In practical application, people search for words or phrases on a search engine like Google, and a page on your website gets ranked visibly on the search results page, catching the searcher’s attention and getting him to click through to that page on your website. Pages that are highly visible, get more attention.

But why practice Search Engine Optimization?

Here are the top 3 reasons to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on your website.

Increase Website Traffic
Every website has a purpose; goals that you can quantify and count. Websites are basically pages of information, created to conveniently serve the needs of people who need that information. Getting more traffic to your website means more people finding, reading, learning, and using the information you provide. In the online marketing space, websites are used to promote and sell products and services, or get leads for a business.

Regardless of purpose, any website can benefit from getting more visitors.

Build a Reputation
More visitors means a bigger audience for you and what you might have to say. If you are blogger or a writer who regularly publishes new posts that people find interesting enough to read and follow, you will be able to build your reputation amongst your chosen audience. A lot of people today use this to brand themselves or their businesses online; establish themselves as authorities and or credible sources of information about specific topics.

Create Opportunities
We have heard all to often that you need to grab opportunities that present themselves. However, in an environment where competition is fierce,you cannot simply wait for opportunities to present themselves, you need to create these opportunities. The proactive beat the passive.

The ability to put yourself, your brand, what you stand for or what you do out there helps increase your chances at opportunities coming your way. The Internet is just another medium of communication that you should leverage on in order to attract opportunities. Successful people do more than everybody else. They often fail more than everybody else, but that’s the idea.. doing more may mean failing in more things than the regular person but at the same time likely succeeding or accomplishing more than the rest.

Search engine optimization is certainly a useful skill any website or online business owner would greatly benefit from. Unfortunately, it takes time to learn and master, and SEO enthusiasts and students need to cope and keep abreast with changes that regularly occur with these search engines. To be successful at SEO you need to know how search engines work, and how they work constantly changes. The established search engines safeguard their systems of ranking, protecting it like some esoteric knowledge that won’t make sense to the uninitiated, in order to ensure the credibility of search results and delivery of the most relevant to its users. It may just be better to consult with a Search Engine Optimization consultant who has a history of proven and verifiable SEO results.

I thought I’d write this post, and say SEO is actually Feng Shui for websites… a fitting and timely post for the Chinese New Year.

A lot of people believe SEO to be mysterious and difficult. I disagree.

First, what likely makes it mysterious is the fact that the rules to ranking well through SEO are not known, since these rules change often. Google itself may not even know with certainty how it ranks a website since the algorithm is composed of so many rules, and likely different teams working on each.

Second… SEO being difficult. It has actually become even easier, so easy that anyone can do it and what has made it easy is that there are so many social sites and user generated sites out there that are high authority high traffic websites that can be leveraged to achieve SEO goals.

But what is SEO?

To simplify, SEO is a traffic generating strategy that involves improving both website content (design, layout, structure, etc) and website visibility / accessibility on other sites (through links) that result in better visibility on search engines for keyword searches made by your desired visitors or target audience.

What is Feng Shui?

While there are several mysterious sounding esoteric definitions of Feng Shui, I subscribe to the idea that it is the practical placement and arrangement of items, ideas, designs or things that create the least resistance to movement or use and thus enhance efficiency or productivity.

In Relation to Your Website Attributes

Each and every item on your website and each of the pages have a purpose and that is to lead a visitor to perform a specific conversion goal.

At the page level, each and every page has to have the right layout, design, use the right images and the right text in order to make the visitor’s experience on that page fluid and with least resistance. They are guided smoothly to what you eventually want them to do.

At the website level, all pages and their content are connected together through a well thought out structure of links, making visitor navigability and ease of going from one page to the next, the top priority.

In Relation to Your Website Visibility / Accessibility

Now that you have optimized your website you would need to invite people to see it. Much like a well appointed home which you have spent a lot of time decorating, making sure to arrange everything in a manner that feels comfortable and stress free… you would then invite people to your home.

To get people to visit your home on the web, you would need to create action on other websites where people you would want visiting your home are found. What I mean by creating action is to initiate contact or activity such as being proactive on social media and social networking sites, interacting with other people and making sure that there is a link within those interactions so that people you interact with as well as people following the discussion can visit your website through those links.

