How to Increase Website Traffic and Why Links Matter

Editor's Note: I'd like to welcome my friend, author and business expert Stephanie Chandler who is a guest blogger today. Earlier this year, I wrote about her excellent Own Your Niche. Today you will read an excerpt from the book. If you hurry and click this link, you can get a FREE Ebook copy of Stephanie's book. It's a limited offer so do it today.

By Stephanie Chandler

Links within your website and pointing to your website from other sites can have an important impact on your overall optimization with the search engines.

Inbound Links

One of the criteria that the search engines use to rank website pages is the number of inbound links pointing to your website from other websites. More importantly, they look at how many links from high-traffic websites are pointing to your pages. If a popular website features a link to your site, it shows the search engines that your site is relevant.

Other important incoming links are from industry-related sites. When another site in a related industry features a link to your site, it helps Google see your site’s relevance. For example, a website that covers news about the spa industry would be an ideal link to have pointing to a salon and spa site.

Government sites (with a .gov extension) and education sites (with a .edu extension) also have high priority with the search engines. If you’re able to get incoming links from any of these sites, it can help your ranking.

The key to success here is to make sure your link is listed in as many places as possible.

Where to Promote Your Website Link:

• Update the free online profiles provided by any trade organizations that you belong to by including your website link.
• Ask colleagues and business partners to swap links with you. They can publish your link on a “Recommended Resources” or similar page on their site, and you can do the same in return.
• Publish articles and include your bio and website link. The more articles you push out across the internet, the more links you will have pointing back to your site. The same is true for guest blog posts.
• Engage in social media sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
• Take advantage of every opportunity you can find to post your link online!
• Some services offer to add lots of inbound links to your site—beware! Adding dozens of links at once can be viewed by the search engines as spam, and many of these services are scams in their own right.
• It takes time to get your link out there, so always be on the lookout for opportunities to add links.

Anchored Links

An anchored link is a link to a web page that is embedded in text. For example, when “Click here for more information” is an active hyperlink to a web page, it is an anchored link.

Anchored links are a boon for SEO because they tell the search engines what content is found on the linked page. 

Because of this, links should incorporate keywords instead of the generic “Click here” example.

For example, a high-traffic site with a link embedded in the text to “Visit Happy Times Day Spa in Toledo, Ohio” would be an ideal anchored link.

The hardest part of this strategy is getting others to link back to your site in the first place, and then to do so with an anchored link. But because anchored links are so valuable, it’s worth your time to ask your link partners to do this whenever possible.

You can also weave anchored links throughout your own site to the different pages within your site. For example, from your primary services page, you could include a link that says, “Find out more about massage therapy services.” You can also incorporate anchored links on your home page in addition to your site navigation links.

The above is an excerpt from the book: Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business by Stephanie Chandler.

Watch this free Rush Hour Traffic Video

If you have a website, then you need to continually learn how to generate traffic. What can you do in one 60–minute time period?

In an hour you can drive 70 miles on the Interstate (if you're obeying the traffic laws). Or you can get a manicure and haircut. Or you can watch a couple of reruns of Seinfeld.

Or you can learn some interesting things (several "contrary to popular belief" eye-openers) about generating free traffic to your website.

Your choice. :)

If you've got just under an hour (50 minutes) to watch a training video about free traffic, then I've got a link for you below.

Free Traffic expert "Jimmy D. Brown" (he's been getting free traffic to his website continually for the past TWELVE YEARS … since 2000!) has made available a very interesting video in which he answers questions about generating free traffic.

You can watch it today (at no cost) by visiting this link.

In the video Jimmy answers questions like…

1) What is THE best way to get free traffic?

2) How can I get quality "buyer" traffic and not "useless" traffic?

3) How does the "little man" get those with big lists to mail for them?

Plus seven more!

Watch the video now and here are just a few things you'll learn…

* 3 keys to using article marketing to get REAL results.

