8 Vital Tips for A Successful Search Engine Traffic Campaign
If you are trying to make money online, you know that search engine traffic is a HUGE component to your success. The following is a list of 8 Vital Tips for A Successful Search Engine Traffic Campaign according to "me"
This is how I do things and it works EXTREMELY well… take it or leave it, this has proven to work for me over and over and over again!
1. One Bite at a Time: You want to focus on one primary keyword for the first 3 weeks for each page you promote, I also recommend you initially only focus on one page at a time. This is because:
- It tells Google initially exactly what the page is about.
- There will automatically be "variations" added and after 3 weeks you will start to add a lot of variations yourself.
NOTE: Yes I realize variations are crucial but not at first for a brand new website. Focus on the term you want to rank for and then once you are ranking well or after three weeks, start adding variations.
I talk more about variations further down in this post also.
2. Look at Your Competition: Don't be discouraged when you don't see some competitors ranking in the top 2 or 3 spots that you can beat. What I do is start out by looking competition that looks beatable and is on page one or the top of page 2. Then I figure out the amount of links I will need to surpass them and increase that by 2X's.
- The search engines might not count all your back links or even find them, so you need to ensure you have more then the competition is showing. For example, if the competition is showing 50 back links, then you will want to have 100 back links to ensure the search engines (especially Google) sees at least 50+.
- If there is nothing that appears beatable in the top 5 spots on page one but there is in the top 10 to 15, then go for it. Once you beat them you can progressively work your way to the top position.
- You do not want to just match your competitors, you want to BEAT them.
3. Variations Are Important: Eventually you are going to want to use variations. After three weeks or once you are ranking on page 1, you will need to start adding variations in the anchor text links.
- DO not force Google's hand here. Instead, allow Google to tell you what to use. Use Google Keyword Suggestion Tool – type in your blog's URL and look at what keywords Google tells you relate to your site and then start mixing in some of those terms. I make a list of about 7 to 10 terms that I rotate through
- Only use the primary keyword once every three times (30% to 40%) and make sure to also mix in terms such as the URL of the site, "check this out" and "click here" to make it appear more "natural".
The fact is Google wants to eventually find variations in your links anchor text and will actually penalize you eventually if it appears that you are too optimized from a linking point of view. That makes the use of variations an important component to campaign success.
4. Limit Interlinking: Try not to interlink Social sites, blogs and other websites you are using to link to your blog. You can interlink a few of them but I try not to interlink any of them. I do not want to risk Google or my competitors being able to uncover everything.
5. Split It Up: Make sure that you split the links to you index page and deep links to about a 50/50 split.
- This does not have to be exact, but the routine I follow is I try to always promote a deep link when I promote the index page or if I am promoting a deep link then I will also promote the index page.
6. Consistency: Once you are ranking on the top of page 1, try to maintain an average of one new link a day (approximately 30 a month) with 40% using the main keyword term and the rest variations
7. Variety is Key: Make sure to use a variety of link sources and every month you should change it up a bit.
- Make sure the Google page rank is all over the board. You do not want links only coming from high page rank sites.
- Make sure some of the links are rel="nofollow". Remember we want to look natural here and the fact is some people will link to a site naturally and add a nofollow tag to the link.
- Do not use the exact same sites every month, make sure to add in new sites. For example, do not use the exact same article directories every month, mix it up and change them around.
8. Promote Your Promotions: You want to ensure the search engines find each backlink you get and therefore you want to ensure you promote sites that link to you. This can be easily done by bookmarking with a service like Ping.FM
There you go… so what are your comments?
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Great post. I didn't think to post some links with click here etc. Aaron
Nice tips Jason, I'm gonna give them a try, never been big on SEO, but decided it's time I start learning more and more about it.
Thanks,
Jamie
Thanks for the advice, that seems much more logical to do than what a lot of other guys recommend.
Cheers
Steve
Very good layout, John.
I would add that a good way to help your pages rank higher is to carefully pick pages related to your content/keyword that rank much higher than yours from high PR websites like YouTube, WikiPedia, etc…
Contrary to what people 'think' this IS helping a LOT!