You would need to also choose the right places/website, use the right words to get attention, and use the right offer or incentives that would make people want to visit your website.

Simplified.. that is how SEO actually works… ensuring your website is ready to welcome visitors from all the links you have been able to create on the web, that in turn yields more visitors that find you through rankings on search engines for keywords relevant to content on each of the pages of your website.

Conversation Marketing might be a new sounding bit of marketing jargon to you but in practice this is one of the oldest methods of getting marketing messages across. It might be touted by many as some new fancy way of marketing but strip away the technology and mediums where it is common today, and you find that it is simply correspondence between two or more people that leads to a purchase decision. It is making waves in marketing circles today mainly because of the internet and Web 2.0.

Think about it… in the old days, if you could get into a conversation with someone who has a problem or needs an answer to a question, and provide them a solution to their predicament; you have just successfully used a conversation marketing technique if that person actually buys the product you were recommending to them. With the Internet and Web 2.0, you can get into as many conversations possible.

A fitting description of Conversation Marketing can be found on www.idiomstrategies.com which says “Conversation marketing utilizes Social Media networks and applications, Web2.0 sites and tools and many traditional marketing tactics to help companies engage in their market conversation, generate awareness and increase sales and customer retention.

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Dynamic Media Corporation CEO and Conversation Marketing advocate Michael Campbell seems to have perfected this system and put it into a course called Goobert Method of Traffic Generation, where you can get a significantly growing amount of traffic to your website by simply jumping into conversations on social sites with other people and providing meaningful and useful to the people involved in the conversation, getting them to click on to your website if links are present, or searching about you on Google. Apart from those actively involved there are the spectators who may not have participated in the discussion but are simply reading the thread and are also potential visitors to your site.

With the recent update in Google’s ranking algorithm (Google Caffeine it is called), there seems to be a better appreciation of traffic and links coming from social websites; not only are there many of them, but these are rich in traffic and authority.

Good webmasters today are no Gooberts. A Goobert is actually someone who does not know what is going on, and in the Social Media Marketing context Campbell refers to his Gooberts as webmasters who are the opposite of its true meaning. Goobert actually is short for Google Blog Alerts, a feature on Google that allows you to receive notices when new blogs on specific topics you indicate to receive alerts about. The moment you get these alerts, check out that new blog and see if the topic discussed is something you can contribute a meaningful discussion to. If you are the first or one of the first to leave a comment there is a higher chance for you to get clicks on your link from the readers of that new blog post. Another way of Googbert-ing around is checking out news stories, again you can set up alerts on Google to receive notices when news stories that have the keywords you request to get alerts on, are published. If there is a comment section or “post your opinion” section at the end of the story, this is an opportunity for you to go Goobert.

To get good traffic, go the Goobert way and go social; interact, be in the thick of as many relevant conversations, and be helpful.

One of the things I had to do, or still need to continue doing is check on all my other sites and get rid of those which are no longer relevant, or not profitable. There is one site whose income vanished as quickly as its rankings did.

Some years ago, I used to do marketing for a very successful Bar/Club. As you may know, a large part of a bar’s income comes from the mark up made on drinks, whether they be sold bottled like beers for instance, or mixed drinks. When you have a problem with a supplier for items that happen to be your most profitable, you see a huge dent in your bottom line. We solved that problem by not depending merely on one supplier and gave other people the opportunity to sell as that inventory. I am being purposely vague so as not to identify the bar nor the supplier or product.

A website survives mainly on revenue that its visitors generate, regardless of the means. You could be selling your own product or service, or someone else’s as an affiliate, or simply putting banners on your site. Regardless how the money is made, your money is made through your website traffic.

When you depend solely on one source of traffic, if that traffic source dries up or disappears, so will your revenue. Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket, I am sure you have heard that before.

Incidentally, about that bar I was talking about earlier, we had several different advertising avenues and not just depended on one. For instance we were heavy on radio advertising and social networking; but eventually realizing that networking was more effective and cost efficient we dropped radio advertising. It was also only at the point where we had come to realize that the brand had achieved the desired perception among its audience, the brand and the value it offered had already been established.

