What would it be like to consistently see thousands of people visiting your website every day? Game-changing! On top of that, a percentage of that traffic will actually buy something. Here’s the best part, you don’t have to be a huge corporation or a million-follower influencer to get that type of traffic. And you don’t have to run ads. So how do you do it? Using the website promotion strategies, I’ll show you in this 4-part series. This first post focuses on using the right keywords to get that traffic every day.
First, let me start by saying that there’s nothing wrong with running adds. To be totally transparent with you, this is my journey with getting traffic to my website and I want you to come along with me. Subscribe to my maillist and I’ll keep you up to date with what’s going on, including traffic reports, Google Analytic screenshots, and Adsense info. Plus, you get a great freebie for subscribing, my 7 Client-getting Strategies ebook.
Even though I’ve been in this game for a while, I’ve never been as serious about getting tons of traffic to my website as I am right now. I’m putting my effort where my experience and knowledge are so I can knock this out of the park. And if you’re down to ride along with me, together we can both see success. My goal is to achieve passive income of $10k from my blog each month. You in?
What is a Keyword?
First things first, I know you’re probably wondering how I’m going to achieve this BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). It’s not magic or trickery, but it does involve some hard work researching. The research involves keywords, your keywords, and mine.
[Tweet “Keywords are the actual words that your audience types into the search bar to find what they are looking for.”]
Keywords are the actual words that your audience types into the search engine, Pinterest, Facebook, or Amazon bar to find what they are looking for. Stop for a second and think about the last time you searched for something or someone on either of those platforms I listed. What did you search for? What were the exact words you used? Did you find what you were looking for? Sometimes you’ll find it straight away, the first time you hit submit, other times you’ll need to tweak your words a bit.
Now, let’s turn your attention to your business. What words would people use to search for and find you? If they’re anything like you, they won’t just use one word, they’ll use several words or maybe a phrase or two so they find exactly what they want.
Here’s an example:
If you live in Stone Mountain, Georgia, which is a suburb 30 miles outside of Atlanta and you’re looking for a dentist that’s nearby, your search phrase would look something like this, “dentists in Stone Mountain, Georgia.”
If you had entered “dentist” alone, you would have received results for every type of dentist who had the word “dentist” somewhere on his/her website, and in his meta tags, the descriptions in the coding of the website. But you may or may not have gotten results for dentists near you, in Stone Mountain.
Does that make sense?
Is “Keyword phrase” Different from “Keyword?”
You’ll see “keyword” and “keyword phrase,” or “long-tail keyword” used in different places, but they are very similar. Keyword(s) usually refers to one word: dentist, chiropractor, or car. A keyword phrase or long-tail keyword refers to a descriptive phrase of words: dentist in stone mountain, stock cars, or landing page hacks. The keyword phrases go deeper than just a keyword by itself, which means its specific to what the user is searching for. That’s a good thing because if the user is searching for something specific and you have that specific keyword on your website, BOOM! Match made in heaven or Google.
Why are Keywords Important?
As I just mentioned, when you have the keywords on your website that your audience is using in their search, they can be lead to your content quicker and easier.
Knowing this important piece of information, I researched and found that “landing page hacks” is a keyword phrase that gets a good amount of traffic, between 1K and 10K searches per month. And that it would be perfect for me to write about and optimize my blog post around.
By optimizing, I am making the entire post relevant to that keyword phrase.
[alert id=”alert_83″ message=”I’ll show you exactly what I used to find out this information in the next couple section.” link=”” style=”” color=”#000000″ bd_color=”#e0e0e0″ background=”#f4f085″ animation=”left-to-right”]
After learning that my keyword phrase “landing page hacks” was a go, I created my article, optimized it to get found and published it.
The Results?
- Page One: Google
- Page One: Bing
- Page One: Yahoo
For that keyword phrase that gets 1K and 10K people searching for it each month.
Did they come to the site at once? Nope. Remember, its monthly searches, so I’m giving it time. But I did get a spike in my traffic and sign-ups to my mailing list.
I’ll have this in the report next month. But honestly, that’s why keywords are important. They get you and your content found. And the more you get found, the more Google looks at your content on your website as an authority site. An authority site gets noticed. An authority site gets traffic. Traffic gets you clients. Any Questions?
