How to Boost Your Blog's Authority and Google Traffic the Natural Way

Google traffic includes all visits to your blog that come from a keyword search on the Google search engine. Website and blog owners who want to build their audiences are very interested in increasing the rankings that their content gets in Google keyword searches. For example, instead of being the 50th result for a relevant keyword search, they want to be #1 (or at least in the top 10).

There are many search engine optimization tricks that you can use to increase your Google search rankings for keywords related to your blog. Many bloggers and website owners resort to trying to circumvent the Google algorithm by paying for links to their sites and other activities that can help boost their search rankings in the short-term but could be in violation of Google's policies and hurt their blogs in the long-term.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="705"] How to Increase Organic Google Traffic to Your Blog[/caption]

A better way to increase Google traffic to your blog is organically. By concentrating on building a great blog that people want to read, talk about, and share, your search rankings will grow naturally. That type of growth is a powerful thing and leads to a traffic bump that will last for a very long time.

Following are 5 ways to boost your organic Google traffic, so you can get started right now.

• How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines

1. Quality Content for Your Readers, Not for Search Engines

One of the most important factors that Google and other search engines weigh when ranking search results is the quality of websites and blogs. That means your content should be focused on your blog's niche topic, so your audience continually gets fresh useful content to read. In time, Google should identify your blog as a destination for specific content, which can only help your search rankings and Google traffic.

2. Making It Irresistible to Stick Around on Your Blog

Google also considers how long people stay on your blog in its search algorithm. When people stick around and visit multiple pages and posts on your blog in a single visit, that tells Google that your content is relevant and useful or interesting. With that in mind, take the time to create user-friendly navigation that leads visitors to related content, hot topics, and any other content on your blog that could keep them interested for a bit longer.

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3. Ensuring the User Experience is Always Good

Making sure that the user experience on your blog is always good plays an important role in boosting organic Google traffic. Remember, since Google considers the amount of time people spend on your blog in its search algorithm, a bad user experience that keeps visitors from sticking around any longer than they have to could hurt your Google traffic. Therefore, make sure you have reliable web hosting, streamline your navigation, lose the clutter on your pages, and make links to relevant and interesting content easy to find.

Good web hosting also matters because Google looks at the page load speed for the pages on your blog and ranks sites with faster page load speeds higher than sites with slower page low speeds. Make sure your hosting account is giving your blog the best possible page load speed.

4. Use Internal Links but Don't Overuse Internal Links

Internal links within your blog posts that lead to your best content, additional useful content, and related entertaining content can help to boost your organic Google traffic. By drawing attention to your best and most useful content, people will value your blog more and are more likely to read additional posts, share posts with their social networks, and return to your blog again.

All of these activities help to increase organic search traffic, so include internal links in your blog posts whenever those links enhance your content and the user experience. Just be careful not to stuff internal links into your posts or you could look like a spammer. That could draw negative attention and penalties from Google.

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5. Avoid Short-Term SEO Tricks that Can Devalue Your Blog

It can be tempting to pay for some incoming links to increase your blog's authority in Google's algorithm, which should increase Google traffic to your blog. However, short-term tactics can only work for so long (hence the phrase "short-term tactics").

Use ethical short-term search engine optimization tactics to enhance your ongoing efforts to write a lot of quality content that your niche audience wants to read and share. I call this "shareworthy" content (source: "30-Minute Social Media Marketing," McGraw-Hill, 2010), and it's the most valuable thing you can create to increase sustainable, organic Google traffic and grow your blog.