So you need high-traffic on your website? 
Well, there is no magic secret to driving traffic to any website.
The rule of thumb is to carefully pick your keywords, optimize properly and have rich content to back it up.
If you’ve been following my niche site challenge which I started on the 12th of February, 2013 – then dominating Google search engine wouldn’t be much of a hassle for you anymore.
If I succeeded in ranking 3 niches sites in Google first page within 30 days, you too can. Or what do you say?
Without using tricks or the so-called blackhat SEO techniques, I want to show you how to actually drive organic traffic, even if your website is new. I mean brand new.
You can apply my SEO tips to a 2-month old or 2-year website. Its age doesn’t count in this post.
It doesn’t matter whether you run a wordpress blog or a static website, once you can pick viable key terms and press the right buttons; you’d enjoy richer traffic almost all the time.
This post isn’t going to be 4000 words. It’s shorter but valuable. Read it religiously and leave me a comment.
It’s time to pick the right keywords and dominate Google top 10 – don’t be scared of Panda or EMDs updates – you’re an entrepreneur (decision maker).
Step one: Pick branded keywords for better rankings
I struggled to rank my content pages in Google for 3 years. And the reason was because I didn’t know how Google search engine works.
Listen to this: Google and other search engines respect AUTHORITY. Even before Google Panda was released back in the day, authority sites have always been at the top when you search for any keyword.
And if your website/blog is featured on any of those authority portals, you’ll not only drive quality traffic, but also improve your rankings easily. True or false?
I discovered how to pick branded keywords and phrases when I was building my niche sites.
The truth is that 85% of internet marketing, health, entertainment, lifestyle, political, family and all other niches are highly competitive.
If your website falls within any of these niches, where every site owner is struggling to occupy the #1 – #10 positions in Google, then you REALLY need to adjust your strategy. Or you’d fail woefully.
Instead of competing with other website owners and thousands of bloggers to drive traffic, go out of your way and start using branded keywords.
How brandable keywords drives traffic
Find out which famous companies or personalities are in your niche.
Afterward, start taking advantage of those brands (identity) because 10s of thousands of searchable key terms are contained in them. So if your niche is internet marketing, research the professionals and their websites.
For instance: we’ve Darren Rowse (problogger), Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan), Brain Clark (copyblogger), Matt Cutts (mattcutts), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Danny Sullivan (searchengineland) and so on.
What about Coca-Cola, CNN, BBC, Disneyland or the latest Movies that are making raves in US and across the globe?
As a content marketer, there is no excuse for failure whatsoever.
Because you’ve the entire world and top brands at your fingertip and you could capitalize on their popularity and the preferential treatment that search engines give to them – to rich free traffic and gain backlinks.
Disclaimer: Make sure that when you’re using any of these top brands, you read their terms so that you’ll not directly or indirectly violate their usage policy.
Like I said earlier, Google may not necessarily have keywords and phrases that are related to these brand names. But every single day, ideal customers search for them.
They desire to know how these companies are fairing and what their strategies are.
So, you could easily use the brand keyword in your title.
In 2012, I wrote a post titled: “Coca Cola Marketing Strategy.” Did you see how I creatively used the brand name to explain the strategic aspect of marketing?
Using branded keywords on your title
Here are examples of articles topics. Feel free to copy any of them or create yours:
1. What CNN Instant News Updates Thought Me about Blogging
2. How Chris Brogan Used Social Media To Build A Strong Brand
3. Brain Clark Reveals The Top 10 Content Marketing Strategy
Better yet, interview these industry experts – add their name to your post title and few times within the content.
You’d be on the safe side, if you use these branded keywords on your content. Google isn’t going to penalize you for over-optimization, because they’re yet to store the terms in their database.
Google would send you rich and free traffic if your website is deemed authoritative. But if your blog is new or still growing, there is no better way to get authority status than to leverage on those who have good records with Google.
Step two: Pick and Target wireframe keywords
Image Funnel Source: cmswire
The second step to picking high-traffic keywords is what I termed “wireframe.” It’s been one of my proven content marketing strategies that always produce results (good rankings and traffic).
The way it works is that you’ll first determine all the article topics which you’ll write and how you’ll get readers and target audience to follow through that funnel.
In other words, Google is looking for websites that has a pattern in its content delivery. If your blog is about social media marketing, then you ought to write a whole lot of articles and distribute rich content in that market.
To actually inspire Google spider to crawl and send you targeted traffic, pick wireframe keywords and address every sub-topic around it.
