How To Use Articles To Drive TRAFFIC To Your Website

A website is a shop, exactly the same as a bricks and mortar shop, offline we call it "footfall" online we call it traffic, and it's the "big one" in terms of success, for your online venture.  The most profitable websites have a solid foundation of massive traffic, and the most profitable products or services sell because of the 24 hour flow of traffic across their different types of pages. Shops pay the highest rents and rates for high street locations, and online enterprises pay for high traffic positions in the search engines, through the amount of effort, and the high operating costs, required to protect a top position for a competitive search term.

  There is so much more to getting traffic than just getting up the rankings and waiting for your visitors to gorge themselves on your every claim.

Attaining, and then maintaining website traffic demands a process of never-ending effort, and many businesses simply don't have the resources necessary to invest the time required to build their traffic manually.

In the never ending battle to attract more and better quality traffic, some very clever marketers and businesses have found excellent methods, one of which is the art of article writing.

Please make sure you take a look at my  Website SEO Services, which includes ideas for articles and web video marketing, in your marketing campaigns.

Articles are an excellent strategy for some solid reasons - they attract links from almost all the major online sources, from social bookmarking and networking websites like Twitter and Facebook, they spread your links around the internet very quickly and often spawn a multitude of extra backlinks, which all help your ranking and help drive traffic. If you are tired of the constant battle to drive traffic to your website, an article can help to  generate many links to your websites, and could be just the tonic your website needs. The speed at which the search engines gobbles articles up, it is very hard to ignore them, and they help to establish a reputation and an expertise that can prove attractive to your audience. Use these four guidelines to help you crack the code and attract visitors interested in your site.

1. The title.......it's the first thing your audience sees...make it strike a cord. Click-through rates are what it's all about and they are significantly affected by the headline. Read the headlines on the front of top magazines, the format is often the same, and the reason is because it works!!! A magazine lives or dies by its ability to write headlines that capture their intended audience and create desire to buy the magazine, to read the article that was advertised by the headline.  Online readers don't read...they scan, mainly because they feel (rightly or wrongly) that there is such a huge amount of information available on the topic they are researching. This means they feel they have to go quickly to get a good understanding in a short amount of time.- top headlines, executive summaries, bullet points and quick reads, - all easily outscore "white papers", reports and heavy going surveys. Articles should be bright, quick and deliver quickly....they are NOT a long form sales letter.

2. News Of The Day. Readers are interested in what's  new.......a quick read on the commute home that makes them forget their surroundings, is what they are really looking for....don't forget that, and although the subject matter may quickly die out, if you are writing about a particular fad or fashion,......for a short-term traffic pumper, they are irresistible. The main sources are Google News, Yahoo, and other top online news websites for events, fads, trends and interesting items. A well-timed, well executed article that hits the main points hard, is the difference between a tidal wave and a stream of traffic to your website. (it goes without saying that this should be tracked on your website).  

3. The explanation article is the way to go for more long term visitors There is always demand for interesting facts and figures, and if your article delivers on its promises, it is often an easy win. These types of articles may not attract instant traffic spikes to your site, but they can be delivered inside what is called an "RSS feed" which is a way of re-syndicating articles around many websites and can result in your article being seen by millions.

4. An image inside the article, or with wrap around text is almost mandatory This is obviously NOT a hard and fast rule, the article can in fact be in any format, but why take chances when there is so much empirical evidence to show that an image is a sure fire traffic generator? An image with its associated "alt text" which is a little code behind the image, if your PC can't display the image itself, is a further resource for the search engine, which also helps to drive that vital traffic to your site. A clever, engaging or humorous image is a must if you want that traffic to your website. Neil Meadows Search Engine Optimisation Specialist and Web Video Marketer

Your personal assistant for: Keyword and Competition Research, website on-page optimisation, off page SEO and how to get links to your website, to drive your site up the rankings, also web video marketing....engage your traffic when it gets to your site!!!