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Organic search engine optimization (SEO) can drive plenty of traffic to your website if done well. SEO is a combination of on-page and off-page factors that helps the popular search engines match user inquiries with web content. The resulting links are served on what’s known as search engine results pages (SERPs). If your site comes up on the first page, especially among the top three links displayed by the search engine, chances are very good that people will click the link and visit your website.

So what’s the magic secret to achieving that coveted top slot on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, among other search engines? The secret is SEO, shorthand for a combination of approximately 200 factors that build a profile of your website for the search engines and help it understand what your site is about and why it’s the best one out there.

A search engine’s job is simply to match a user’s query to the absolute best match it can find to the query topic. Your job as a marketer is to help the search engines find your site and think it’s the greatest one among the potentially millions sharing similar information. To do that, you need to leverage as many of those 200 factors as you can.

Obviously, 200 SEO factors is a lot to consider. We’ve narrowed down those factors to the top 5 that will help you get the most traffic to your site. If you’re interested in pursuing this topic further, we’ve reviewed both the best software and local search options to help you navigate the world of SEO.

SEO Tactics to Try Now to Increase Website Traffic

These five SEO tactics are among those most frequently cited by webmasters as the fastest and most effective ways to improve your SERPS and increase website traffic.

1. Build a strong list of high traffic, low competition keywords: Keywords are the foundation of all SEO work. Keywords are the words or phrases that users type into a search engine to find something. You can search for keywords related to your website by using free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or other tools online. Look for high traffic (1,000 or more searches per month) and low competition if possible. If you have to choose between high traffic or high competition, choose a higher traffic keyword phrase.
2. Optimize on page: On-page optimization starts with strong page titles that include the target keyword phrase. Your online content must be both engaging to people and include your keyword phrases. Try to work your phrases into the copy as close to the start of the page copy as possible and into at least one heading or subheading on the page. Make sure that your page URL includes the keyword. Many website builders come with built-in SEO optimization as well. These SEO friendly builders are easy to use and make creating a website quick and stress free.
3. Responsive design: Responsive design means that your website responds to the device accessing it and changes its navigations and appearance based on what the device needs. Google prefers sites that are optimized for mobile devices, so make sure that at a minimum, your site displays well on mobile devices.
4. Site speed: Keep those picture files low resolution so that they load quickly. Make sure that your overall site loads as quickly as possible. Site speed is another often-overlooked SEO factor, but faster sites tend to rank better.
5. Check and increase backlinks: Backlinks are links from other websites into your site. The more backlinks you have from authoritative sites, the better the search engines like your content. You can use a tool such as Ahrefs to check your current links and see what your starting point is. Adding backlinks takes time and effort. You can increase the number of links by adding resources to your site such as checklists, downloads and presentations that others want to link to or share.

Alternative Tactics to Increase Website Traffic

In addition to these effective SEO tactics, there are other ways to increase website traffic. Social media offers another great way to reach large audiences of interested people, so cultivate those networks carefully, sharing relevant, engaging content and links to your website content with your followers and fans.

Guest posting can increase website traffic through the use of backlinks. Guest posting means reaching out via a personal email to webmasters and offering an original blog post or article in exchange for a link to your website.

Lastly, press release distribution can be an effective way to add plenty of backlinks quickly. Press release services share your press release across newswires, which in turn publish the release to multiple websites simultaneously. This reaches thousands of people through multiple websites, and can even distribute your content beyond the immediate publications if it’s picked up by other news outlets.

Driving traffic to your website takes time. With SEO, you have a comprehensive set of tools you can use to increase website traffic and in turn, increase the number of leads and sales from your site.

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