Content: The Overlooked Traffic Generator (Or How I Got 79% More Traffic in One Month)

You've heard this so often, you're probably sick of it:

Content is King!

But in the search for website traffic, the site's content is the often overlooked, neglected and forgotten traffic getter.

It's easy to get caught up in doing search engine optimization (SEO) work: finding keywords, making sure the target keywords are sprinkled naturally all over your site, submitting articles to article directories, posting videos to video sharing sites, commenting on other blogs, posting in forums… the list is endless.

But what about the content on your site? Is it worthy of attention from boat-loads of readers?

In the last two month, I managed to increase a niche blog's traffic by 79% without doing any of the SEO work I listed above. This was a neglected WordPress blog that was a year old. It had about 200 posts and 387 inbound links from my previous linkbuilding efforts.

79% More Traffic Without SEO?

Here's what happened after my little content “experiment”:

Content Is SEO

How did I increase this blog's traffic in such a short time?

Simple. I published a new post every day. That's all.

I didn't even do any keyword research. I didn't optimize each post for any keywords at all, much less attempt to get any backlinks for it. Well, I did send a tweet with a link to each new post, so that counts as a backlink.

But that was all.

Prior to this experiment, this blog would go for weeks without any new content. A shot of new content had an immediate and significant impact on the site's organic traffic.

How to Publish More Content

It's not easy to publish a new post every day. For this niche blog, I used PLR with minor rewrites. I just didn't have the time to make each post completely unique. However, I did make sure that each was properly written and had no grammatical errors or typos.

This month, November 2009, I'm tweaking the monetization of this site. I'll let you know the results of these efforts in a future post.

Conclusion

If you want more traffic, publish more content on your site. Each post or article is a new piece of virtual real estate. Each one represents an opportunity for web users to find you. Each piece of content on your own site makes it easier for your target readers to find you.

Before you go out and do all the busy SEO work outside your site, first make sure you're providing quality content to your existing and potential readers consistently.

photo credit: Burning Image