In this March 2007 issue, we'll be discussing organic search traffic and some of the techniques for making the most of it.
What is organic search traffic?
Organic search results are nothing more than a fancy term for the natural search listings you see when typing in a search term into Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.
Now, there are a few big benefits to being listed in the organic search results. One is that you don't have to pay for that traffic - and another is that people tend to trust natural search results more than they do the pay listings.
There is a tremendous value to organic search results. If you're not familar with the costs involved with pay search traffic, you might be amazed at what some small businesses pay for their site visitors. In fact, it's unbelievably easy to spend many hundreds (or thousands) of dollars each DAY on pay-per-click traffic!
I don't tell you this to discourage you from using Pay-Per-Click search engines. The cost of your advertising is all relative - and hundreds or thousands of dollars a day may very well be a great investment if your return and conversions are high enough. In fact, pay-per-click can and does work extremely well for many businesses when professionally managed. But, we're here to talk about organic search traffic today, so let's begin...
The Value Of Natural Search
Understanding the costs of Pay-Per-Click traffic helps you to really appreciate the value of the web site traffic you get for nothing. Even if you only see 100 visitors each day, depending on the nature of your business, that traffic could be worth anywhere from 10 bucks to many hundreds per day for you - just for the cost of the traffic. Does that make you look at your site's value any differently?
By paying attention to your site stats, you can begin to get a picture of the current state of your search traffic - and discover some new directions you can go when adding new content to your web site and when tweaking your existing pages for max results.
Examples ~ See How It Works
Let's get started toward taking some of the mystery out of the process of getting this valuable organic search traffic for your site. By far, the best way to explain the process of maximizing your organic search results is to see some live pages in action, so let's have a look.
The first example comes from a brand new article I added about 2 weeks ago. This article was a product / service review that took me about an hour to complete from writing the article to putting it up online.
By placing a link to the article from the homepage of the BBI website (a site that is mature and well-ranked), it was visited and indexed by the major search engines within a couple of days of placing it online. I began seeing search traffic from that page within about 5 days.
Here are a few examples of actual searches people are doing to find that page - Note that they are accurate as of this writing, but will likely change position by the time you're reading this article:
#10 Position ~ Dell XPS Review
#15 Position ~ "Dell XPS 410 Reviews
#3 Poisition ~ "Video Input XPS"
#7 Poistion - "Dell XPS 410 System Setup Options"
Those are just 4 examples of many I've found. In fact, that page has generated several hundred visits in the past 7 days, as well as some good ad revenue too. Of course, we're talking about traffic here and not revenue this time
So what's the traffic lesson with the above example?
* It's generally easier to get a higher ranking for what's known as "long-tail" searches. Those are the more descriptive searches, as opposed to the simple searches. In this case, "Dell XPS" would be the simple search - and "Dell XPS 410 System Setup Options" would be an example of a long-tail search term.
* It's generally easier to get ranked higher in MSN search, than it is with Google - especially for newer websites. Google has what's known as it's "sandbox", which is where newer sites usually supposedly end up until Google feels they've matured enough to be a trusted source.
The Least You Should Know
Adding new content REGULARLY is a fantastic way to key your site traffic growing. AND don't forget..., MOST people will enter your website through a page other than your home page! Don't assume that it's your
home page that is responsible for bringing in all your regular daily traffic - that is very rarely the case. By adding new content pages, you are multiplying your chances for great traffic.
More Techniques You Should Know
As you start to get the hang of writing content for your websites - and see the fruits of your efforts, you may be ready to throw in a few tweaks to further increase your results.
One of my favorites techniques is with mispellings.
I've probably generated over a million site visitors over the past few years using this technique. I've also recommended this technique for years too, but very few ever give it a try. My guess is that they either think they'll look stupid by having mispelled words on their site, or they just don't believe something so simple will work.
Now, of course, you don't want to have a page full of mispellings on your website - that would not look very professional -- BUT all you'll likely need is one common mispelling somewhere deep within your content or in
another inconspicuous place on the page.
You might be surpised to learn that some words are mispelled more often than they are spelled correctly - why not turn that fact into traffic for your website?
I have a lot of pages that make use of this technique and have generated many daily searches for years. But it doesn't take years to work. I added the example page below just about 3 weeks ago.
You'll notice that the mispelling of "lein" ranks on page 1, where the correctly spelled search doesn't show up until Page 8.
