In order to increase your traffic you need to change content on your site to reflect current trends. By this I don't mean simply changing a few words, layout etc etc, I mean really changing it to keep ahead of your competition by providing services that people really want.

This by no means has to affect theme of your site, you simply need to enhance it to provide additional much sort after services or products. If you're happy with amount of visitors your site is currently receiving, and I doubt you are, then leave it as it is, but if you want more visitors, and you want your visitors to keep coming back, then read on!

Let's get to how's and why's.

How?

Firstly find out what people want, what they're really looking for. If you can offer this service or product, people are more than likely to buy it from you. Remember they're looking for it because they want it and if you provide it, chances are they'll buy it from you.

To find out what people are looking for go to a site like Searchwords.com. If you think you know what most popular search word at moment is, you may be somewhat surprised when I tell you its MP3. That's word now, but things change so fast in this technical age, you need to keep a close eye on this.

Why?

There are two major reasons for doing this. Firstly, if people want it and are looking for it and you consistently fill this need, you will soon establish a reputation for always being "hot". Make most of current trends why they're happening. I am not talking about words that have always been searched for or products and/or services you would not want to associate your site with, but new and different trends. If you discipline yourself to check these trends on a regular basis, you can offer desired services long before word is out and everybody else is doing same thing. This is a major key to how successful you will be - act fast and stay ahead!.

- Keyword Phrases

Identify your most important keyword phrases and design your site around them. In our experience keyword phrases are much more attainable than individual keywords for a high search listing. In addition keyword phrases are more descriptive than single keywords so they produce more targeted traffic. For example "Handmade Furniture" is not only more descriptive than "furniture" but is also easier to get top spot in search results.

- Title Tags

The title tag should be first thing after head statement and should say what you do, not who you are. In most search engines title of your document carries a lot of weight, in many they are most important part of your document. Think of it this way - how many times do you think "Tamara's Terrific Teas" is searched for? A lot less than "organic tea", so which should be in your title tag.

- Where to Be Listed

We believe that most important place to be listed is in Yahoo! Pay very close attention to instructions and write a description with zero hype if you are lucky, you might get listed. Next we suggest getting all your pages listed in Inktomi database that handles spill over search results for Yahoo! and also powers HotBot, Direct Hit, Canada, Anzwers, and others. Finally we suggest getting all pages listed in The Open Directory Project, AltaVista, Infoseek, Lycos, Excite, Northern Light in that order.

- Getting into Inktomi