Use Blogging to Draw Targeted Traffic to a Website
All webmasters want targeted traffic to their sites. And if there's one way of drawing that in quite quickly (without using pay per click advertising) it's by way of a blog.
I like to see getting traffic as being akin to fishing. And having a blog is like having fishing rod and reel with a limitless amount of bait. Every day you can cast out a new line in the hope of snaring some traffic. But if you've just got a fixed website of several pages, you're much more limited. Of course you can improve the rankings of each page, but it'll take much longer and be hard going.
If you can bring in that traffic by blogging, then some of those visitors will click through to your main pages. That's why it's important to have things set up so that your blog is part of your main domain. It could be "blog.yoursite.com", or "yoursite.com/blog". Of course this is easy to do with a free, separate blogging platform like Blogger, which is great - particularly if you're new to blogging. All you have to do is buy the required domain, and configure it. It does involve a bit of mucking around but if you just follow the instructions at the domain registrar you've chosen (I recommend Godaddy) it shouldn't be difficult to do.
Of course there are various different blogging (and microblogging) platforms that offer free domain mapping. But Blogger is probably the best all round. Not only is it very user-friendly but Google likes it too. There is a theory that this is because it's owned by the search giant. Maybe. Whatever the reason, once you've got some posts up there and have built a couple of backlinks to your blog it will start to appear in search results. And it usually doesn't take long either. If your blog is a few weeks old and you update it consistently, your posts often get indexed almost immediately.
Clearly, if your blog is about very topical issues then this quick indexing is a big bonus. Other blog hosts tend to vary greatly in the time that it takes before they appear in Google. But generally speaking it happens within a few days, sometimes a week or so.
While Blogger is very good, Wordpress is widely considered to be the finest blogging platform of all. It has this reputation for a whole pile of reasons, SEO being one of them. But there are a couple of downsides, particularly for newbies. Firstly it's not as user-friendly as Blogger. Secondly, if you want to use a custom domain you have to pay for hosting for it. And some web hosts do Wordpress much better than others! So it is possible to find yourself in trouble if the host you've committed to is sub-par - or worse still goes out of business all of a sudden! (You can get a sub-domain of Wordpress.com for free, but it's always better to in the long run to get your own domain.)
For these reasons I would start with Blogger. It will probably be sufficient for a very long time, even indefinitely. If you do eventually want to change to a higher gear, then you can import your Blogger blog over to Wordpress anyway.
Aside from using sites like Blogger and Wordpress, there's a simpler option. That's to use a website builder with blogging tools attached. There's absolutely no fiddling then. It all just happens automatically. Weebly, is one such host. Then there's Yola. Both are excellent. And both have pretty good general SEO. Yola in particular seems to be good for blog SEO.
With your blog up and running you can start fishing for traffic. You should do this by targeting long tail keywords. These are usually specific combinations of keywords that don't get searched that often and tend to have fairly low competition. They are the "low hanging fruit", as they say. An example might be something like "find rental properties in Perth affordable". A primary keyword phrase might be something like "Perth properties". Obviously there would be a far greater volume of traffic to be had if you managed to get on Google's page one for that. But then it would be far, far harder to get on there!
So, when writing blog posts you should aim for these long-tail searches. If you have an Australia-themed website then obviously it's a good idea to choose geo-specific words to include such as the names of states, cities, towns and even suburbs. The names of local identities, celebrities and businesses also work well.
You can use the free keyword tool to get ideas for the searches you should target. But I've discovered that hunches can work well also. With a bit of thought you can actually predict what people will search for, and attract substantial bursts of traffic. I have written about this approach repeatedly on my blog.
Keeping an eye on events in the media related to your blog's niche is a really good idea. People will often search for extra information, opinions and insights into what they've been seeing on the TV and hearing on the radio. So put those keywords into the titles of your posts in ways you think people might arrange them, and then write substantial, thoughtful posts of at least 300 words. Needless to say you should always remember to deliver on the promise of your title.
If you keep doing that some of your blog posts are sure to have success traffic-wise before long. And even if they don't they are still useful because being so rich in geo-specific keywords they are helping Google get a very clear idea of what your blog and main site are all about. That will help quite a bit in the long run.
