How’d you like to learn about one quick action you can take that will bring hundreds (or even thousands) of customers straight to your website for free?
I bet that sounds good — possibly even too good to be true — but I’m going to show you exactly how I do it every single month.
Now, this takes a little bit of technology, but don’t let that intimidate you.
Just one year ago, I knew absolutely nothing about this process and now I get thousands of visitors for free every month. After this post, you’ll know everything you need to know.
The Power of Blogging for Business
Without a doubt, one of the most powerful ways to grow your business is with a blog — when you do it right, of course.
It doesn’t matter if you have a small business, a tech startup, a non—profit organization, or a Fortune 500 company … blogging can get you results.
In two weeks, I’m inviting website traffic master Corbett Barr to talk with the Passive Panda community about starting a blog that matters, but until then let me show you an easy way to get business results with your blog right now.
I’m going to give you a brief peak inside Passive Panda’s actual traffic numbers.
Why am I sharing this private information for free?
Because I want you to know that the stuff I share works and that if you use my tips you will actually get results. Passive Panda is about sharing proven ways to build your business and earn more money.
I don’t dish out any fluff, filler, or scam–filled junk.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or someone looking to get started making money online — this post will help bring more customers into your business.
And when it does, you’ll know that the information I share is for real.
That way, when I offer a paid product down the road you won’t have to sit and wonder, “Is this going to work?”
You’ll know that my information works and you can move on to deciding if the product is right for you.
Good idea, huh? That’s the power of giving away great content.
Remember, I don’t just want you to earn more money, I want to show you how to do it. And that’s exactly what this post will do.
The Power of Targeted Traffic
Let’s take a look at a screenshot of Passive Panda’s traffic from last month.
Click to Enlarge
You’ll notice that there are 34,641 total unique people who visited the site last month. You’ll also notice that 16,524 came from Google organic search. That means that 16,524 people typed a phrase into Google’s search engine, found a search result from Passive Panda, and visited the page.
Even better, 15,976 or 96.6% of these people were new visitors. That’s a lot of new people discovering my business every month.
Without search engine traffic, this site had 18,117 unique visitors. With it, that number jumped to 34,641 unique visitors — a 91% increase. All of this traffic was for free and — here’s the really crazy part — I only added 3 new blog posts during the entire month of January. You don’t need a lot of time and effort to get big results.
Sidenote: I have never sent any paid traffic to Passive Panda from search engines or otherwise. Paid traffic can be very powerful if you do it right, but it’s not my area of expertise. At least, not yet.
So all these people come to my website, then what?
Once you get people on your site, you give them the best information possible and convert them to your email list!
That way you can email them about your products and services, any upcoming events, free webinars and training courses, you name it.
You’ll notice in the screenshot above that 283 people who found Passive Panda through a Google search ended up joining the Passive Panda newsletter.
That’s 283 free business leads that I got without lifting a finger.
And it’s probably even more than that because Google Analytics isn’t 100% accurate with it’s tracking. (Over 1,600 people joined our email list last month, but only 1,511 were recorded by Google Analytics.)
Imagine if you had that many new leads coming into your business every month.
Sidenote: This isn’t necessary to achieve the results in this post, but if you want to track how well all of your traffic sources are converting to your email list, then you need to do three simple things.
1) Install Google Analytics on your website. If you don’t have it, it’s free. Just do a Google search to find out how to get it and install it.
2) Go to this blog post, download the “Visitor Acquisition Efficiency Analysis” and install it in your Google Analytics account. That post will tell you everything you need to know and in five minutes you’ll be up and running.
3) Set up a goal in your Google Analytics to track email subscribers whenever they reach the page you send them to after they sign up. Add that goal to the Visitor Acquisition Efficiency Analysis you installed in Step 2.
I can tell you exactly how many email subscribers every traffic source sends to my email list just because of those 3 steps.
Most people make this too hard
So how do you get all this free traffic from Google?
