Traffic Tactics
Search Engine Traffic Tactics

Domain age
Search engines always favor those sites which have been around on the internet for many years, so the domain age is a very important consideration.

Regular upgrade
Make sure that you update your website regularly, since the search engines always favor those sites which are always up-to-date.

Write for your visitors
Always write articles which cater primarily to your visitors. Yahoo!, Google and others have people visiting all the time, but hardly anyone has ever responded positively to singing up for a newsletter, buying anything online, or even calling up for enquiry purposes.

Press releases
Press releases should be used with utmost care. Get into a useful relationship with the local media authorities which relates to your industry, and try to get as much exposure as possible, from them.

Flash
Though Flash is very attractive, search engines cannot recognize text typed in the Flash piece. So you may wisely use flash to communicate information, but make sure that the key areas are not used in a flash environment.

Meta tags
Use Meta tags. They are the invisible tags and the search engines can identify them for categorization of content.

Heading tag
Always use a heading tag, and most importantly, make the heading tag a keyword which should be relevant to the base of the matter that you are writing.

Site map
A site map should always be considered. Using the site maps, the search engines can navigate through each page of your website to index every single page.

Keywords
Use keywords in the articles and make them bold. But don’t overdo this; it is really a big put-off!

External links
Make sure that there are external links to almost all the pages of your website. If there are links to many pages of your website, then the search engines will feel that your site has a lot of good content to offer, and it will add value to your site. But if most of the external links head to your home page, then the conclusion will be that your site has nothing worthwhile to offer!

Business address
If you can get a business address in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada, then nothing better than that. They have many directories for company websites, so a lot of scope lies there.

Article distribution
You can offer articles to some ezine publishers who archive the ezines. In the archives, the links will stay alive for quite a few years.

Images
If there are image links in the navigation bar, make sure to include text links as well. But ensure that the text links are showed in the source code itself, since the search engine robots will follow the primary link to any given page. Additional links cannot be followed on the same page.

Multiple domains
You can have many domains if you have varied topics, and each of whom can warrant a website of its own. This is beneficial because the search engines generally target only one page per website, mostly the homepage, so if you have multiple domains, you can increase your exposure easily.

Link exchange
Exchanging links are generally good, but useless at times. But exchanging articles are more useful. You may publish some other author’s articles, and include the link to his website, who may do the same for you.

Link titles
Adding titles to links can be very useful as well. Besides aiding visually impaired users to know where they are going, search engines can search for relevant information in those titles as well.

Anchoring text
Anchoring text is a strict no-no. if you always use your company name or your URL, Google and other search engines look down upon it. At times, relevant tags can be used as well, which provides visibility in the eyes of the search engines.

Keyword research
While starting a project, do a thorough research on the keyword. There are free versions of Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery, but they also have a paid version which is even better. So your budget permitting, opt for the paid one with many added features.

New PPC account
Opening a new PPC account is very beneficial, notwithstanding whether it is Adwords of Google or any other marketing tool. A PPC account can get you actual search volumes for specified keywords.

Keyword stuffing
Refrain from stuffing the keywords in the articles. Using excessive keywords makes the article meaningless, and puts the reader off.

Invisible content
Some webmasters use invisible content which people cannot see, but are laden with keywords to attract search engines. When the search engines find this out, they may ban your site, so refrain from resorting to such an activity.

Heading tags
Avoid using too many h1 heading tags.

Link farms
Don’t use many link farms. They basically are single pages having links to numerous other pages.

Scope for improvement
SEO is not an event which you can take up once and then forget. The algorithm of search engines change quite often, so what did well last year may not perform in the same manner this year. So you need to be committed to continuously strive for betterment.

Be patient
Results will not show overnight. If you are new to SEO, prepare yourself for at least a month’s outlook to see positive results.

Set goals
Always have a concrete goal regarding what you want to achieve. You need to have good plans for the efforts that you put into SEO. Besides, you would need a analytical software to constantly monitor what is reaping benefits, and what is not.

Make the best site
Strive to make your site one of the best in business. People always want their site to be featured on the top of the list of the results of a search engine. If you realize that something is amiss from your site, work on it to make it better.

SEO friendly URL
Make URL’s that are SEO-friendly. They should be short and any URL which has more than 3 hyphens is generally not taken to kindly by the users. Hyphens act as a purpose for giving a space in URL’s, but don’t use too many of them.

Consider blogging
Take active participation in online blogs. Search engines are very liberal towards blogs in view of the fresh content updated on them on a regular basis.

Use tools
Search engines often provide you with many tools. Webmaster by Google, and Site Explorer by Yahoo! are a few of those.