When can I search engine traffic?

[2mind]

I'm not very knowledgeable about SEO or the workings of google. My site is six weeks old and currently gets a whooping 30 or 40 visits a day from search engines :( . Anybody know how long before I can expect some decent traffic from the search engines?

[Kasami2k4]

Depends on the trends and keywords youre after. Maybe if yu make it into a #1 spot for somethin good ;p

[Sergio]

You should already be getting decent traffic if you did things right.

[2mind]

So I obviously haven't done things right :( Problem is I don't know what it is that I haven't done right?

[Kasami2k4]

haha, you're very vague! First, get the sitemap thing done, and submit it to google, yahoo, msn.. Then get your pagerakn, and exchange with a bunch of people using your keyword choice. I dunno what youre doing O.o

[George]

I'm not very knowledgeable about SEO or the workings of google. My site is six weeks old and currently gets a whooping 30 or 40 visits a day from search engines :( . Anybody know how long before I can expect some decent traffic from the search engines?You don't just put up a site and "expect" the search engines to send you traffic.

That's your problem.

[2mind]

I don't mean to be vague :) So far I've been buying links with sites that rank well or have good traffic and that's accounting for pretty much all my visitors right now. I've submitted to google and the other search engines using a site submission site. I haven't done the sitemap but will look into it. I see I've got 0 pages ranked by google. How long will that last?

I guess I'm wondering how long other people had their sites before they began to see some good search engine traffic and if there is anything very obvious that I should be doing but am not.

Oh an I just saw that somebody came to my site from a google search for 'myspace layouts' ... on page 49 lol ... do people really dig that deep????

[2mind]

You don't just put up a site and "expect" the search engines to send you traffic.

That's your problem.

I'm not just 'expecting' traffic. I'm wondering what I have to do to get it and if what I'm getting right now is normal and if anybody can give me constructive advice.

[George]

Build links to your site with the proper anchor text reflecting the keywords you want to rank for.

Optimize your pages to have the keywords in the <title> and description tags as well as headline text on the page.

You said Anybody know how long before I can expect some decent traffic from the search engines? without any more info so that's what it appeared you were doing.

Just going off what you gave.

[2mind]

Thanks for tips George. I'm not sure how the script I'm using is for putting keywords in the title tags but I'll look into doing that.

Just in relation to links. I've bought quite a few and notice that most people have thing like 'hot layouts', 'myspace layouts' etc. so I've tended to avoid that and have gone with things like 'kickass layouts' or 'awesome layouts' which is probably not the best as it's not very keyword specific to my site. I didn't realise that text links on other sites affected SEO :)

[Ammy]

Just in relation to links. I've bought quite a few and notice that most people have thing like 'hot layouts', 'myspace layouts' etc. so I've tended to avoid that and have gone with things like 'kickass layouts' or 'awesome layouts' which is probably not the best as it's not very keyword specific to my site. I didn't realise that text links on other sites affected SEO :)

I didn't realise that until recently either... I'm trying to pick some keywords to use as my link on other sites but I don't know what would be easy to rank highly for ... good luck with the ones you went for! ;)

[steveAR]

i can help with the seo stuff and ide suggest doing some keyword research to see what you want to go after. try to go after the lesser popualr ones for now.

[Ammy]

I wouldn't know where to start with researching keywords... how about something like "Cute girly graphics" or "Cute Myspace Graphics" do you think they have much competition? Would they be worth going for? =)

[minnseoelite]

If you are just starting out with SEO try for some 3 word Keyword Phrases like Guy Myspace Layouts, Cute Myspace Graphics ect. Once you get the hang of ranking for those then move to related 2 word Phrases like Guys Layouts

[Ammy]

That's good advice =D I don't really understand SEO, I didn't know you could actually work on getting higher rankings! I know I'm on the first page for a couple of keywords but that's just by chance, I don't know why I'm ranked so high for them, like "contact buttons" or "small comment boxes" because I've never really got any links with those names except for my navigation menu on my site... so I have no idea! Would "Cute Quotes" be too big to go for do you think? A few people suggested that, but I want to go for something achievable =)

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

What George said. And having unique content is paramount to ranking well, or in the case of most of the kind of stuff that sites like ours offer, present it in a unique way (as far as what the spiders will see/read).

And consider that there are millions of others competing for the same spots. Want to rank for "Myspace Comments"? Then you're competing with NINETY-SEVEN MILLION other pages for the same spot. If you are the one-millionth page listed in search results, then you are basically in the top one-percent.

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

And at least as far as Google goes, unique content will beat the crap out of any and all SEO techniques, hands down, every time.

[Connections]

And at least as far as Google goes, unique content will beat the crap out of any and all SEO techniques, hands down, every time.


are you sure about that?

if you have unique content with 0 promo done to it, no link building, nothing in terms of SEO.

vs unique content + SEO techniques????

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

If the content is truly unique, nothing else stand up against it.

[Benahue]

Yea, I was gonna say, unique content is important, but people with LOADS of unique content are still getting whipped by people doing blackhat things like say, bulk trackback posting. Google's algo (which places too much weight on domain authority right now) can and is easily abused by people who like short cuts rather than spending hours and hours putting unique content on their site. But unique content is obviously a very important concern for any non-shady route.