Where to Use Keywords in Your Posts
During my research, I learned that there are 9 key spots to use keywords in your post that helps you rank in Google. Ranking means that Google recognizes that your site is an authority and recommended source for information around that keyword phrase. That’s a great thing. And exactly how I got to Page One.
[Tweet “There are 9 key spots to use keywords in your post that helps you rank in Google.”]
9 areas for SEO Optimization for each post:
1. Use your keyword phrase in the <H2> tag (subhead for the 1st of 2nd paragraph)
2. Use your keyword phrase in the Title
3. Use your keyword phrase in the 1st 100 words of the 1st paragraph
4. Use similar words to your keyword, that mean the same thing, sprinkled throughout your blog
5. Make sure the Alt Text Tag is filled-in for ALL images
6. Use your keyword phrase in the meta description or simply install Yoast plugin
7. Include 2 links to other posts in the article
8. Include 2 links to content of others outside of the article, but can help the reader with understanding your content
9. Change the permalink to your keyword phrase. Example: www.yourwebsite.com/your-keyword-phrase
This is the same formula that I used to land my blogs on google page one.
I can’t stress enough how important it is if you want to rank as high on Google as possible, that you use your keyword phrase in each of these nine spots, in each blog post.
How Do I Know Which Keywords to Use?
OK, now we’re getting to the part you’ve been waiting for – the How. But first, ALL the other stuff I’ve already disclosed to you is just as important!
TruthBOMB: I’ve known about a lot of this information for a while, but I wasn’t ready, mentally, to tackle it. This is a process, just like anything else that will bring you success. It probably won’t happen overnight, although there are always exceptions, it WILL work, if you stick with it and do your part.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .
We’ve gone through everything but how to find the right keywords for you to use to get traffic. THIS is how you do it.
There are three platforms that I use to discover what keywords to use for my articles: UberSuggest, Google Keyword Planner (GKWP), and Pinterest.
Google KeyWord Planner: This is part of the AdWords suite. It’s Free. But, in order to use it, you’ll have to set up an AdWords account, but you don’t have to run ads unless you want to.
Because AdWords is more expensive than running Facebook ads, you should get your keywords down and a line on who your audience is, for FREE, FIRST, before spending money.
Once you enter GKWP, put in the keyword phrase you want to use and hit submit. The results will come back with all the keywords people are actually using for search. Pay attention to the keyword phrases that are labeled “medium” and have search results of 1K-10K per month. This is how you get to the pot of gold.
Choose a phrase, copy it and then go to my next platform.
Uber Suggest: This is an app disguised as a website where you can search keywords and see what sites are actually using them and how much traffic they’re getting.
You might have to copy and paste several times before you find the keyword phrase that floats your boat.
The next platform can be used in conjunction with either GKWP or Uber Suggest or before you even use GKWP. It’s also great for discovering what’s popular. That Platform is Pinterest.
Pinterest: has 250 million active monthly users and is one of the three top visual search engines around. Their motto is: “To help you find things when you don’t have the words to describe them.” That’s why the more attractive the pin’s photo is, the more the Pinterest Lens will push people your way, of course, what you don’t read about is how imperative keywords are in this process.
Pinterest is actually a search engine and not really a social media site. Organic reach still rules and bloggers and entrepreneurs are using it every, single, day to drive traffic to their blogs, websites, and stores. You should too. When I learned how powerful of a search engine it is, I was ALL IN!
There are two areas where Pinterest shows you what keywords are working.
First, when you put in your keywords in the search box, don’t hit submit right away. Instead, allow Pinterest to show you suggestions. You’ll see the words populate after you put in your keyword phrase. These suggestions represent words and phrases that people are using in their real search.
Second, once you hit submit, Pinterest shows a line of colored boxes just above the pin results. These colored boxes represent words to add to the front or back of your keyword phrase that are also real search words from users.
I created a pin to promote the landing page hacks blog and it got over 7k views! Since I posted that pin, I’m getting new followers almost every day, whereas before I might get a follower once every 6 months. But I wasn’t actively studying how to get views and clicks like I am now.
I know that this is a lot of info, but you can go over it, section by section until you can understand it. I hope that I was able to make a very misunderstood and complicated strategy sound doable.
What do you think? Did I explain it so that you understand it and now feel that you can do it? Let me know in the comments.
Make sure you follow this series. If you haven’t already, join my maillist. You’ll be able to follow along with how things are going, plus you’ll get a nice gift – 7 Client-Getting Strategies report.
See you in the next installment!