Can You Really Build More Traffic Without Using Blackhat SEO

Getting traffic to either your website, blog or Hub is one of the most important factors for many people. While businesses may have thousands of dollars in advertising and marketing budget to bring traffic to their website, lone bloggers, Hubbers and website owners aren't so lucky; therefore, they have to look at other methods to bring visitors to their part of the web.

Since it can be a long drawn out process, a lot of people get extremely frustrated and resort to underhand tactics such as blackhat SEO to achieve the traffic and visitor volume they're after. Blackhat SEO is a method of using highly suspect and questionable tactics to make your blog or site look more popular than it actually is. These tactics can range from buying links to your site; placing keyword stuffed pages on your site, but hiding them from public view; and submitting false pages to the search engines.

While these tactics may work in the short term, they will always fail, and the penalties can be very harsh. Google, in particular, don't look favorably on blackhat tactics and will ban your site from its search engine if you're found guilty of using them. Considering that Google accounts for over two thirds of all search engine results, and you can see why its not a good idea to upset them. So if blackhat tactics don't work, how do you get traffic to your site?

Simple - unique content that is frequently updated, latent and organic keywords, relevant inbound links and community participation. This is the only way that you will climb the search engines, and maintain a healthy position once you're on the top pages.

Unique Content

People that visit your blog, Hub or website are just like you - they don't want to read rehashed information or poorly written tips and advice. Instead, they want to know why something works the way it does, or what makes something tick. They're looking for you to provide that information, and this is where unique content comes in. By providing fresh, original unique content that both advises and entertains, you will gain far more traffic than just recycling someone else's work.

Organic Keywords

Combine this content with strategically placed keywords and keyword phrases, and the effect will be even more dramatic. This is where many people go wrong, unfortunately, and basically drown a web page in keywords. The aim is to have content that is keyword-rich without actually looking like it is, and this is where organic keywords come into effect. Use natural phrases built around your keywords - "online GPS dealers", for example, as opposed to simply "GPS". Use your keywords at the start of your content and at the end for maximum effect as well.

Relevant Inbound Links

One of the best ways to increase your search engine rankings, and in turn bring more traffic to your site, is by having other sites link to you. The more inbound links you have, the more popular and relevant your site looks to the likes of Google. However, don't just have any website linking to you - have ones that are relevant to what your site is about. This will increase the authority to the links, and help you climb the search engine ladders. The best way to get relevant inbound links is to become part of the online community.

Community Participation

Everyone's heard of forums and discussion boards - did you know that they can act as a great way of increasing traffic to your site? By participating in forum and message board discussions, you're actively making new friends. These new friends will then check out your website and if they like what they see, they'll tell their friends and so on. Pretty soon you'll have a pretty good line of traffic coming to your website, all from a simple message on an online forum.

There are many other ways to increase traffic to your site without resorting to blackhat SEO tactics - article marketing campaigns as well as search engine optimized press releases distributed online, and social media networks like Digg, Newsvine and Technorati. All of them are highly effective at gaining an audience for your site, and they use ethical SEO tactics into the bargain - trust me, it's the best approach.