I didn't have to be a genius to know how to get traffic to my website but it did take some research and a little common sense. The first thing you need to understand about online marketing is that it basically works on the principles of search engine ranking. To be able to get top listings on the most popular search engines, you need to know the basics of SEO or search engine optimization.

Employing keywords

The first thing you need to look into when you're looking for ways to increase the traffic to your website is the keywords. Keywords, in simple terms, are strings of words that internet surfers use as "queries" to look for websites. The idea is similar to indexing in a library, only this is done online.

However, search engine crawlers can't categorize website content by substance. You will need to type in specific keywords through out the article to make it search engine spider-friendly and rank higher on search engine listings.

Good and Bad SEO

When you're optimizing your website, you need to understand the difference between good and bad SEO. Optimizing your web pages so that it's easily recognizable by crawlers helps to rank you better in "searches". However, overdoing it can get you banned. There are no specific rules about this, but you will know, as a developer, which side you're veering into.

If you're designing your website so that it'll be useful for humans, you're using white hat or good SEO techniques. If you've totally forgotten about the quality of articles you're posting, and you're simply including garbage for the crawlers to recognize, then you're doing bad SEO. If you're not careful, this can get you permanently banned or blacklisted from popular search engines. Remember, if you put in enough time and effort, it's possible to create quality articles that attract search engine spiders or crawlers as well.