Every website owner wants their website to be popular; some just might not admit to it! To increase traffic to your website, I suggest the following to start with:

Unique content

Visitors and Search engines love unique content - nobody likes to read the same paragraphs over and over. Your visitors will return to your website and search engines will rank your site high for being unique.

Get linked

Getting linked is very important, the majority of your visitors will find your website through links, whether they be on Google or a directory website. Our advice is to submit your website in appropriate places - directories that are suited to your website. Search engines will find your website automatically, so don't waste your time submitting to them!

Keyword rich text

Most websites are set up to achieve a goal - whether it be to sell a product or service or to promote something or someone. CJ Website Hosting recommends you think of a dozen keywords that you would like people to search for (in search engines) to get to your website. Once you have the list, try to put them within your website content - but keep the sentances making sense - search engines will spot keyword spammers!

Link to relevant websites

Linking to websites can be as powerful as being linked. If you link to websites that are relevant to your websites content - you will receive brownie points for doing so. Search engines categorise your website depending on what you link to, for example, if you linked to several "home made recipe" websites, search engines will guess that your website has something to do with home made recipes.

Use heading tags and appropriate titles

Heading tags such as <h1>, <h2> etc.. are known to be vital HTML tags. Not only do they tell visitors what your page is about, they also help search engines to categorise your site. Same goes for the <title> tag. Make sure your title tag is short and to the point - including a URL in your tag is a big no no.

Other tips include; making your website standards compliant, minimilising the amount of HTML code on your pages (by using div based layouts), utilising the alt and title attribute and using URL rewriting techniques.

About the author: Sara Tompson is a support engineer at CJ Website Hosting. Research interests include SEO and Accessibility in web design.