Very nice design for the blog here, too, John. Congrats!
Steve Lorenzo SEOVirtuoso
Awesome point… i make sure all my small niche blogs link to high authority resources. Google wants websites that offer value to readers and by showing them that you link to related and authority resources it helps build trust in Googles eyes. Great point!
Great post. I think #6 & #8 are the most important. Consistently building your backlinks is very important. Don't stop until you've reached number 1. Also to speed things up promote your promotions. A lot of time you will need to tell google about a backlink to speed up the process of it counting.
Yup… promote your promotions…. it is a HUGE influence on ensuring your efforts are rewarded.
Hi Jason, that was actually a question I had. Do you keep promoting and building links to the page after reaching number 1 (just to stay safe) or do you then focus your efforts elsewhere (while still watching if the #1 ranking drops and will need more links)?
Thanks,
Mikael
Thanks for the advice. It makes sense to only use one keyword phrase for the first few weeks. I will definitely implement that asap!
Thanks Jason some great tips there
Do you recommend changing your anchor text for your various back linking campaigns or keeping it the same (I have heard both from people)
I thought i kind of answered that in the post. I focus 40% on the anchor text i want to most rank for and then 60% of the rest is all random variations.
My comment is… learn some grammar and follow a consistent style book in your posts. When you want to say "what is" as in "what is your comment?" – it's WHAT'S not WHATS. When you write numbers, 1-10 should be spelled out e.g. one-through-ten. But forget that, it's minor. There are easily two dozen rookie errors in this post alone, and a couple of them make your writing so unclear I had to re-read two or three times to figure out what the hell you were trying to say. Sorry chief.
Bwa hahahahaha… sorry but people that get hung up on grammar make me laugh.
I also had not used ping.fm before either. and I think #6 consistency is the big factor here. If you are consistent with the process you will get your ranking. Aaron
Ya a big issue is often people initially promote a site, it ranks well and then they walk away. if links do not consistently come in then Google will think the site is not relevant anymore.
Point 3 is very important. I was not aware that you got penalized by Google if your keywords are all the same. I will give it a go. Thanks
Nice post with good solid information. PixelPipe is also a good one for some back links.
Nice little post! I think the whole natural links (looking, at least) is becoming more and more important, so a timely topic…
On that note, you mention to limit interlinking. Is that what would commonly be called a linkwheel? I see a lot of references to linkwheels, but I'm not clear on what they are and how they work – are they simply a web of sites, you build backlinks from (and you include linking between these sites rather than just point them all back to your money page)?
What would be the advantage of interlinking to begin with? Maybe you could do a little post about this topic in more detail??
Thanks in advance!
Carrick
[...] ever popular blog of John Chow recently posted some valuable link building tips that one can use without the service of a professional. Here are [...]
Thanks for this detailed and helpful advice. This is a plan that is very easy to follow because it doesn`t leave of lot of guesswork open. Muchos gracias
Very interesting and I believe helpful post Jason, but I can't understand what exactly you mean on
paragraph 4. You suggest to forget social boot mark?
Thank you
Alisia
Not at all… what i mean is if you create a squidoo page, do not link it to your hubpage and your main focus site also, have it link to one or the other.
Solid post Jason… Your advice on interlinking social sites is a variation on what I do… But I can see where your coming from!
Great post. I didn't think to post some links with click here etc
Great stuff Jason…of course…going through the W2M course…and form other sources…i kinda knew a lot of this…
I find it hard to really stick to it all though…do you create a linking map with keywords, pages, urls etc etc before you start to keep track of it all?
Oh yeah…you'd be a much better marketer if you could just improve your spelling!
(bwahahhaa)
thanks. when you create backlinks do you exclusively use comments and articles and do you always link to your money pages or do you link to your blog posts and articles elsewhere to drive up the PR of those links back to the money pages?
