Everyone with a website wants to increase his or her traffic. There are basic SEO strategies that you can implement and see a traffic spike, but how would you like to blow your analytics through the roof?
Imagine going from 200 visitors daily to 2,000 unique visitors every single day. Just to show you what that would mean over a month’s time, that would be going from 6,000 visitors to 60,000 a month. That is a massive increase, and one that would have a major impact on your business, right?
Of course it would, especially if that traffic was laser targeted and interested in whatever it is that you are selling. Ranking high in the search results and pulling traffic from several sources is key to success online.
In order to help you 10X your website traffic, I have put together a list of ten expert level SEO strategies that the best in the business are using to drive insane amounts of traffic to their own websites and their clients’ websites.
Master these SEO Strategies and you will see your traffic stats explode.
1. Find Keyword Opportunities from Google Search Console
I can’t even keep track of how many times I have told people to stop fearing Google, and instead, use the tools they give you to your advantage. Google Search Console gives you access to so much data, directly from the source. There is no guess work or speculation. When you are looking at data from Google’s Search Console you can be certain, 100%, that it’s relevant to ranking in its search engine.
The most valuable section is the search query report, which shows you every single keyword and search entry that triggered your website to show up in the organic search results. You see how many impressions each trigger and how many clicks each pulled in. You can use this information to discover new terms to optimize for, and since they are already triggering your site, you will be able to easily rank them on top with just a little optimization clean up.
If you find terms that are triggering a lot of exposure, but poor click-through rates, you will want to change your page titles and meta descriptions. These opportunities can uncover a large amount of traffic that you can scale 10X fairly quickly.
2. Drop Wikipedia Links to Shoot Pages Up Overnight
It’s no secret that Wikipedia links are some of the most powerful out there, even though they are no-follow. This is a prime example of how authority links, whether do-follow or no-follow, pass tremendous amounts of authority.
There has been a lot of talk recently about how all four of the major websites went no-follow: Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Inc. and Forbes. Guess what? Websites are still drooling over these links, because they pass serious authority. There was talk about Google disavowing that, but that’s just crazy talk to deter the uneducated SEO noobs from sourcing them.
Anyway, what a lot of people fail to realize is that Wikipedia is an open directory that anyone can contribute to and edit. The edits have to make sense and if you are thought to be spamming your edit will be removed quicker than you realize and your account banned. Find an experienced Wiki editor and pay them to drop links to your inner pages in relevant Wikipedia entries. A single Wiki link can shoot your page to the top of the search literally overnight if the competition is low.
3. Optimize Keyword Specific Landing Pages
Part of the SEO success formula involves not being lazy. I can’t tell you how many times a client will submit a single URL and a dozen keywords they want to rank for. This will never work out, because you will waste a lot of resources, as each page can only be perfectly optimized for one keyword.
You need to get into the habit of optimizing a separate page for every single keyword you are targeting. If it’s a long tail, then write a long-form blog post centered around it. You can of course include long-tail variations of each main focus keyword, because that makes the content appear natural. But, when it comes to the main on-site factors, you need to be focused on one, and only one, keyword.
You can use the same page template, but you never want to use the same content from other pages, or you can get into duplicate content trouble. Write unique content for every page, designed to be optimized for the target keyword and help convert your website traffic. Assume both Google and every page visitor is going to read it word for word. It needs to be optimized in a way that will also get your visitors to take action and convert on your offer.
When you optimize each page for only one keyword, your rankings will improve across your website, helping to naturally increase your daily traffic site wide.
4. Optimize for RankBrain
Not a lot of SEOs are focused on RankBrain, but they should be. AI is the future and there is no doubt that Google will lead the way. Here is the official definition of RankBrain for those that aren’t 100% certain:
“RankBrain is an algorithm learning artificial intelligence system, the use of which by Google was confirmed on 26 October 2015. It helps Google to process search results and provide more relevant search results for users.”
Since RankBrain is almost super human, it can quickly identify poorly written content that doesn’t sound human. The biggest take away here is to write like you are having a real conversation with another human being. Google can now penalize a site’s position simply by identifying poorly written content that doesn’t sound like human conversations.
You can still write with keywords in mind, but human conversations need to be your main focus, because if you write to please your readers, you will actually also satisfy RankBrain at the same time, since it actually thinks like a human.
I know. That sounds crazy, but it’s true. We live in a time where Artificial Intelligence is just starting to be utilized and Google is at the forefront of the industry. RankBrain will only get stronger and more intelligence over time, so adapt quickly. Those who do will be rewarded in the SERPs.
5. Use Infographics to Create Evergreen Traffic Sources
Part of scaling your website traffic involves creating traffic sources that will continue to drive visitors over a long period of time. Infographics, when done right, can turn into evergreen content assets that will drive traffic for several years. As you publish more, over time your traffic scales.
The key is to create an infographic that is based around a timely topic, but also one that will be talked about for some time. Then, if you can get authority websites to publish it, and link you are the source, it will increase your traffic with no other effort required.