The short answer is called Search Engine Optimization and that refers to optimizing your content so that it will show up in the search engines when people search for it.
The long answer is that it’s a really big topic. In fact, there is an entire industry filled with million dollar businesses dedicated just to this one topic.
In my opinion, 99% of people make SEO way to difficult and tedious. I’m here to run a business, not mess with tiny search engine details. (That said, if you really want to learn more about SEO, then I suggest reading the SEOmoz blog.)
Because I’m all about cutting through the fluff and delivering results, I’ll share the exact 3–step process I use to nail my SEO and get thousands of visitors from Google every month.
It only takes about 5 minutes of extra work with each blog post. Based on the results I shared with you above, I’m guessing you’ll agree that 5 minutes is worth the time.
I’ll also use a real article from Passive Panda as an example so you can see the concepts I’m talking about in action.
The 3–step process to getting free traffic from Google
Last month, my article 24 Networking Tips That Actually Work received 1,706 visitors from Google. If you search the phrase “networking tips” in Google right now, that article is probably in the #1 spot depending on where you are in the world.
And it’s not just search engine traffic that benefits. You’ll also notice that the networking tips article has been shared hundreds of times on social media and through email.
In other words, new people are finding Passive Panda through Google and then sharing the content with their friends. In other words, I’m not just getting free traffic, I’m also getting free referrals.
Here are the three steps that deliver these results…
1. Deliver the best content possible.
Always, always, always write for people first. There is no getting around this.
The search engine algorithms change, the technical platforms change, and the overall systems evolves, but the most basic purpose of search engines is to find exactly what people are looking for — and it will always be that way.
Don’t worry about search engines in step 1. Start by writing the best content you can.
If you write content that people love, then search engines will only love you more and more as they get better at finding what people love.
You’ll notice that the networking tips article provides really useful and sound advice. The quality of the content is why it’s been in the #1 position for months now.
2. Search for low competition, high traffic keyword phrases.
Here’s where the special tactics come into play.
Once you have written your article, you can spend a few minutes researching phrases that are related to the topic of your article. It’s possible to do this on your own, but it involves about a dozen steps and hours of work.
I don’t have time for that and I’m guessing you don’t either … but we still want results.
My solution is to use a powerful tool called Market Samurai which does all the work for me.
I’ll show you exactly how I do it in the short video below…
You’ll notice that Market Samurai gives me a ton of data in just five minutes or so.
It doesn’t take long to find a great keyword phrase that applies to the content you wrote in step 1.
3. Tweak the content to reflect the keyword phrase that you’re aiming to target.
Now that you have used Market Samurai to make sure that 1) enough people are searching for your term, 2) they are searching for that term and not something related to it, and 3) that the competition for the term is low enough that you can have a chance at getting to #1 in Google, you’re ready to use the data to make a few adjustments and publish your article.
Once you have your keyword phrase chosen, you can tweak your post to target that phrase. These are quick adjustments that you can make in under two minutes.
Here’s a list of everything I tweak…
Title of the blog post: the closer your keyword phrase is to the beginning of the title, the better off you will be. That’s why I titled the post “24 Networking Tips That Actually Work” and not “24 Amazing and Incredible Networking Tips”. You want your keyword to be near the beginning.
URL of the blog post: If possible, make the URL the exact phrase. For example, http://passivepanda.com/networking-tips
Images within the post: I’m not big on pictures in blog posts (which is strange since I’m a travel photographer), but if you have an image name it after the keyword phrase you’re targeting.
For example, networking-tips.jpg
Change related phrases to your keyword phrase: I always proofread my articles one last time before publishing. When I do this, I’ll change any closely related phrase to my keyword phrase.
For example, if I see “networking skills” or “tips for networking” I will rework the sentence so that it says “networking tips” instead.
Don’t go overboard with this. Every paragraph doesn’t need your keyword phrase in it. I simply substitute it when it’s a natural fit.
And that’s all I do.
It took me far longer to explain this process than it does to actually complete it. Once you get it down, you can complete all of the work in under 5 minutes.