* 3 things you *MUST* do in order to get free traffic from ANY source.

* A couple of simple "tricks" for getting BUYERS instead of BROWSERS.

* The truth about viral marketing, SEO, backlinks and more.

* 3 case studies of "unknowns" (at the time) who got me to promote them - how they did it and how you can too.

Watch the video now at this link.

NOTE: I must warn you in advance that Jimmy shakes things up a bit when he talks about why he does NOT "waste time" on some of the most popular techniques being taught today. You will find some good stuff that you need to take to heart!

A Free Link-Maker Resource

The search engines on the Internet love active links which go into your website and links which point to your website. It takes some effort on your part to create these links. Maybe it comes from making comments on various blogs and pointing back to your own site.

Here's a new tool that I've started using called Real Link Finder. It's easy to use and the creator Neil Shearing has created some excellent brief instructional videos to show you exactly how to use this tool.

I've been using this free tool and it works well. It was simple to download, install and use which amounts to an unbeatable combination.

With a few clicks, you can change the website address that you are leaving with your relevant comment. Whether you have a new book or a new website or are simply trying to build your newsletter list, tools like Real Link Finder are valuable to put into your marketing arsenal.

A Free Traffic Building Tool

On a regular basis, I am asked how to build traffic for my newsletter or my blog or my website. If you read the material online, you will quickly realize there is no single way to accomplish this increase. In addition, the methods are constantly evolving with new ideas being constantly introduced into the marketplace.

I've read that one method to raise your visibility is to make meaningful comments on different blogs. If you include your website link in the comment, it makes sense that some people will follow those links and go to that particular place. There are millions of blog online and while it may be fun, how do you accomplish this method without wasting a great deal of time and energy?

In the last few days, I've been using a tool which may provide a partial answer to this need without taking hours out of your writing life. The key from my perspective is to do it efficiently and effectively in a short amount of time. It may sound like a pipe dream but I'd encourage you to consider this free tool called CommentKahuna.

First, notice the price--zero cost. Watch the video and see what you think about it. You have to download the software, and register to get it unlocked (using the same email for both functions). I like the simplicity of this tool and how it uses word searches for relevant blogs, then gives you a quick tool to make a relevant comment. Also the tool has a follow-up system so if the comments are moderated (which is common), you can return to your comment and see if it was posted on a particular blog.

I want you to know that I'm still experimenting with this tool and I haven't fully mastered it but I'm getting there. From what I've used it, I like CommentKahuna. Give it a whirl and see what happens to your web traffic.

If They Don't Come

In the Field of Dreams movie, Ray Kinsella, a novice farmer living in Iowa hears a voice that says, "If you build it, they will come." Throughout the film, Kinsella builds a baseball field in his cornfield.

It happens all the time, an author or a publisher will invest a lot of energy and dollars in building a fancy website to promote their book. Yet no one comes to the site. The author hasn’t learned anything about how to get traffic to his website so while the site has a lot of functionality, it has little or almost no use. What can be done?

Last night I was reading what literary agent Chip MacGregor was writing about some of these issues. He’s got some wise counsel in this area and encourages authors to take proactive steps. Also I'd encourage you to read this article from The Wall Street Journal about the energy that Penguin poured into their book, Eat, Pray, Love to turn a bestseller. It's not easy and it's not done accidentally. Another aspect to make sure you notice, the book is well-crafted. As this quote in the article from Barbara Gattermeir points out, "I was hooked on page one." I've not read this book but I’m fascinated with what has happened to it in the marketplace.

Besides two bits of information, I wanted to make sure you see what Marc Harty has put together as a free 21 lesson eCourse. I'm only about five lessons into this course but I like what's here. It’s clearly written and doesn’t come every day and is divided into small consumable chunks so anyone can learn from it.

Many writers are willing to do the hard work to promote and market their books--yet they need to be educated about how to take cost-effective steps in this area. My hope in this post is to give you some additional resources for the journey.