Going back, what I was doing wrong with this one website was, I was only getting traffic from one traffic source, Google. It was getting ranked for a keyword on Google. But since I had not been doing anything more to promote the site, no one new was finding the site, and no one new was linking to it or talking about it, Google thought… this site is not getting promoted by the owner, why should we rank it at all and send it visitors… there are other websites that are more deserving. So Google, dropped the site… from top of the charts to no where to be found.

Now, other people who have had this happen to them make a big hoopla out of it, but hey, your rankings disappeared because you did not do what you need to do to keep them up there. Google does not owe you anything. You want Google to keep you and rank you well, you need to have other traffic sources.

Maybe I confused you a bit there… but it’s simple.

If you want Google to rank you well, you have to not depend on them for rankings, but promote your site and get your website traffic from other sources, like other websites through links, through networking and even paid ads like banners or Google AdWords.

So that if Google does change its mind about how it ranks sites (its ranking algorithm) which it often does, and if you lose your rankings because of it, you still have a steady flow of visitors coming from other sources. Funny thing is, when Google notices you do have this steady flow of visitors from other sources and those sources keep growing, it ranks you even better and sends you even more visitors.

While that remains true, what I have discovered recently is that targeted traffic is a website’s lifeline; traffic can be the reason why you should keep a website going, but targeted traffic that converts into customers or earns a website profit is what will keep the site alive.

Regardless of what everybody else says, I believe Pay Per Click advertising to be one of the best traffic to get; it’s fast traffic, and laser targeted especially if you know how to leverage on the features within an PPC advertising program such as Google AdWords.

Unfortunately, many don’t know how to get started on PPC and many probably cannot afford this type of paid traffic yet.

So here are 10 traffic tactics that will bring your website visitors, and will not cost you a cent but will need your time and energy.

1. Facebook Marketing

Create a Facebook account, and build your network, target people you have something in common with. Your contact are your captured audience for your posts and messages.

2. Twitter Networking

Create a Twitter account and just like Facebook, build your network.  Twitter is the fastest way to build contacts online.

3. Forum Marketing

Join forums and bulletins where you can interact with other members,  post messages and links. Forums are virtual communities bound by common interests and topics. Find the forum which you believe your prospects are found.

4. Classified Ads

Post ads on classified ads sites like Craig’s List or US Free Ads. They work just like classifieds on a newspaper but are on websites.

5. Social Marketing

Social Marketing is a very broad topic to tackle and actually Forums, Social Networking sites like Facebook are actually social sites themselves.

However this sections a different set of Social Networking sites; sites where you can create your accounts and add your own content, sites like Squidoo, Hubpages and Tumblr; on blogs like WordPress.com and Blogger.com. Publish content related to your website on these sites and link them to your website.

Go to Social Marker and create accounts on all the Social Bookmarking sites it submits to, then bookmark your site and posts. Social bookmarking sites are another type of social website that allows its members to bookmark their favorite websites and web pages, for other members to see and check out.

6.YouTube Marketing

Create a YouTube account and upload video content that is related to your website. The best way is to create your own videos to minimize the risk of having to deal with copyright issues. Your videos will link to your main website.

7. Article Marketing

Write helpful and informative articles that relate to the market you are in or the product or service you offer. Try to keep this articles short, people are busy and on the internet, they want information that they can take action on, and finish reading quickly. A 500-600 article is ideal, not too long yet concise enough to resolve a certain issue. Submit these articles to article directories like ezinearticles.com, articlebase.com, articledashboard.com or goarticles.com. Be sure to link from those articles to your website.

8. Blog Comment Linking

Find blogs that are high traffic and related to your website content and leave comments by contributing your opinions regarding the blog topic.

9. Press Release Submission

Every time you have something new to offer, or you have something newsworthy worth publicizing, write a press release and submit to free press release websites like www.free-press-release.com and www.pr-inside.com.

10.Feed Marketing

Create an RSS feed on your site, and submit that feed and the RSS feeds of your social sites and blogs to RSS feed directories.

The most important thing to remember is, your website content should be of value to the people who visit your site. Whether it is helpful, useful, funny, or crazy, content that engages a visitor often results in even more visitors.