Smart, targeted work like this will pay dividends for months or even years later. A few simple adjustments can make a big difference.
Bonus Step: Add internal and external links using your keyword phrase.
Internal links are links on your own site that point back to your original page.
For example, when I use the phrase networking tips and link back to my original post, that is an internal link. Including internal links that use your keyword phrase across your website can help strengthen the search engine optimization of the site. These are also very easy to add, so if you remember to do it, throw a few of them in each blog post.
External links are when you get a link from an outside website pointing back to your original page.
Building external links back to your original page is one of those things that many SEO lovers obsess over. I don’t bother with it too much.
If I have time and it works with my schedule, then I will write a few guest posts for related websites about the topic or something closely related. Then, I will include a link back to my original article and make sure the link used in the guest post has the words “networking tips” since that was the phrase I targeted.
For example, in the video above Market Samurai suggested the term “networking skills” in addition to networking tips. This is a great way to find ideas for guest posts that are closely related to your keyword and will give you an opportunity to naturally link back to your work within the article.
A guest post on “8 Networking Skills Everyone Needs to Know” would offer the perfect opportunity to link back to the original article I wrote and boost my ranking in Google.
External links are great if you have the time to get them, but if not, the 3 step process I outlined here should work just fine. I get thousands of visits to pages that have no outside links pointing to them.
What do you think?
This 3–step process is working wonders for me. Will you use it?
How do you get free search engine visitors right now?
James, you one-up yourself with each new post. HUGE thanks for this!
Thanks Eric! Glad you found it helpful.
Great tips, and Market Samurai looks cool.
What about Bing? That search engine is getting huge, but no one talks about how to rank high in it. I’d love to see a post explaining how to rank highly in Bing.
For example, I have a post on my blog about positive visualization (http://www.barexammind.com/use-positive-visualization-to-calm-anxiety/) that was ranked #3 on Google under “positive visualization” when I searched that term a second ago. But on Bing, I don’t even see my post on the first 3 pages (!) of results.
Any thoughts on the cause of the disparity?
Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Here’s the market share of the big 3 search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) as of January 2012…
Google – 66% of all searches
Bing – 15.1% of all searches
Yahoo – 14.5% of all searches
Additionally, Google (despite being so much larger) is growing at a faster rate than Bing and Yahoo.
So the gap is already huge and continuing to increase.
The day might come when someone new crushes Google, but it won’t be soon.
Just keep writing your best content and if you’re going to focus on one search engine, then make it Google.
(Data according to Comcast.)
This is great, and, as someone that does SEO consulting, I agree that it’s really as simple as this for bloggers.
While Market Samurai is best for doing this, the Google Adwords Keyword tool is a decent free option. It doesn’t have all the competition info that Market Samurai does, but it at least gives you an idea of search traffic for certain terms.
Hey Jeff — Thanks for weighing in on this. It’s nice to get confirmation from someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Really great information that you shared here James. I like your three step process a lot. Very easy and to the point. I’ve been using Market Samurai for awhile and I love their system a lot. Finding the competitive keywords and then seeing which websites are already ranking high for those keywords are the best because I then submit a guest post to that website that already is anchoring back to my blog.
That’s a great idea, Justice.
Look to see who search engines are already favoring and then use their strength to help boost your own site. Savvy.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
First of all, great post!
Second, great insight Justice! I never thought about using Market Samurai to find places to offer guest posts for keywords I want to rank in. I always simply knew the key was to rank as highly as them. Great strategy.
Helllo James,
Impressive numbers but not really surprising, like you said you don’t dish out filler or fluff. Exactly the reason why I am one of the returning visitors in your GA report.
Thanks for this one, it’s really enlightning.
Yep, I’ll take the new visitors, but it’s always nice to get them coming back for more.
I’m glad you’re finding Passive Panda useful!
You’re defnitely reading my mind. First it was the article on chosing the name, and now this one. Perfect timing, and full of useful information.
Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome! I hope everyone finds it as useful as you do.
Great read, but i’am afraid that presenting SEO as a passive traffic stream is a bit…tricky.
Writing long in depth posts takes time, study keywords too, and without networking steroids you don’t get such results from day one.
So I would rather say that it’s extremly active before publishing and then passive after published (especially if you are social networks power user)
That’s definitevely the right direction, the right tools(ever heard about long tail pro as a posible substitue of Market Smaurai?) and techniques, but it takes time and consistency to have google rank you high.
I missed some words about Long tail keywords.
Congrats for the article James!
You raise a good point.
It does take time and effort to write great content. (Although I do think 5 to 10 minutes on the SEO research after you have written the article is about all you need.)
That said, the networking article I published didn’t immediately shoot to #1. If I remember correctly it slowly climbed the ladder for two or three months before hitting the top spot.
Now that it’s there, however, it’s been steady for almost a year.
I’m not familiar with Long Tail Pro, but it could be great. Thanks for reading!
James,
Hi, I still make some silly mistakes with the above…. But I am getting there. I found it interesting that you don’t like Pictures so much. I found it a pain in the arse trying to search for a image that suits the topic…. I usualy waste hours trying to get a image I’m happy with..
Cheers..
No worries Darren. As long as you continue to improve.
And yes, I don’t bother with pictures anymore. They don’t really add to the content, it takes too much time to find an appropriate image, and I haven’t found much decrease (if any) in conversion when an image isn’t included.
Long story short, I don’t see myself using them soon.
I agree that the google analytic keyword tool is pretty impressive too. Otherwise, effective, honest and easy post. Thank you
This is great James! Thanks for the brief yet extremely useful post.
Thanks buddy. Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll do my best to keep the good stuff coming your way.
Thanks for such a nice clear explanation, I found it very helpful and will put some of these ideas into practice.
Mark
p.s. I like your captcha technique below – very user friendly.
One of your best James, and that’s out of a lot of great posts.
Nice job.
Glad you enjoyed it, my man.
Great article James.
And Market Samurai is just the tool I’ve been looking for to take my research & SEO work to the next level. And without breaking the bank too. I’ve taken a spin around the free trial already tonight and have found some places I could optimize things on my site.
Can’t wait to dig in for my new sites and see what I find. Thanks!
Good to hear from you, Julia. And I think you’ll love Market Samurai.
Thanks for reading!
This is a helpful post to print & refer to — I’m bookmarking this one and THANKING YOU very much for the time to put it all together for us!
You bet! I’m just glad you found it useful.
I’m getting addicted more and more to your posts. Every single one of them is a bookmarked link for sure in my collection.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks! Looks like I’ll have to keep raising the bar.
Nice post James, keeping it simple and doing exactly what you have outlined has been my approach However I haven’t had anything make it any where near page 1 let alone 1st spot. The size and popularity of your site play a very big role, but that is the benefit of being able to deliver the way you do.
Hey Shaun. Thanks for reading.
Those are fair points you’re making, but I would say the biggest determinant is the keyword you choose and the content you write.
I’m sure I do get a boost thanks to Passive Panda’s strength nowadays, but you can rank well if you find the right term and put together good content.
Keep at it!
I am an avid follower of your articles, glad that you have nailed the vital tips on how to best rank in Google. I would surely apply this to our website. Thanks a lot.
Great! Thanks for following Carissa.
p.s. Be sure to stop back and let us know how it works out!
Great Post, keyword research is really important if you want to rank well in search engines but for those who cant buy Market Samurai, Google AdWord Keyword Tool will be a good alternative.
I’m definitely bookmarking this page. This is the easiest, most practical thing I’ve found on the topic of SEO. Thanks!
Great information! I’ve heard of Market Samurai, but have never used it. thanks to your simple guide, I will now try it out! Thanks for all the helpful info you put on here.
Great Post James! You always seem to provide information that is relevant and useful.
Your Visitor Traffic count is awesome! I’d be happy with a quarter of that amount.
