5 Simple SEO Tactics to Drive Traffic To Your Website

Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the art of making your website list high in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN for high traffic keywords. Whether your goal is to drive traffic to your blog, market an affiliate product, or collect potential customers, SEO is an integral part of your site’s overall success.

Now I will share 5 simple SEO tactics that will send you tons of targeted traffic to your website(s).

1. Optimize Your Page Titles

Keyword optimized page titles are so significant yet I frequent sites daily with poorly optimized or lengthy page titles. This blog features just the article name because it contains all the keywords I choose to target.

If you want to rank highly for “Microsoft Xbox Fan,” make sure you place the keyword phrase somewhere within your page title, preferably in the beginning.

There are two preferred formats for SEO:

  1. Article Name
  2. Article Name - Name of Website

Method 1 works the best in terms of SEO because each keyword in the page title receives more emphasis in the search engine ranking factors. Method 2 works well if your website carries a strong brand that drives click throughs in the search engines. Websites like Problogger and TechCrunch benefit the most from search engine ranking positions (SERPS) because loyal readers trust their recommendations.

How Do I Alter My Page Title Tags?

Simple. Whether you use Wordpress or upload your website files using FTP, locate the <title></title> tags within the Head section of the HTML.

If you use Wordpress to publish content online, open up the header file and replace the following code with your existing Title code:

<title><?php if (is_home () ) { bloginfo('name'); }
elseif ( is_category() ) { single_cat_title(); echo ‘ - ‘ ; bloginfo(’name’); }
elseif (is_single() ) { single_post_title();}
elseif (is_page() ) { single_post_title();}
else { wp_title(”,true); } ?></title>

This will ensure your article titles are search engine optimized, and highly visible in all 3 major search engines.

2. Optimize Your Links with Proper Anchor Texts

Before the web 2.0 boom arrived, webmasters linked to relevant pages using non-descriptive terms like “click here” to point to an internal or external webpage. The anchor text is the actual linked text, and if you’re pointing to a page about “Apple iPhone,” naming the link “Click Here” tells the search engines very little about the external webpage.

By linking to the iPhone homepage using the anchor text “Apple iPhone,” we signal to the search engines that the external webpage contains information on iPhone products. Makes sense, right?

While your readers may understand your true intentions, search engines must be spoonfed and treated like dependent toddlers. We tell the likes of Google, Yahoo, and MSN exactly what we intend so there are zero misinterpretations or errors.

Go through your current pages, and check to see if you currently to any internal or external pages using non-descriptive anchor texts. I bet you can find at least 1 to 2 instances where you left the search engines hangin’.

If you change the linking anchor text to more descriptive representations of the webpage in reference, search engines and your visitors will better understand your content and how each link relates to the entire point you are making.

3. Position Your Content High Up on The Source Code

Placing your content higher up on your source code allows search engines to better index your content in their search engine results pages. Whenever you publish a webpage, your visitor read the actual page, but search engines read your source code. Source code is the HTML representation of your website’s elements, including header, content, sidebars, and footer.

How to View Your Source Code

Depending on your page layout, you want to show your source code as high up on the HTML source code as possible. Search engines index billions of webpages, and often read only portions of your site’s pages. The higher up your content, meaning actual article text is, the greater chance search engines will actually read that content.

You can bump up your content in the source code by:

Moving up your content may give your website that extra kick to force search engines to love your site again.

4. Get Rid of Unnecessary Widgets or Javascript

Search engines have a strong aversion to websites with tons of ads, javascript elements, excessive widgets, and redundant features that take away from your content. Because search engines cannot read javascript or complex coding structures, they become frustrated and leave your webpage altogether.

We want Google to stay! Not flee in a temper tantrum.

If your site translates overkill, it’s time to reduce the load on your web server and make it easier on the search engines. Get rid of all those unnecessary features (you know what I’m talking about), and focus more on your content. On this site, I only add features that will enhance the overall user experience and provide the opportunity for interactivity and socialization.

Things like Google Adsense, Blog Widgets, and blogger buttons are distractions in my opinion, unless you are part of a tight niche network. Otherwise, I can guarantee removing these elements will put your site in my favor with the search engines. It’s worth a shot!

5. Attract High Quality 1-Way Links

Last but not least, the single most important SEO tactic is to attract high quality 1-way links from high ranking websites. While some webmasters spend useless efforts on spamming people with e-mails, trackbacks, and other nonsense, you can attract tons of links and outshoot your competition by simply doing 1 thing: write great content. We hear this saying all the time, yet writing good content never gets old.

Great content is the backbone of the internet, and if you desire that #1 ranking for a particular keyword, write good content around that particular keyword and you will have a good chance of getting what you asked for.

You control Methods 1 through 4 directly, but Method 5 is within your control if you add tons of value to the internet. Attract links by answering questions, solving a problem, writing a how-to, or whatever it takes to captivate and establish a bond with your reader.

Is your content exceptional, but still not receiving links? Then start sending out links! The principle of reciprocity really works wonders. Once you begin giving out links, links will start pouring in as long as your content standards remain high. Trust me on this one!

Recap

We’ve covered 5 simple SEO tactics that you can start working on today! Here’s the quick rundown once more:

  1. Optimize Your Page Titles
  2. Optimize Your Links with Proper Anchor Texts
  3. Position Your Content High Up on The Source Code
  4. Get Rid of Unnecessary Widgets or Javascript
  5. Attract High Quality 1-Way Links

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Bookmark and Share Posted on August 8, 2007 | Filed Under SEO

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Comments

3 Responses to “5 Simple SEO Tactics to Drive Traffic To Your Website”


  1. Wordpress Blogger Says:

    August 11th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    i use wpseo from http://www.wpseo.de. it have many features for make blog seo friendly (also english version av.)



  2. Tarik Says:

    August 11th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    @ Wordpress Blogger

    Thanks for the link. I can really use this!



  3. Earn Money with Google Adsense Says:

    September 15th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    [...] with high quality content comes Search Engine Optimization, aka SEO, because search engines drive more traffic than paid or referral-based models. Always [...]


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