Meanwhile, the primary keyword is what you MUST add juice to and strengthens so that over time, Google will rank it higher than its competitors.
Here’s the concept behind wireframe keywords:
Let’s use “social media strategy” as our primary keyword. At this point, don’t be scared of other result pages that are already ranking higher than yours. BTW: See social media strategy in 8 steps here.
Yes, I know that as I write this post, “social media strategy” has well over 50 Million competing web pages in Google alone (I searched with quotes).
The goal of choosing a wireframe key term is to lead a funnel by addressing every sub-topic that’s tied around the primary term.
So, here’s what I’d do and within 6 months, I’m guaranteed a top ranking in Google, no matter what Google Panda or Penguin is saying. I’d write a detailed article of about 1000+ words and embed a video or presentation to give it extra flavor and value.
I’ll use the primary term on the title and few times within the content – don’t worry about keyword density, it doesn’t work any longer. But just be careful not to stuff or overdo the act.
In your content, solve problems the big sites like Mashable, Techcrunch and other top social media sites failed to address.
In other words, target the long tail phrases. Publish your content. Go out and leave valuable comment on relevant blogs (whether do or nofollow). The goal is to have relevant links pointing to your new post.
If you do this, within 48 hours, Google spider would crawl and index your content. Now, go ahead and write another relevant article and submit as a guest post. Link to the content page you want to rank in Google top 10.
Add juice to your keyword in-house
This is very straightforward. The easiest way to optimize on-page is to write relevant posts that are related to the one you want to rank, and then use editorial links (within the content) to linkback.
Make sure the anchor text doesn’t appear like spam or over-optimized.
You already know that the wireframe keywords are actually stored by Google in their database.
So, any form of tricks or over-optimization could be penalized. If you were considering “branded keywords” like in the first example, you’d be on the safer side.
If the first article or video on your blog is titled “social media strategy in 5 steps,” Then subsequent articles MUST be titled in a similar manner.
Take a look at these article topic templates: Feel free to use as you please.
- What is your social media strategy?
- Social media strategy for beginners
- Top 7 social media strategies that work
- Is there a better social media strategy?
And just like the branded keywords in step one, you can interview a social media expert and have their content published on your blog.
Then, link to the first post, which has the primary keyword you want to rank in Google top 10.
Ensure that you link to your post naturally. Don’t try to trick Google spider because you’d regret ever conceiving that idea in the first place.
Now you should know that Google spider is like a toddler that needs to be spoon-fed regularly with the right meal – quality content that’s driven by well-placed keywords.
Most importantly, when you pick wireframe key terms which would dominate Google first page gradually, using the SEO strategies as explained here; please make sure that the keyword has a high search volume.
This is vital to your success, which of course will not happen overnight. When I used wireframe keyword strategy, I was able to rank my content pages within 3 months. But I worked really hard to make it come through.
So, with this strategy, you don’t have to be scared of high competition. Just make sure that the wireframe keyword is hot. It should have 10,000 – 1,000,000 searches monthly from the global scene.
How much targeted traffic do you think you’d drive to your blog when your webpage starts ranking in the Google top 10 for such a hot keyword? It’s incredible, right?
You can earn your traffic
I’ve explained the 2 steps I use when picking high-traffic keywords for my content. This is exactly what I do for my clients and it’s resulted in thousands of monthly targeted traffic and sales.
Content marketing has taught me a very BIG lesson – to always give the best information out all the time.
Because the rewards of GIVING would bounce back 100-fold. Are you really giving VALUE to your target audience? Or you’re desperate for some cool cash?
The real truth about branded keywords in step one and wireframe keywords in step two, is that over time, you’ll no longer struggle to attract organic traffic.
Because you’ve employed Google-friendly techniques in optimizing your content pages. And Google would have no other choice than to reward you with rich, targeted and free organic traffic.
Just like passive income, where you work hard today in order to reap the rewards tomorrow, 95% hands-free, automated traffic also exist when you follow the two steps as laid out here.
Keyword takeaway
The essence of keyword research is to read the minds of your ideal customers and target audience.
When you’re out there hanging out with friends, listen attentively to the words they use and how they structure their tenses. See how desperate they’re when it comes to topics they hold dear to their hearts.
The bottom line is to create content that’s tailored to people’s questions and their innermost motives.
Go pick some branded and wireframe keywords and start dominating Google top 10 – for more traffic and high rankings.
How do you pick profitable and high-traffic keywords? Please share your comment below and air your view. Thank you!