3 Ways to Increase Your Google Juice

"Google Juice" is that magical substance that allows your site to show up high in the Google rankings when people use the Google search engine to search for a specific subject. The higher your ranking, the more likely people are to visit your site. Here are three basic tips on how to increase the Google Juice, and thus increase website traffic, on your site.

1) Use keywords that are often used in the text of your site. In particular, use keywords that show up in heading tags and links. Use keyword phrases, not just keywords. Be sure and include colloquial expressions ("lameness" in addition to "laminitus") and common misspellings ("foriegn" in addition to "foreign").

2) Embrace the hyperlink! Link to other sites. Not only does this increase your ability to show up higher in Google rankings, it also allows you to put a great deal of information in a very small space, by allowing the end-user the option to pursure a particular subject or keyword in more detail. The NASA Astronokmy Picture of the Day is an excellent example of this: a short explanatory paragraph provides a wealth of information simply by using hyperlinks liberally.

Other sites linking to you will also increase your Google rankings, so get to know sites that write about related topics. Link to them, and suggest they link to you. This is an excellent strategy to increase website traffic.

3) Optimize your keywords. There is a great tool called the Google Keyword tool that allows you to search and sort actual Google word and phrase searches, and choose keywords based on those listings. You input either your URL or a list of keywords, and it gives you the monthly traffic rate and advertiser competition for those keywords. The goal is to find keywords and keyword phrases with relatively a relatively high number of searches (3rd cloumn in the illustration below), but low advertiser competition (2nd column). This will often involve "long tailed" keyword phrases, meaning very specific - and often longer - keyword phrases not as commonly used on webpages. For more information, visit the recorded Connect session on Google Search engines and Keyword optimization. The session is about 45 minutes long.