An interesting question came up in a group I started over at IM Faceplate about WordPress Questions. Imagine that, me starting a group to discuss questions about WordPress

This is very much related to my post earlier this week when I talked about taking advantage of your analytics.

I’ve found I’m getting more traffic from search engines through my content than my keywords. Does this mean I’m doing something wrong, or is it just that I happen to write my posts in a way that’s very search engine friendly?

First and foremost you are not doing anything wrong. It is not at all unusual to get traffic from searches that you did not target.

That was the point in paying attention to your analytics and finding those phrases and then going back and specifically creating keyword targeted posts for those phrases.

A lot of times if you are picking very competitive keywords to target you may actually end up getting traffic from the longer tail of the main keyword and not from the keyword you optimized for.

So you understand when I say long tail these are the words that are ore than one word. For example if you are writing about dog collars a phrase like electric dog training collar would be a long tail phrase.

This is the key when you are doing your keyword research. Target the long tail first. If you want to rank for dog collars it would be better to target terms like

• electric dog training collars
• choker dog training collars
• diamond dog collars
• and more similar type terms.

all of which have your main keyword dog collar in it. You will eventually rank for the term dog collars but you will be much more likely to rank high for the longer tail words.

Building these types of silos for the primary keywords you want to rank for and you will rank not just for the long tail but as you gain enough rankings in the long tail you will rise in the rankings for the main keyword too.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed. Leave your comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: analytics, keyword-research, search engines, search-engine, silos, traffic

Twitter and Facebook have long been good traffic sources for me. Interacting with the various social networks and using them can be an excellent source of traffic for your blog.

Now I am finding a third site that has started climbing up the stats for traffic. IM Faceplate is very new (about 6 or 7 weeks) but has started showing up more and more in the tip 5 of referrers for my blog.

There is a reason for it and it is not because I built a huge group of followers. After all I have twice the number on Facebook and many times that number on Twitter.

The reason is that I am active on the network. I add new content and items of interest regularly.

See the key with any social site is to actually be active and taking part in the conversations going on there.

It does not matter if it is the big ones like Twitter and Facebook or newer ones like IM Faceplate. It is being active and having interaction.

The same thing is true of forums too.

Everyone is always looking for the easy traffic sources but just joining and expecting traffic does not happen.

Now you do not need to take a lot of time on any of these networks but it is important that you are interacting and adding to the conversations.

If you are not getting traffic from your social networking look and see how much you are adding to the conversations there. If you are not getting traffic you probably are not taking part in the conversations.

Your comments and questions are always welcomed. Lever them below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog, blog traffic, conversations, Facebook, im faceplate, social networking, social networks, traffic sources, twitter

One of the over looked way to generate more traffic is by paying attention to how people find you that you did not target. I do this but was reminded of it yesterday.

I had a Twitter conversation with a good friend of mine. Long time readers know my good friend Steve Roye. He runs a blog to presell his Killer Standup Comedy System.

We are always bouncing ideas back and forth even though Steve has gone away from internet marketing and is focused on his comedy business.

I saw a post he wrote “Is The Killer Stand-up Comedy System A Scam? Is Steve Roye A Scam Artist? “

So I dropped him a direct message asking if someone had been bad mouthing his course. (They should not be but he teaches a different method so I thought maybe someone had tried to rip him.)

The answer was no that no one had but he was getting traffic from the terms with his course name and scam. So he wrote a very specific blog post to target that topic. It will increase his traffic and it also is a very targeted topic for targeting his buyers. Someone interested enough about his course to be searching about it being a scam is definitely a potential buyer.

He was taking advantage of what people had already been searching for and wanted to rank higher. It is something I do when I go through either my Google Analytics account or MyBlogLog stats and see searches for topics I did not initially target.

This is a great way to get additional traffic and to increase your ranking for terms that people are already searching for and finding you through. Write a blog post targeting those keywords and you will stand a very good chance to rank much higher for those terms.

If you are getting one or two visitors this could easily get you even more traffic.

So pay attention to your stats and if you are getting one or two visitors for a term you never targeted then a blog post can move you up the serps for that term and send you even more traffic.

Your questions and comments are welcomed.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog, google analytics, internet marketing, scam artist, serps, stand up comedy, traffic