Here is an example. If you created an infographic based on statistics about the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight, you would have had no trouble getting major websites to publish it, and over time there will continue to be searches looking for information related to that fight. You could have created referral traffic sources that would drive traffic to you for the next few years on autopilot.
Publish one every month and have it picked up by a dozen major websites and your traffic will 10X from this one tip alone.
6. Focus on Multiple Keywords When Optimizing Page Titles
Above I mentioned that every page should be optimized with one keyword in mind. Well, when it comes to the page title, you can do more, because it will only help contribute to traffic spikes. Your page title plays a heavy role when ranking, so you don’t want to compromise your main keyword, but there are ways to easily make a variation that will pull in additional organic traffic.
Let’s assume you were optimizing a page for the keyword “Apple iPhone 8 Review.” Rather than writing a title along the lines of, “Apple iPhone 8 Review” and leaving it at that, you could do, “Apple iPhone 8 Review and Unboxing,” which would also help you attract traffic looking for unboxing images and video.
So, you can optimize for your main keyword, but the added “unboxing” element also gives you a reason to add multimedia to your post, which delivers a better user experience, and will help increase the traffic produced from that page.
7. Write Blog Posts with a Minimum of 2,000 Words
If you aren’t committed to publishing long-form content, then you might as well save your time and effort and put that money towards paid ads instead. Posting content that isn’t at least 2,000 words will put you at a severe disadvantage, as the majority of top organic positions go to content that is at least 1,850 words. You always want to do more than average, so that is where my 2,000 word minimum comes from.
It allows you to work in your target keyword naturally, without your content sounding spammy. This much content real estate also gives you the opportunity to write a very well thought out conversation piece that will satisfy RankBrain and also satisfy the most important person – your website visitor.
When you look back at what worked just five years ago in terms of length (500 words) it’s hard to image how one could even create a decent piece of content that was so small. SEO is always evolving and long-form content is favored by Google, so for the time being you must publish 2,000 words minimum if you want to be found where the action and traffic is in the search results.
8. Link Out to High Domain Authority Sources
They say you become a version of the 5 people you surround yourself with, and in the SEO world that theory plays true to a sense. I would suggest identifying five high authority websites in your niche that publish consistent content that you can link to as sources of information.
You don’t want to link to a competitor, so news sites and information sites are the best. For example, if a business owner created a personal site where he or she was going to blog about the ups and downs of running a business, they would want the following sites in their top 5 list:
- Entrepreneur
- Forbes
- Inc.
- Huffington Post
- Fast Company
Then, if they link to these sites once or twice in every post, it helps Google to understand what the website is about. There isn’t any better company to be included with, so it’s going to result in creating more trust in the eyes of Google. Since RankBrain is advancing, you can’t simply link out to authority sites from thin or worthless content, but if you write long-form content that is written like a human conversation, then linking out will help you rise in the organic results much faster.
9. Master Internal Linking to Pass Page Authority
Run all of your URLs through Moz’s Open Site Explorer and see what pages have the highest Page Authority. Then, find pages on your website that are sitting on page #2 in Google’s search results. Now link to those pages from the highest PA pages, but add one at a time and watch the SERPs. You will see them shoot up because you are passing authority to them.
Rank all of your URLs sitting on page #2 based on keyword difficulty. Work on the lowest competition ones first, because the sooner you pop them onto page one, the faster you can start to take advantage of the increased traffic. This is something that can be done with no added expense other than your time and it can increase your traffic in a matter of days.
10. Publish Expert Roundup Style Posts
If you do this right, you can grab extra links but more importantly very targeted traffic from several sources. I’ve seen websites use these to triple their traffic from the previous month.
You have to do a little ground work, contacting experts in your niche and get them agree to participate. Think of a topic that you can work a keyword into the title of, and then invite 20-30 experts to provide input for the question or topic. Make sure you link to their site and social profiles in the post, as that’s the bribe to get them to participate.
If the post is done well, you won’t have trouble getting them to share it. Avoid the biggest names, as they are busy and won’t be as eager to participate. Look for mid-level experts that will be thrilled to participate. They will also be more than happy to share on social. Once you get the hang of these style posts, you can publish them monthly and see huge traffic numbers as a direct result.
Final Thoughts
Your website is one of the most powerful marketing tools your business has. It works all the time and never needs a vacation or a day off. If you do it right, you can have it flooded with high quality traffic at all times.
A lot of people do basic SEO and expect a miracle. What worked several years ago just simply isn’t enough these days because of the competition. There are new websites and companies springing up in every niche daily. The competition for the top of the organic search results is only getting tougher, so now you must focus on mastering more expert level SEO strategies.
Yes, they require more time, effort and money, but in the end these strategies are what will be responsible for significantly increasing your website traffic.
If you have any specific SEO questions related to what I outlined above, drop them in the comments below and I will do my best to reply as quickly as possible. Also, if you have some high level SEO tips to share, leave them below as well.