I like to see getting traffic as being akin to fishing. And having a blog is like having fishing rod and reel with a limitless amount of bait. Every day you can cast out a new line in the hope of snaring some traffic. But if you've just got a fixed website of several pages, you're much more limited. Of course you can improve the rankings of each page, but it'll take much longer and be hard going.
If you can bring in that traffic by blogging, then some of those visitors will click through to your main pages. That's why it's important to have things set up so that your blog is part of your main domain. It could be "blog.yoursite.com", or "yoursite.com/blog". Of course this is easy to do with a free, separate blogging platform like Blogger, which is great - particularly if you're new to blogging. All you have to do is buy the required domain, and configure it. It does involve a bit of mucking around but if you just follow the instructions at the domain registrar you've chosen (I recommend Godaddy) it shouldn't be difficult to do.
Of course there are various different blogging (and microblogging) platforms that offer free domain mapping. But Blogger is probably the best all round. Not only is it very user-friendly but Google likes it too. There is a theory that this is because it's owned by the search giant. Maybe. Whatever the reason, once you've got some posts up there and have built a couple of backlinks to your blog it will start to appear in search results. And it usually doesn't take long either. If your blog is a few weeks old and you update it consistently, your posts often get indexed almost immediately.
Clearly, if your blog is about very topical issues then this quick indexing is a big bonus. Other blog hosts tend to vary greatly in the time that it takes before they appear in Google. But generally speaking it happens within a few days, sometimes a week or so.
While Blogger is very good, Wordpress is widely considered to be the finest blogging platform of all. It has this reputation for a whole pile of reasons, SEO being one of them. But there are a couple of downsides, particularly for newbies. Firstly it's not as user-friendly as Blogger. Secondly, if you want to use a custom domain you have to pay for hosting for it. And some web hosts do Wordpress much better than others! So it is possible to find yourself in trouble if the host you've committed to is sub-par - or worse still goes out of business all of a sudden! (You can get a sub-domain of Wordpress.com for free, but it's always better to in the long run to get your own domain.)
For these reasons I would start with Blogger. It will probably be sufficient for a very long time, even indefinitely. If you do eventually want to change to a higher gear, then you can import your Blogger blog over to Wordpress anyway.
Aside from using sites like Blogger and Wordpress, there's a simpler option. That's to use a website builder with blogging tools attached. There's absolutely no fiddling then. It all just happens automatically. Weebly, is one such host. Then there's Yola. Both are excellent. And both have pretty good general SEO. Yola in particular seems to be good for blog SEO.
With your blog up and running you can start fishing for traffic. You should do this by targeting long tail keywords. These are usually specific combinations of keywords that don't get searched that often and tend to have fairly low competition. They are the "low hanging fruit", as they say. An example might be something like "find rental properties in Perth affordable". A primary keyword phrase might be something like "Perth properties". Obviously there would be a far greater volume of traffic to be had if you managed to get on Google's page one for that. But then it would be far, far harder to get on there!
So, when writing blog posts you should aim for these long-tail searches. If you have an Australia-themed website then obviously it's a good idea to choose geo-specific words to include such as the names of states, cities, towns and even suburbs. The names of local identities, celebrities and businesses also work well.
You can use the free keyword tool to get ideas for the searches you should target. But I've discovered that hunches can work well also. With a bit of thought you can actually predict what people will search for, and attract substantial bursts of traffic. I have written about this approach repeatedly on my blog.
Keeping an eye on events in the media related to your blog's niche is a really good idea. People will often search for extra information, opinions and insights into what they've been seeing on the TV and hearing on the radio. So put those keywords into the titles of your posts in ways you think people might arrange them, and then write substantial, thoughtful posts of at least 300 words. Needless to say you should always remember to deliver on the promise of your title.
If you keep doing that some of your blog posts are sure to have success traffic-wise before long. And even if they don't they are still useful because being so rich in geo-specific keywords they are helping Google get a very clear idea of what your blog and main site are all about. That will help quite a bit in the long run.