I really loved this post. You explain this topic very well. Optimized content will help drive your site's credibility and link building will add page rank to improve your placement on search results pages. Existing web sites in all industry segments will benefit from optimization, driving more traffic through organic placement and links.
Hey Jason,
Great tips – some of them I hadn't considered before.
Quick question – you say you should find how many backlinks your competitors have and double it – do you use something like SEOQuake to determine how many backlinks a competitor has or do you use something else?
Thanks again for the tips,
Keith | Home Based Business
All this looks like good advice to me. Makes me think it's worth the investment in time/money to go after large niches and stick at it.
Find a large niche (lots of buyers and traffic)
Start by focusing on long-tail or phrases with lower competition
Ramp up and add new pages related to the main niche
End up with an authority site with a good brand
Google will love you and it's they who drive this behaviour/structure
Dog Training or Weight Loss anyone?
I have used Ping.fm and now starting to use Posterous which is pretty cool at getting content out to micro blogs etc.
Thanks for the post Jason, you have got me thinking:-)
Regards
Steve
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the post. I clearly don't have sufficient backlinks to even begin a race this year.
I think I'll concentrate on something else,like Christmas and not Halloween.
Diana, thats why you should go after low competition to start with. There are always some keywords to rank for if you go low enough. As your links increase, so will the keyword value you go after….
I'm going to try this Jason. My linking is going pretty good but I can use all the help I can get. Thanks.
Great article and awesome tips. I'm glad people still offer valuable information for free. It's one of the things that keep people coming back!
Thanks for such helpful insight. You hit some really good points, like keyword focusing and mixing things up.
Also, you may want to be a little clearer with interlinking of sites and internal linking within your site — wouldn't want to confuse anyone. Great Post!
Thanks for this AWESOME article! I will definitely have to implement this in my blog!
Thanks!
Thanks. Got to know much new from your article.
[...] 8 Vital Tips for A Successful Search Engine Traffic Campaign (johncow.com) [...]
One comment/question: why is THIS blog nofollow?
hmmm… good catch… its not suppose to be… i will fix that up
Thanks for the post. I think it's better if you can clarify each point. I'm a bit confused. You mentioned them but when I look for more details, you finished and moved to the next point.
The search engine traffic is what I looking for because it bring much benefits to me. Thank you for nice tips.
Jason,
Thanks for the tips. I think that consistency is one of the most important ones, just because of the changes that Google made last June. Nowadays, it's all about Fresh contents, and activities on your websites.
I wanted to be clear on your last tip. "Promote your promotions". Would you mind to break it down? Because you might not be the only one links to a particular website. And how quick will you get noticed for the search engine?
Take care my friend!
By the way, you have a nice blog.
Mr. Jacklin
Great post, Jason! Doable, common sense steps to rev up our rankings and listings. Wish I had this plan when I started out! It could have made things a lot easier. By the way, do you use Posterous?
One way to get quality links is by article marketing. At the end of the article leaves a keyword anchored link to your website. If they allow two links, then let two. social media sites such Twiitter, Digg, Facebook, and can also be used similarly.
Hi, Jason – this is other Jason here. A guy that is just about thinking to throw in the towel. I will try a lot of your advice even though I know about the things I actually need to do.
First thing is to add more content to my site. This will take some 100 hours or so. (Meaning time!)
I will need to work at your 5th and 6th tips 'Split it up' and 'Consistency'.
Heck, those things are going to take massive amounts of time – but guess I don't have a choice!
The soonest I start WORKING at it – the sooner I will see results coming in.
Thanks a lot for reminding me. (By the way I like the pic on your other blog post with the donkey saying get off my ass or something. It's funny – but I totally get the message there.)
It look easy to SEO for a blog by tag and categories or main domain. But not easy to SEO for a post URL such as news niche because you are publish a lot of posts per day.
A traffic campaign is used to bring additional traffic to the site, some of which, it is hoped, … Further reading on Increasing Search Engine Traffic
Which is some inspirational stuff. By no means knew that opinions could be this varied. Thanks for all the enthusiasm to provide such helpful info here.