Do you want to build a successful website and drive a lot of traffic to it? Then don’t try to fool mother Google.

It really does work like that, as most of us have learned from previous experience. However, building a successful website is possible. And we have a few easy steps which will help you achieve just that.

Here are some simple tips to drive traffic and what I found to work the best for me. I think it will work for you too.

Make content the king of your success and make the search engines “drool” over your content! If you actually publish something of value rather than trying to game the search engines you will be miles ahead of many….many marketers.

Don’t sit back and wait for traffic, go get it!

A lot of marketers build their website and wait for traffic to come to them. Do you know how many websites are out there? Millions, all competing for the same traffic. Who do you think will get the lions share of the traffic, those who sit back and wait for it to come to them or those that go out and get it?

Exactly, go out and get your traffic. Write a few articles and distribute them to the article directories. This will help you get one-way incoming links which the search engines love. Participate in related forums and provide valuable content and input in exchange for a link back to your website.

Forums have been a huge benefit for me. I started posting in several niche forums just to get a feel for what type of product they might want and before you know it I was getting traffic left and right. When I did some investigating I found it was coming from the forums that I had posted in. I mean BIG traffic and TARGETED traffic!

You can also advertise on select and related sites. Just make sure that the website you’re advertising on is actually a high ranking site with a steady stream of related visitors. The trick to getting traffic is to be consistent and to try a variety of different methods to help build incoming links.

Of course, you’ll also want to make sure that all of your website pages are search engine friendly, that your website has a user-friendly and search-engine friendly navigation structure.

Include plenty of links to outside resources and also link to other articles inside your website. This will get the reader to stay on your site longer, lower your bounce rate, and increase the value of your site in Google and other search engines.

Be a Real Person. Many websites are cold and unfriendly. This won’t help your sales. People are sceptical and when doing business on the web, they’re going to opt for websites which appear professional and also reassure them that there is indeed a real person behind the website.

Be sure to include an “about us” section on your website as well as a contact and privacy page. If you are having trouble creating a privacy policy page there is a WordPress plugin called Easy Privacy Policy that will create on for you in a snap.

A picture of you and your team (if you have one) is a nice touch as well. Share a little about your business and let them know you are there to help them. People like to know you are human. As quirky as it may sound…. the more human and less polished the website sometime the more traffic you get because it looks authentic.

Building a website requires a lot of hard work and a lot of common sense. Dont over think it adn put yourself in the shoes of your target market. What would they want to see when they come to your website…. and give it to them.

And finally, being personable and letting your customers know that you are there to help them should the decide to purchase anything from you. The more they trust you the more they will come back and the easier you might make a sale.

Do you have a website that struggles to get traffic? You aren’t alone. That was one of the most difficult things I had to figure out and it still changes all the time.

Without traffic you could have the best looking site and it wouldn’t matter. On the flip side, you could have a so…so…. looking site that gets tons of traffic and you could make a ton of mula (money) off of it.

I always like to show people the website Plenty Of Fish to illustrate my point. Even though they just recently went through a site upgrade, they still are pretty basic and they get an Enormous amount of traffic.

So just what is the right formula for more website traffic? There is no perfect road map and one source isn’t going to do it for you but here are some tips that will get you started and going in the right direction.

#1 – Write and distribute articles. This may seem like a simple strategy on the surface but it can be very powerful. Just writing one or two articles a day will quickly add to a lot of incoming one-way links (the type of links the search engines love most) for your business. I have about 100 articles submitted (over the last several years) to ezinearticles.com and other article directories and the send pretty good traffic.

Once you write the articles distribute them to a few top ranking directories. Don’t stop there, distribute a few articles to large online traffic websites  like Problogger, ShoeMoney, or John Chow directly. Give them exclusive use of the article in exchange for the incoming link. This is a great strategy you can easily apply.

#2 – Make your pages search engine and reader friendly. Striking the balance between writing for your human visitors as well as the search engines is simple if you stick to this rule – write for the reader first and then naturally insert your keyword phrases into your copy.

It’s also a good idea to include all the appropriate SEO tags on all your pages. These tags help the search engines find you. Here is a good article on Search Engine Optimization if you need further info.

#3 – Set up a search-engine friendly navigation structure. For the search engines (and your human visitors) to find the content on your website, you need a clear navigation structure. This structure should consist of your top topics which are also your keywords and then for each of those main pages you’ll have sub pages including extensions of that main keyword. A good example of this would be Traffic/On page SEO/Keyword Research.

By having the main keywords as your top topics on your navigation structure, your readers and the search engines will easily find your deeper pages of content. It’s also a good idea to include a back link to your home page on each page of your website. A clear and well-defined site map is a great addition as well. If you use WordPress (which I highly recommend) this is already done for you.

These three key steps are a good starting point to build your traffic. Apply them regularly and ensure that your content is fresh and up-to-date and you can’t help but to win over both the search engines and your human visitors too.

I have been marketing online now for about a year and a half and I have seen everything there is to see to boost your traffic to your website. I mean everything….link wheels, stuff keywords, articles with links, buy traffic, buy links, meta tags, on page video linking, you name it…I have probably tried it.

Then I came a cross this little tip ebook from Jeramey “Shoemoney” Schoemaker about SEO. it is only 12 pages long but it is packed with great information on SEO.

