10 Smart SEO Strategies to Increase Organic Traffic

SEO strategies are the most crucial part of any website to get traffic. Because, search engines drive 300% more traffic than social media, but the implementation is not that easy. It requires SEO strategies, implementation and time. In this article, I am going to reveal 10 smart SEO strategies that will help you to get organic traffic.

Most of us believe that quality content can attract more traffic but content alone can’t give you enough traffic and make you rank in top search results in search engine. I have seen many websites with low quality of content and even grammatical mistakes, but getting good traffic and making money from online programs like Google AdSense and other affiliate marketing programs.

Today, I am going to share SEO Strategies that I personally used for my clients that resulted in great success. These SEO strategies can be very useful for you to rank your web pages in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Here are those SEO Strategies:

Table of Contents

1. Keyword Research: The foundation of Search Engine Marketing

Keywords are the foundation of any search engine marketing campaign. When a user enters a query string in a search engine and as soon as click the search button or hit enter, search results (web pages) relevant to the keyword are displayed on the search engine result pages (SERPs).

If you want your website to rank in the top search result, you need to conduct comprehensive keyword research. During keyword research, you need to identify the right keyword for your business.

Moreover, you need to find the keywords, your prospective customers are likely to use while making a search in search engine.

You can use the Google Keyword Planner Tool and SEMRush. These two tools are by far the best tool available on the internet for keyword research.

2. Meta Tags

Meta Tags: Meta tags have been one of the most important elements of search engine marketing and SEO. It is must know for all who wants a top rank in the search engine as plays a vital role in SEO.

Title & Description: When a keyword is searched by a search engine, you will see that the most relevant links are displayed on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Google looks for the title as a signal of relevance for that keyword. Same holds true for the description as well.

Keyword Tag: If I talk about a keyword tag, Google has publicly accepted that it does not play a vital role since it has been abused by webmasters to rank in top search results for certain keywords.

3. Content

I have read hundreds of articles where most bloggers have accepted one common thing, “Content is the King”. You hear this phrase over and over again when it comes to SEO success. Quality content is the best way not only to rank for that particular keyword but also for the positive user experience that helps you in the long run.

Provide real value and something of substance to visitors, that is useful. It will make them come back to your website again and again in search of quality content.

Your content can even go viral if it is unique and users won’t find elsewhere.

4. Backlinks (Inbound Links)

For those who are new to search engine marketing and does not know the meaning of backlinks or inbound links, here is the definition:

Backlinks (Inbound Links)

It is the process of establishing links on the internet that direct users to your website which helps your website to achieve a higher rank in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Backlinks are the backbone of any SEO strategy. We know that it is the most significant but also the most challenging aspect of optimizing your blog or website for search engines.

Nearly about 80% of the searches are performed on the internet is using Google. If you are looking for your website to be a part of that 80 %, you need to have a good amount of inbound links. Higher the high quality of backlinks you have, higher the chances are to appear in top search results.

But all inbound links are not treated equally. Instead, you should focus on getting high-quality inbound links from the websites that have high domain authority.

So, what do I mean by Good Inbound Links?

Good question! Basically, there are three primary factors that define the quality of Inbound links:

Comes from an authoritative website. A website that that has provided, or continues to provide, quality information around a certain topic that is useful for users. Alternatively, content on the internet on which we can trust.

Uses Anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text and visible text that holds the link.

Has descriptive Anchor text. A text holding a link and describe the linked-to site in the link itself.

Google is always updating its algorithm and changing terms and uses. Google’s Penguin update penalises you for using unnatural ways of getting backlinks on your website. So never ever try to gain backlinks using a BlackHat SEO.

Instead, you can read these following articles to know about the great ways to build Backlinks:

5. Social Media

It is not always enough to have a website with great content. If you want better search engine results for your business and website, you need to have a strong social media presence. If your business is still not on social media websites like Facebook or Twitter, it’s time to capitalize on the advantages of social media.

5(a). Social Media & SEO Improve Organic Traffic

Social media and SEO work together to improve organic traffic. Search engines highly rely on social media for organic traffic.

5(b). Google uses Twitter to discover new content

Google gathers web pages during the crawl process and creates an index. But this process can be quite tedious. But with the help of Twitter, we can make that work a lot easier as Google uses Twitter to find new content.

5(c). Social Media Boost Authority

Google will rank the web page of your website higher if it sees that you have a good domain and page authority. Having a good domain and page authority is possible when you are getting traffic from a credible source. Your credibility is determined by how many quality websites link backs to you.

5(d). “Social shares” the new link building

Link building is certainly the most important factor for getting organic traffic from search engines. But this process has also been abused by webmasters through Black-Hat SEO techniques, such as keyword stuffing, invisible texts, and websites that link back to the website, you are trying to optimize. To get rid of such things, Google chose to look into social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Those days are gone when link building strategy was enough to get the organic traffic from search engines. Now, Backlinks and social media shares work together to provide your website the link it needs for organic traffic.

