Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the term for the acronym. SEO ultimately is the driving force – bringing traffic to a website or blog via “natural” or “organic” traffic. Natural or organic means that you didn’t pay for the traffic generation (on the front end). We can get into actual cost of doing business but that’s a whole different subject. People searching online via Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. enter their keyword or phrase and the listing comes up.
SEO search results that appear on the first page have been optimized with the keyword or phase you typed. It doesn’t stop there, because the amount of traffic that the website or blog receives is essential in the formula – this affects your page ranking. You can achieve a high page rank based on 3 specific criteria: relevant content, how long people stay on the site, and total daily visitors – and it doesn’t happen overnight. Generally, it takes at least 6-12 months to achieve a standard page rank if you’re receiving consistent traffic. (Case to case there are several variables to consider.)
The bounce rate is an SEO term associated with how long a person stays on the site. That brings us to relevant content. You want to increase the value on your website or blog by adding content-rich articles, videos, podcasts, integrating Facebook Comments, and Twitter applications (to name a few). The reason why this is so effective is you just opened up 5 additional ways for people to find your site. If you solely rely on advertising your website address, and not exposing it outside your circle of influence, you can’t broaden your reach.
Social media and social networking play a dynamic role in how your site is found on the world wide web. Sometimes we assume that people already have a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Ezine, or iTunes account set up. Let’s pretend that you have accounts on all these different platforms. Let’s also assume you post news, updates, promotions, etc., to at least 3 of these media channels. Let’s also assume you’ve used your intended relevant keywords and phrases at the time you upload new content. How much additional exposure do you expect to have? Did you know these sites get listed in top search engines?
Using social networking is free until you want to start auto-syndicating and pre-scheduling your content. Getting the eyeballs of interested prospects, clients, or customers on your content can virtually go viral, if you know what you’re doing. Getting viral syndication is based on how many followers and/or subscribers you have and the avid use of syndication services.
Being consistent with your message and adding value to people’s life and business is the #1 best and fastest way to have people share your content. Be entertaining, genuine, knowledgeable, and you’ll have a following if you give it a little time.
What is SEO in my opinion? Free targeted traffic that gets better with age… just like a fine wine.
Helpful tip: You must be consistent with developing fresh content, actively networking on social sites, take advantage of viral syndication and don’t forget to bookmark! A quick and easy way is using a free service called: Shareaholic.
Is there more to learn about SEO?… Yes TONS!… if you like the technical stuff and how it works behind the scene.
Always in service and prosperity,
Carey Rapier
Comments
David Emil Lombard
How To Heal From ‘Quitter Disease’ is such a motivational post. Thanks for sharing!
Alice Hernandez
Great post! I’ve been struggling with SEO for a while, and this article really simplifies things. Thanks for the tips, Carey!
Michael Wolfe
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →I’m not sure I fully believe the claim about free traffic being “better with age.” Can you provide any case studies or specific data to back this up?
Sophia Reed
This is really informative, but I was wondering if there are any specific SEO tools you recommend for beginners? I’m trying to optimize my blog but don’t know where to start!
Oliver Jackson
I appreciate the information, but I think the article could benefit from more specific examples of how to improve bounce rate. It’s a bit too general for those of us in the trenches.
Rachel Wong
Hey Carey, long time no see! This post really got me thinking about SEO differently. We should definitely catch up soon, I’d love to pick your brain about a project I’m working on.
Tommy Garcia
This reminds me of the time I tried to build traffic through paid ads and saw no results. Focusing on organic traffic seems like a much better approach. Thanks for validating my experience!
Nina Brooks
For anyone interested in learning more about SEO, I recommend checking out Ahrefs and SEMrush. Both are excellent tools for tracking SEO performance and finding the right keywords.
Leo Martin
This post taught me so much about SEO! I’ve already started implementing some of the strategies and can’t wait to see the results. Thank you, Carey!
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The line about being ‘consistent, entertaining, genuine, knowledgeable’ for a while before you see anything is the part worth sitting with. Six to twelve months is a long stretch to keep showing up with nothing to show for it, and that’s usually where people quietly stop.
Pete’s right, and it’s exactly my failure mode — I can plan the six-to-twelve-month content calendar in an afternoon, tools and topics and all, and then not publish anything for three weeks because the third post isn’t ‘ready.’ The post assumes consistency is the hard part. For me the hard part is just shipping the imperfect one.
Davey, the ‘not ready enough to publish’ problem predates blogging by a good few decades — I watched people polish a flyer for a home meeting for three straight weeks in the nineties while their upline’s genuinely mediocre flyer outperformed it simply by existing and being handed to somebody. Consistency beating polish isn’t new advice dressed up for search engines. It’s the same lesson people have been slow to learn since long before Google existed, mine included, some weeks.
Strip the jargon: write things people actually want, keep doing it for the better part of a year, and tell people where to find it. That’s the whole post.
The post lists Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Ezine as though setting up and posting to all of them is a given. Some of us built an audience entirely through writing and have never once turned on a camera. Bounce rate and relevant content, fine — but ‘be entertaining’ assumes a performance style that isn’t everyone’s, and the post doesn’t leave room for the alternative.