There are two main points (you still need to read it to get the details) that are essential to increasing your page rank and getting some love from Google. Those are 1) Make your site natural, don’t be a spammer as Google (or Yahoo, Bing, Ask, etc) will catch on and never rank you for anything. 2) Links are the most important factor in determining whether Google trusts your site to have quality content or not.

Jeremy goes on to say that you should pursue incoming links from related websites with a page rank of 3 or better. Anything less is just a waste of your time and effort. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Google wants their “customers” to have the best experience possible and if you help them accomplish that, they will reward you with an huge amount of traffic.

There are other factors that you should explore in the short ebook including how to gain an inbound link from one of those sites. There are some helpful ideas that should make your link building a bit easier.

So if you have been dancing around the wrong tree just like I have, it is time to start doing something that will make a difference and that is getting inbound links to your site. Each link is like a vote of confidence and the more “high page ranked” sites you have linked to your site the more confidence Google will have in your site and the sooner you will start to see more traffic.

I recently added a video to one of my niche market sales pages to see if I could increase the conversion rate. I had heard that video makes a big difference so I thought I’d give it a try. Does it really help? We’ll find out in a month or so as I just started the test and will report back in.

Video is so intriguing that I made it part of my marketing strategy (in most areas) so I thought it would be a natural progression to include it in my sales pages. I’ve never really cared for a sales page with all video, especially if isn’t done correctly. All written word isn’t all that compelling either for that matter, as both can be a bit stale if not done properly.

So, I decided to give video a shot on one of my sales pages just to see if I could make some improvements. I didn’t incorporate it all the way through, just in one section which I’ll explain next.

Ah…the catch, I only put testimonials on video. I created a PowerPoint presentation with testimonials copied on to each page and then did a voice over and read them. This way the customer could see the testimonial and hear it too.

My conversion rate on this particular page has hovered around 2.5% and I am determined to raise that to above 5% through split testing and trying different techniques. I will let you know how it goes from time to time so stop back in or bookmark or subscribe to my blog.

If you have any experience with video increasing your conversion please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!

After you have done all you can to drive traffic to your site, the next step is offering a product that converts. It can be very disappointing to know that you’ve completed all your research and followed each and every step only to find that the hungry niche that your research has led you to aren’t buying as much as you expected. It may be time to reevaluate the vendor you’re promoting.

There could be several reasons why the product isn’t converting. The vendor may just not appeal to your audience. This happens, and it could be their voice or marketing strategy that just isn’t hitting the mark. Or sometimes the sales letter is bad, product feedback and reviews are bad, or the reputation is bad, etc.

Don’t take any of these reasons personally, just be wise enough to know if a certain product is not converting then change it out for something new. There are plenty of products out there so don’t fall in love with one product, it is all about the conversions and the money.

Searching out a competing vendor that offers a similar product with a better sales page is simple. There are plenty of products out there to choose from but several things you should review first to ensure you are making a good choice.

Before signing up for the affiliate program, review the sales copy to make sure you’re comfortable with their marketing tactics. Even though you are not writing the copy take the time to review it carefully. By making a small change, you can greatly increase your affiliate checks. It’s all about the details to convert your visitors into buyers. If a certain vendor can’t do it, then it’s time to look elsewhere.

You’ll notice that two of these tips have to do with testing and tweaking. It can be tricky turning browsers into buyers, and it’s a two part job between you and the vendor. Keep testing to figure out the right combination that works best. You will improve your commissions and your customer’s happiness. Be sure to also continue to improve your web traffic. Marketing your website and boosting your rankings by gaining backlinks is definitely the way to go.

With some effort and patience you’re sure to find a winning combination that will help you get the bigger affiliate checks you deserve. The money is out there, your job is to figure out how to get it on a consistent basis.

Content is king if you want to attract readers to your blog or website. That is what Google is looking for and that is what will keep people coming back to your site over and over again.

However, writing articles all the time is difficult. Specially if you are not a professional writer (I’m definitely not a professional -:)). Fear not, content doesn’t always have to be articles. It could consist of video, PowerPoint presentation, audio, all kinds of different information channels. The one I have become better acquainted with lately is video. I love video!

Why, because depending on your writing skills it may be easier to “show” someone what you are doing or how you are doing it rather than writing about it.

Imagine looking over someones shoulder while they are creating a website, or searching for keywords, or optimizing a web page. how cool would that be. I enjoy making video’s because all I do is record the computer screen as I perform the tasks I do on a daily basis, edit it a bit, and post it to the site and BOOM…. you can see exactly what I did. And the best part…. nothing gets lost in the translation.

So…. you are thinking OK Gregg, how much is this going to cost me? Well, remember I want to bring you as much value as possible so how does FREE sound? That’s right, FREE!

The name of the product is Cam Studio. It is free and I have a free video on how to use it. I started out using Cam Studio but have progressed to “Camtasia” which is a bit more advanced and costs about $300. But you don’t need Camtasia to make video’s for content. All you need is Cam Studio and you are all set.

So why is video so good as content? Well, Google LOVES video and you might be able to get ranked for a certain keyword a lot sooner with video than an article.

Think about it. Google owns YouTube. Now who do you think they will push up in the rankings if you post something? An article posted at EzineArticles.com or a video at YouTube? R I G H T….exactly. See how this works? And you don’t have to be a pro either.

So fire up your Flip Mino or just record your computer screen with Cam Studio, either way, you need to get started producing video’s today.

Do you think you can do this or is this too complicated? Please leave a comment below.