5(e). Boost your ranking with Google+

Google+ is arguably the most powerful social media for SEO purpose. With over 2.2 billion Google+ profiles, it is one of the largest social media websites on the internet.

5(f). Share Consistently

Just dedicate 5-10 minutes a day while having your morning tea or coffee, you will see the change. Spending these few minutes regularly can do wonders for your SEO and will boost your overall experience on the internet.

5(g). Share The Web Pages & Blog Posts

Share your web pages, blog posts, and share some interesting links to build new connections. Make a Google+ search, find communities relevant to your industry and put yourself in front of people within your niche. Share your knowledge and build your reputation. It will surely attract people to connect with you.

5(h). Engage your audience

This is true for any social media platform. The larger your network and more involved you are, the more you will have the user engagement. You can use Google+ events and set up Google Authorship for SEO benefits. By using Google Authorship, you can ensure that you are smart and writing savvy. It will boost your ranking whether you are on Google+ or elsewhere.

6. Content Curation

People believe that content curation is duplicate content and it does not have SEO advantages. But, there are many websites, that have increased their SEO by using content curation tool. Keith Ward – Director of Global Marketing, d-Wise, reported that they have increased SEO by 200% using the content curation tool. While many have also reported that they tripled the SEO just using content curation tool.

There are several other benefits of content curation. Here are the 5 good reasons to curate content.

Discover great content.
Increases Inbound Links to your site.
Generates Social Signals.
Optimizer for long-tail.
Optimizes Short-tail keyword.

Now, we know the advantages of content curation but what are the available tools that help us to curate content?

Here is the list of my personal favourites:

6(a). Scoop.it

Scoop.it is by far the best content curation tool available on the internet. You just have to copy and paste the link you want to curate and your content is rendered in a glossy and engaging magazine kind of a format. You can easily share your curated content on social media websites and embed them into your website as well.

6(b). Bundlr

You can create topic pages and add multimedia files like photos, videos, tweets, and documents. Later you can share them with everyone. The idea behind Bundlr is to clip interesting content from the web just like you clip stuff from the newspaper. You have the option to embed those clips on your website as well.

6(c). Storify

Storify is a content platform that allows you to add best of the contents from the web around a particular topic from the social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, and SoundCloud etc. Later you can embed your content on your website. MailChimp users can even email their subscribers directly.

7. Competitive Analysis & Research

One of the key aspects of any SEO is the initial competitive analysis. This process should be identified as soon as possible, depending upon the type of industry and the scope of the SEO process.

The competitive Analysis has four phases:

7(a). Identify your potential SEO competitors

Make a list of your competitors and make sure you do not only limit yourself to companies that offer the same type of products, content but it can be any website that competes with you in search results for that particular keyword. Dive deep into their profile and grab the general metrics for them. You can use Google Keyword planner tool or SEMrush to get the general metrics. Once you get the details, download their backlink profile.

7(b). Validate your SEO competitors

Once you download their backlink profile, make a deep study and validate your SEO competitors. Analyze the keywords for which they are already ranking and to which degree, for which you are targeting.

You can even expand your targeted keyword list after analyzing the backlink profile. For the keywords, you are not ranking in search results might represent a new opportunity.

7(c). Compare your SEO Competitors

Compare your website with your competitor using all the relevant data. You can identify those keywords for which you want to rank in top search results. Make a list of those keywords and prioritize them. It is likely to include link popularity, current ranking, search volumes, ranked pages and content optimization.

7(d). Select your keywords

Now, it’s a time for the implementation. Analyze the previously gathered data for your own website. Choose the keywords and make your short-term, mid-term and long-term SEO goal.

Here is the list of some of the great tools that will help you throughout the Competitive Analysis and Research.

To identify competitors

Top Alexa Sites, SimilarWeb.

To identify keywords

SEMRush for keyword data, you can also use Ubersuggest or SEOChat to gather Google suggestions for particular keywords.

To identify rankings

Authority labs, Positionly, Advanced Web Ranking.

To identify popularity

The Moz SEO Toolbar, SERP overlay view, OpenSiteExplorer, CognitiveSEO Backlink Explorer and MajesticSEO for link related data and easy to develop popularity analysis.

To identify page optimisation

Moz On-Page Grader, SEOchat’s Page Comparison tool and Web page SEO analysis tool for a quick on-page content optimisation analysis.

To semi-automatize the process

Moz Keyword Difficulty and SERPs analysis tool, SERPIQ, SEMRush Keyword Difficulty Tool.

8. Google Search Console SEO Strategy

Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tool) is a powerful collection of resources for webmasters and website owners to monitor their website activity in Google Search Engine. It is free and gives you a bunch of information about your website.

If you haven’t signed for Google Search Console then just go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account.

Once you are done with the sign-up process then submit your website to Google Search Console.

During this process, you will be asked to verify your website. You will be provided with various options to verify your website.

Once you’re done verifying, you need to submit the sitemap of your website.

