When it comes to boosting traffic to your website, you have two basic options: pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or search engine optimization (SEO).

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• PPC provided by Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and others.
• Display ads in the sponsored results section of each search engine’s results page.
• The fee is based on how competitive your chosen keyword is
• Or build traffic for free by achieving high rankings in the natural search results
• You can follow SEO best practices
• And it takes time to reach the top of the natural results
• But it is free, targeted traffic that works organically

SEO is a must have to any website strategy and takes hard work and consistency when aiming for page one on Google. To get Google to love your site and put it at the top of the search results, here are a few points to note:

Create more content.

Creating new content is good for a whole range of reasons. Users love it, and so do search engines. Every time Google crawls your site, it looks for stuff it hasn’t seen before. If it can’t find any it might wait a little longer before visiting you again next time.

Do not duplicate content.

Google likes seeing lots of content, but it doesn’t like seeing the same content over and over. That’s just boring. So don’t duplicate your content.

Be relevant.

If you’re working your content around a key topic or keyword, work on it and do not deviate to ensure consistency both for your readers and the ever-so hardworking Google crawler.

Do not forget the images.

Images do speak a thousand words, especially since your readers will have to read close to a thousand words when they read your article. Always use a consistent naming convention for your image files that is understood by the crawler, example:

Link to relevant/reference sites.

Search engines pay a lot of attention to the links on your site, along with the words that you use in them. Instead of using phrases like “click here” or “for more information,” use anchor text that contains keywords and tells users where they will be going.

Have an XML Sitemap.

An XML sitemap is a coded sitemap that makes it easier for search engine spiders to index all the pages of your website. WordPress users can create one with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin, while other website owners with a standard HTML site can use the XML Sitemaps Generator. Once it’s created, you’ll want to register your sitemap with Google Webmaster Tools.

Have well-written meta descriptions.

Since a meta description is used to provide the text under the title link in search results, you want to write really good ones that contain keywords and accurately describe the different pages of your site. If you’re using WordPress, you can use the WordPress SEO by Yoast to help with both title tags and meta descriptions.

Use good title tags.

Not only do title tags tell search engines what your site is about, but compelling title tags will also give users a reason to click through to your website when it appears in their search results.

Visit Helios Media Design page to find out more about Lydia's work. 

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