Keep up the good work…and thanks for sharing.
Great tips. I think I need to add more internal links in my website now.
Will the Feb. 7 webinar with Jonathan be available for those who missed it?
I am new to Passive Panda and could use such a blueprint for change that the webinar appeared to present.
Thanks.
Hi Brad,
Unfortunately it was just a one-time replay. That said, you can read more about the course Jonathan outlines in the webinar here:
And, of course, keep an eye out for more training in the near future. There are more calls, webinars, and articles lined up for the weeks ahead.
Thanks for the response James! I did find a webinar you did with Jonathan Fields – Overcoming Fear (Go Buckeys BTW). I am the classic person who has a decent job but has this “itch” that can’t be ignored. I am glad I found Passive Panda to help put actions to these crazy dreams. Joy, contribution, community!
Thanks James, I tried this on a few posts on my site, http://www.remoteworkerdaily.com and saw immediate results in Google search referral traffic.
Great work, Doug! Glad to hear these strategies worked for you as well.
Hi James,
Thank you for all your hard, honest and helpful articles. I am very newbie in all this and you are giving me the inspiration and motivation to start the blog that I’ve been planning for it since the last 2 years and didn’t know how to started. Thank you!
James – this is an excellent reminder. I just went through and did one hour’s worth of updates on my top blogs – I’ll let you know if I see a bump from Google. Thanks!
Use http://www.getclicky.com.
It’s better that Google Analytics since it’s realtime and give you more value regarding the visitor metrics. Check it out.
Thank you for sharing those great Google Analytics customs reports. I will start using them right away.
Very great post. Thanks for all the great tips that you have shared with us. I will be using them.
Hi James,
Thanks for the very interesting and easy post. I will definitely implement your 3 step process mentioned in the post. Keep the good work..
These were extremely simple and effective steps that I believe would prove very very useful for me.
I found you on Twitter and landed on the site.
Great work, James!
Good one! Thanks for sharing.
James,
Thanks for the great article! Do you find that it’s better to use “POSTS” or “PAGES” when creating a new article in WordPress? Thank you in advance for your thoughts!
Thanks Scott! I use posts.
Hi James, new reader found you through a RT on Twitter … and I’m a certified new fan! I love your straight to the point writing. Any suggestions on how to reach more people with diabetes through my blog? I design diabetes accessories.
Hey, I just came across passivepanda today, and I must say, I am VERY excited to find this website! James, you have provided me with a massive treasure trove of just the information that I have been searching for!
Many many thanks to you, and you now have a new reader!
Hi this is my first read but I will return. I was searching for ideas and ways to get business leads without having to pay a fortune. I am a new to the industry travel agent and need all the help I can get with leads. I don’t currently have a blog and don’t really know how to start one or if I even have any information people would want. Maybe you have something on content and starting a blog
Thanks again,
Lisa
Hi James. Greetings from Colombia.
Thanks for this article, I want to share my results with you:
1 month ago, I had just started a new, unknown blog with this method and now I’m getting nice Google positions. I’m almost in the #1 place for a good keyword despite few backlinks.
At the moment I’m only using AdSense as money making system. I’m a little afraid to start with passive income, but I hope that by reading your site I’ll find the right way to get started.
Once again, thanks for the post.
Daniel,
This is awesome! I love hearing about the success of Passive Panda readers. I’m glad you’re finding the content here useful.
Keep up the good work!
I just sworn myself into reading at least 2 of your articles per day. One when I wake up and the other before I go to bed. I am completely new to this and you made it so simple to grasp. Much Appreciated!!!
For the internal link stuff, do a quick search to see if you have content already indexed and ranking for a keyword you want to target (and perhaps it even has PR to it).
If your older content is a good fit for a new piece of content you’re writing link to it. So say you’re targeting “networking tips” and you already have an article indexed and ranking for “networking tips”, be intentional or unintentional. Use that older article and link to your newly published article. Internal linking is something people overlook but it helps!