6 Effective SEO Techniques to Boost Your Site Traffic It is very important to note that one should never alter his/her old permalinks as that will break the backlinks

SEO we all know is a key factor in driving traffic to a certain website. This makes it very critical for users to implement the most efficient methods possible.

What is SEO?

To simplify, Google applies automatic algorithms to grade the never-ending number of websites. Technicians at Google set out what they call "spiders" to evaluate a site based on over 100 indicators. It is the job of these spiders to decide whether a particular website is valuable or not. Some of these indicators are domain age, fresh content, traffic, and backlinks.

The target of SEO is to provide the spiders with what they are looking for. It's a complicated and ever-altering art capable of making your heads spin. However, it's not as chaotic as many may think. A set of fixed elements and truths have remained same ever since the inception of internet. These time-tested are the accurate SEO techniques. Following are seven such processes -

1) Own Your Own Domain and Hosting

Entrepreneurs often don't understand that free websites won't help you regarding SEO. "Google only wants to recommend websites which they consider reliable. In order to make it to Google's selected list, content marketers should get their individual hosting space from the very beginning," advised Ritusmita Biswas, founder, Wordsmith Writing Services, a digital communication and content development agency.

2) Content Creation Has to be Original

Google's mission is to offer search results which are helpful and pertinent. This reality has to be integrated into content creation for SEO. People look for solutions to their problems.

"If you are successful in establishing that you have the answer to their troubles then chances are high that your content will be shared widely and Google will move your website up in rankings. Whether you create your own content or take the help of writers, be original in approach," notified Sruti Kanta Mishra, founder, Maiestas Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Content can be in an array of variables - videos, photos, tools and plugins. One can opt for one or all of these options. "The focus should be to help the site visitors easily and quickly. Build a strong relationship with your audience and they'll share your content widely, raising your rankings faster," he added.

3) Create Relevant and Natural Backlinks

Backlinks are links that direct to your site from someone else's. While backlinks are advantageous for SEO, one needs to know a few basic things when using them.

If the site providing the backlink is a well-known domain name that's high up in the rankings, then Google sees that backlink as being worth more than one that's less known. One link from a well-known domain name will improve your rankings much more effectively than a host of links from comparatively obscure sites. Anchor text or the words in the hyperlink must be relevant to the target keywords. According to Subhasis Chatterjee, a Web Journalist, a Content Architect and Content Analyst, it's not sensible to buy them as Google discourages this practice and knows how to identify them. "The most useful approach to obtain the best backlinks is to create amazing content for the website and transform that into guest post invitations for top blogs for your niche," he explained.

4) Social Media Presence is a Must

For both traffic building and SEO, a strong social media presence is essential more so as Google now considers a website's social media presence a key factor of its relevance and influence. In other words, if Google finds thousands of tweets and re-tweets on an article then its search engine giant will automatically conclude the piece as something significant and will reward the site in terms of ranking.

The best way to get more tweets and comments on an article is by writing brilliant content which has the potential to inspire readers to promote it.

5) Optimize Your Theme

SEO optimization of themes allows Google to understand the efficacy of the site and it also makes it easier for Google to trace the content. To use optimization for driving traffic to your site, it is important to offer a pleasing experience for visitors and offer a website that loads quickly. Make sure that all the links are unbroken. "Clicking or touching broken links can frustrate users, hence ensure a connected and smooth experience," shared Chatterjee.

The theme has to be user-friendly and coded in such a way that it allows both intuitive and functional navigation. While the available template themes often work well, the impact of a custom designed one will enable your website and brand stand out from others.

6) Optimize Permalinks

Permalink is an arrangement that consists of an extension and a root. The inexperienced ones find out a site and its pages and post through permalinks. Strong permalink structures are critical to your website's success. "Those using WordPress can easily change permalinks from "settings" and by clicking on "permalinks". Once there, make sure that you have the post name in the permalink. You can insert /%postname%/ by clicking the "custom structure" icon," guided Shounak Pal, founder, Papyrofix, a content development platform focusing on document creation and editing.

However, it is very important to note that one should never alter his/her old permalinks as that will break the backlinks.

These tips and techniques if implemented properly can help in driving traffic to a website or blog. Eventually, one can avail other trendier techniques to give the website greater boost.