[2mind]

k assuming the content is unique, the link exchanges keyword are optimized for my site and I've done everything right, what from eveybody's experience here is the timeline for decent traffic. I'm on 40-50 a day from search engines and would like 400-500 a day :) :) . I have faith in that happening someday but I'd like to know how long it took people who are there to get there.

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

Why not push your stuff on Myspace itself? Unless you rank for very high-traffic terms, it is easier to get more traffic directly from Myspace than from search engines. That's one wonderful thing about the Myspac game; if you can't get enough exposure from SE's and other traditional web traffic sources, you can go right out and get it yourself, on Myspace, for free.

[2mind]

lol ... I'm too old for myspace :) I'll could get my daughter to do it for me. What about buying comments and bulletins but I've seen people recommend against this as its spamming??? Here in Ireland, myspace is far less popular than it was a year ago. All the kids now are on Bebo.

[Connections]

here are some basics to get more search engine traffic.

* Get your site linked to a PR2 page, will then be picked up by google very quick.

* Have at least 5 pages on your site, use unique page titles.

* USe content all over th place

* Add your site to google webmaster tools, add verification and add a site map.

then just build your links, do link exchanges in the same niche.

advertising + adding content.

this will get you more and more traffic over time.

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

lol ... I'm too old for myspace

Me too. No offense, but it sounds to me like you are just got into this game because it looked like a free lunch. :p

One thing that you will find in all saturated markets is... competition. If you aren't going to be competitive, you aren't going to find any kind of success.

[Connections]

well he does seem to make quality myspace layouts so I don't see a problem with him trying to tap into the market.

Why sell layouts to webmaster for them to make more ROI.

when he can do both????

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

He's got to go after some exposure though. If the SE's aren't giving him any love, it's kinda like having a stockpile of merchandise for sale, but nobody is buying because it's stashed in the basement where nobody knows about it.

I would suggest getting some eyeballs by putting up a bogus "hot chick" profile, put in friend requests to high-traffic pages (pop stars, etc), spend a few days making comments on those high-traffic pages, and see if the snowball effect starts to kick in once a few people see and use his layouts. This strategy worked quite nicely for promoting my urban apparel site, though I used a default pic of a bulldog in a pimp costume - I would imagine that a default pic of a "hot chick" would attract even more attention than that did.

[2mind]

Me too. No offense, but it sounds to me like you are just got into this game because it looked like a free lunch. :p

One thing that you will find in all saturated markets is... competition. If you aren't going to be competitive, you aren't going to find any kind of success.


No offense taken :) Also he is a she! A free lunch wouldn't have me sitting at my computer for 12 hours a day working on improving my site and tyring to beat the competition. I'm not naive enough to think that if I build it they will come. I'm prepared to work, just lacking knowledge of SEO strategies and that's partly why I'm here on this form, to learn from others who are further along than me :)

[2mind]

I would suggest getting some eyeballs by putting up a bogus "hot chick" profile, put in friend requests to high-traffic pages (pop stars, etc), spend a few days making comments on those high-traffic pages, and see if the snowball effect starts to kick in once a few people see and use his layouts. This strategy worked quite nicely for promoting my urban apparel site, though I used a default pic of a bulldog in a pimp costume - I would imagine that a default pic of a "hot chick" would attract even more attention than that did.

It's a creative solution and I'm going to try it ... nothing to loose :)


well he does seem to make quality myspace layouts so I don't see a problem with him trying to tap into the market.

Why sell layouts to webmaster for them to make more ROI.

when he can do both????

I sell layouts here to pay for adverstising on the bigger myspace resource sites :) Usually no more than 5 to 10 packs are sold and in a pool of gazillions of myspace resources sites so I figure that's ok to keep my site original enough :)

[lyzyrdgyzyrd]

In any case, don't be too discouraged by lack of SE traffic if it doesn't come. Myspace itself can and will deliver more traffic than the SE's would anyway, once you find a way to get the ball rolling. The key to that is simply to get your stuff up in front of people's faces and wait for them to use it. Then they'll do most of the work for you, by using/virally spreading your stuff :)

[2mind]

I'm always the optimist but it can be discouraging when your working so hard and not getting the traffic :( I've got loads to work with from this thread so I'm gonna spend this week implementing some of the suggestions and see how it goes :)

[Benahue]

I'm always the optimist but it can be discouraging when your working so hard and not getting the traffic :( I've got loads to work with from this thread so I'm gonna spend this week implementing some of the suggestions and see how it goes :)
There's working hard and then there's working smart. You should be targeting keywords that you can see results for in a timeframe that's suitable for you.

[Benahue]

I would suggest getting some eyeballs by putting up a bogus "hot chick" profile, put in friend requests to high-traffic pages (pop stars, etc), spend a few days making comments on those high-traffic pages, and see if the snowball effect starts to kick in once a few people see and use his layouts. This strategy worked quite nicely for promoting my urban apparel site, though I used a default pic of a bulldog in a pimp costume - I would imagine that a default pic of a "hot chick" would attract even more attention than that did.
I don't know. There are a lot of people with a dog in a pimp costume fetish.