Many people develop a website under the impression that traffic is just going to start pouring in. This, quite frankly, never happens. To build traffic and eventually earn money from your website, you need to focus on optimizing your content pages and marketing materials so that they can most easily be found on search engines. In other words, you cannot just write whatever you want and hope someone sees it. You actually have to write what people want to see. This process can get a little complicated, but the information below should give you a reasonable idea about what goes on and how you can use it to your advantage.
Whenever someone uses a search engine, he or she normally uses a keyword or keyphrase to search for whatever it is he or she is looking for. This is the way that most people will find your site. In order to effectively reach your audience, you have to know what keywords the people are using to get to sites like yours. Then you have to make sure you use those words in your web content and marketing material so that your site can show up as a result of their search.
Each search engine offers tools for web developers to help them figure out what these keywords are. Google AdWordsKeyword Tool, for instance, allows you to see how many people are looking for a certain keyword online and what common forms of that keyword are being used. There you can also see how many other sites are targeting the same keyword so you get an idea of your competition. Think of words related to the content, products, and services on your site and then see if other people are using them online.
You need to have a good list of keywords to use rather than focusing on one or two. You cannot see how effective they will be from the starting stages, so you need to have a widespread option to build from. Then you can figure out what words most people use to get to you through analytical tools later on. The whole process starts with this keyword research though, and it is vital to your success as a whole. If your site does not have the right words in place, you will not get the right kind of traffic to it. A little research will go a long way for you.