There are various plugins that help you to generate an XML sitemap. Here are some of those:

Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is my personal favorite. You can install it from the WordPress plugin directory. Once the plugin is installed and activated, navigate to the XML sitemaps in Yoast Menu.

Now, enable XML sitemap functionality. Once you enable, you will see a link for XML Sitemap from where you can grab the XML sitemap link and submit it in Google Search Console.

Once the web pages of your website get indexed in Google, you can use various tools in Google Search Console to improve the SEO of your website.

How To Use Google Search Console?

Here are the top 5 Google SEO tips for you that you can use to grow the search engine visibility of your website. I hope you will find them useful.

8(a). Add All Site Versions

The biggest mistake people do is failing to add all versions of their website which is very unfortunate. Because it is very easy to add all the version of the website by just clicking the add properties button.

I have added to properties for this website, searchenginebay.com:

searchenginebay.com
www.searchenginebay.com

If you have sub-domains, then you should also add sub-domains. e.g.,

blog.searchenginebay.com
m.searchenginebay.com
store.searchenginebay.com

Moreover, if your website supports multiple protocols (HTTP and HTTPS), then you must add a separate site.

Google explains the versions you can add for your website here:

8(b). Google Webmaster Tool Messages

Google Webmaster will send you some important notifications related to your website in Google Webmaster’s messages. Make sure you read those notifications as they might explain to you about the issues on your website.

8(c). Search Queries

Google Webmaster tools give you the most holistic view that helps you determine just about everything related to search analytics. It doesn’t only show you the traffic on your website but also shows you the potential traffic via impression.

Let’s understand some of the terms:

Query

The query gives you the details about the keywords for which you are ranked in Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This is one of the fastest ways to know whether your targeted keyword ranking and giving you the desired results in Google search or not.

This features will quickly help you identify relevant keywords that you can use further for content optimization.

Impression

If you are wondering how to find data for the number of times people saw your website in Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), then this option will tell you. This metric will help you find how many people seeing your website for any particular keyword.

Clicks

It is a metric that lets you find how many people are clicking on your website link while seeing in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

CTR

It is a percentage of people clicking on the website appearing in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

If the click-through rate is low for any particular keyword, then consider improving the meta description for that particular page.

You can also consider improving the relevance of the content on that particular page.

Average Positions

This metric tells you about the ranking of your website for the particular keyword in Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). It lets you identify the impact of keywords on your website traffic.

8(d). Monitor Your Most Linked Content

Google Webmaster tools is an awesome way to identify what content people love on your website. Generally, the homepage is the top linked content. By using this tool, you can find the number of unique domains that link to your website or content. A unique domain link to your content, the better it is.

8(e). Adjust Your Sitelinks

When someone searches for your website in Google search by putting your website name as a keyword in Google search box then Google displays a group of related links below the main link.

These links are typically popular pages underneath the main search result. These group of links are called site links.

As we discussed earlier, Google selects your most popular pages as a site link. You can’t intentionally create site links for your website. But once Google displays your popular links as a site link then you can manage them in Google Webmaster tool.

You can take advantage of removing unwanted pages and displaying the best pages.

9. Build links with broken link opportunities on Wikipedia

This is one of the most powerful ways of generating authority backlinks but most of the SEO experts overlook this trick.

Did you ever think of that?

So how can you get links from Wikipedia?

Well, there are two ways:

Citation: When someone writes or edits something on Wikipedia and miss to link to a source.

Dead Link: This is something when a previously linked resource, page or site is removed or doesn’t exist.

Finding these links can be a great headache to anyone.

But not anymore!

Thanks to WikiGrabber!

It quickly lets you find Wikipedia pages that need citations and dead links replacement.

In this example, I just randomly picked a keyword and searched for “Search Engine Optimization” that found me 10 citation and 5 dead links for the given keyword on Wikipedia.

Another method is Google search that you can use to search the term:

site:wikipedia.org “Your Keyword” “dead link”

Now all you need is to open the Wikipedia article and scroll down through the article until you find [citation needed].

Click on the [edit] text and using the visual editor add the link and click generate.

These Wikipedia links are no-follow links that mean they do not pass any link juice to your site. However, these links help you to build your domain authority which is still considered as a search engine ranking factor.

10. Use Multiple Keywords in Page Title

While analysing my analytics I found one of my posts was getting organic traffic with multiple keywords.

At the same time yo need to be sure that it doesn’t appear spammy to search engine. This might affect your SEO efforts.

By spammy means use of similar keywords like:

SEO Strategy
SEO Techniques
SEO Guide

If you combine them together and use it as a title of your page, there is every possibility of getting penalized by Google.

Instead, you can use it smartly and wisely like:

Smart SEO Techniques: Strategies that Drives Search Engine Trafic

You can research some new combinations to get the desired results.

Hopefully, these SEO Strategies will be helpful to you to develop more powerful SEO strategies for your website.

What other aspects do you take into consideration and what other tools you use? I would like to hear them in the comment section below.