In the page example below, I worked the mispelling into the article text discreetly and only one time. This page has brought in several hundred visitors in the past few weeks from that mispelling - more than the correctly
By understanding how people use search engines to find the information you have on your website, you'll find many different ways to make the most of organic search traffic.
The example below is a search result that uses just a slightly more qualified search phrase "kiyosaki tax liens" - and results in a #3 position.
Kiyosaki Tax Liens ~ #3
There are other ways that people commonly search that can effect how your appear in the search listings. For example, sometimes people will use quotations around their search terms which will return fewer results,
but those results will include that exact search phrase. Whereas without the quotes, you'll have many more results - but they may be much less targeted.
Depending on how people are most commonly searching for your key phrases, you can have considerably differing results. Here's another example of a new page added within the past month. By using quotes, we have a number 1 listing - without quotes, the page drops down to page two.
Where To Invest In Land ~ With quotes ~ #1
Where To Invest in Land ~ Without quotes ~ Page 2
The Least You Should Know
* A steady flow of daily traffic can make or break your web sites.
* Understanding how real people use search engines, and how that effects your site traffic, can help take some of the mystery out of creating new content pages and dramatically increase the traffic you get from natural search results.
Let's Wrap This Up...
I'm not going to pretend that the above tips and techniques are all you need to know about getting good organic search results, as there are many more components to getting strong, long-term results. However, by learning and putting into practice some basic techniques yourself, you'll not only save a considerable amount of bucks, but you'll be learning a critical skill for the continued growth of your website.
If you're wondering why I'd bother providing this kind of training for you, when we could just as easily charge for it..., I can tell you frankly that I really don't have the time or desire to do basic optimization for client sites these days. Not to mention the cost that would be involved if you were to pay someone to do that ongoing work for you! You probably wouldn't budget for it anyway.
The basics are actually very easy - and you can and should do as much of those tasks yourself as possible. Yes, it does take some time, organization and follow-up, but you can do it - and your online business can benefit greatly.
Resources For Discovering Keywords and Phrases For Your Site
There are many pay resources and subscriptions for helping you to uncover great keywords and phrases for your website - but there are some excellent no-cost resoureces as well. Here are some of the best:
Overture's Keyword Tool:
This tool is part of Yahoo's Search Network and provides you with last month's search results through their network. Just type in a word or phrase and get a list of related search terms and the number of searches done for the previous month.
This is a super resource. A paid subscription gives you full access to a wide array of tools and reports, but you can also get very vaulable basic results by using their trial access whenever you like. I've used this service since 2000 and some of the search terms I uncovered on this site are probably directly responsible for generating more than a quarter-million in revenue (conservatively) since then. The guys at Wordtracker understand the power of choosing the right words for your website. There are plenty of tips and instructions on their web site:
Finally, I exclusively used new pages as examples in this Learning Series edition. The reason for this is that I wanted to demonstrate that you too can see results much faster than you may think. All of the pages I used here are less than one month old!
The keys?
* Target search terms and phrases that are actually searched for by other humans.
* Pay close attention to how you use words when writing for the web (it really is a different skill than writing for print).
* Take time to do your research. Again, you do the research and writing once - reap the benefits for a long time to come.
* Understand that the major search engines are different in how they rank their search results - and that results tend to fluctuate over time as your site ages and as other sites come and go, etc. Don't get caught up
too much in the monthly fluctuations - aim for good results over the long-term.
* Stake your claim on all the various angles of search traffic available to you. Find common mispellings, long-tail keywords and phrases and dig up the niche areas of your industry that are being underserved on the web.
* Take action. I talk with people ALL the time who complain that they don't have the time to do the simple things to help them improve the effectiveness of something as important as their websites - Yet, they'll routinely waste time and funds on other advertising that bring little results and offer practically no ability to track the effectiveness (or lack therof) of those efforts. The web can not only be a tremendous asset to your business as a whole, it also allows you to easily track the results of just about everything you do - and then make informed changes to bring continued growth and improvement.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is provided for educational purposes only and is based on my personal professional experience. It is not intended to take the place of specific advice you should ask of your web site developer or SEO team. Each web site and site owner are different - AND everyone has varying levels of ability and motivation. The results you have with the tips and techniques presented in this article will vary.
This article is a copyrighted work and may NOT be copied or reprinted for any commercial use, online or off-line, without express written permission from BBI.
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