lotsof quality website traffic.

Article by Jim Danielshttp://www.make-a-living-online.com - How to Make A Living Online

Did you find this article useful? If so, get Jim's BizWebeGazette at http://www.bizweb2000.com/gazette/ and you'll getinfo like this every two weeks.