The search engines are the most powerful way to get new traffic to your blog, and it is important that you use them correctly. Here are some tips on how to increase your rankings with SEO.
1. Get Links From Reputable Websites
Link building is one of the most effective ways for getting more traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs). By getting links from other sites, you will improve your site’s ranking in the SERPs because Google sees those external links as votes of confidence in your content or website. The more quality backlinks a page has, the higher its rank will be relative to competitor pages with fewer backlinks. Always remember: quantity does not equal quality! You should focus on attracting high-quality, relevant backlinks.
2. Join Social Media And Link To Your Content
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Digg are great for sharing your blog posts with an audience much larger than what you have on your own site. However, it is important that you don’t just share a link. Share the title of a post along with some of its most appealing content so that when users click through to read the rest of the article, they will come from social media rather than another website.
3. Make It Easy For People To Subscribe Via Feeds Or Email Updates
By letting readers subscribe/follow you in their favorite format (RSS feed or by email), you can expand your reach while also encouraging more backlinks to your content. Some blogs show social media sharing buttons next to their RSS button, which certain readers prefer over subscribing by email. This is because they want to share the post in a format that will engage their social media contacts without filling up their own email box with announcements from you and other sites that they follow.
4. Subscribe To Successful Blogs
The most effective way of finding great backlinks for your blog posts is by searching for blogs associated with topics similar to yours or within the same niche as what you are writing about and subscribe/follow those who are doing good work. By doing this, you will be seen as an active participant within your niche, and other bloggers may return the favor by including a link to one of your posts in the future. Remember that genuine commenting is important in order for the link to count!
5. Submit Articles To Article Directories
By submitting your blog posts or unique articles to article directories like eZineArticles, Squidoo and hubpages, you can gain many high-quality backlinks quickly with minimal effort on your part. It is also a great way to get immediate exposure from sites with large visitor counts, which should boost traffic from search engines as well.
6. Use Nofollow Links
If you are going out of your way to attract links, it should be for quality links only. Nofollow links do not pass credit or search engine ranking signals, so use them when you don’t really care about the value of those backlinks as such as on guest blogging submissions or social media sites that offer nofollow options. You should also use nofollow links on any link in your footer, blogroll and sidebar because those are probably dead links anyway!
