Getting random browsers to view your website is a tricky proposition. With Google’s virtual monopoly on search engines, attempting to game its search algorithm in your favor can feel like nothing short of voodoo magic. It can feel tempting to hire a search engine optimization specialist to help you out, though many individuals in said industry are self-proclaimed experts.

Rather than gamble on a risky “specialist” who may not know anything more than you do, it’s much safer to simply learn a few tricks and tools of the online trade to help yourself increase traffic to your site. While some of these tips might seem self-evident, it’s amazing how few people are capable of applying them in reality. The first and foremost rule is that you must have original content, and only original content.

What that means is that every written article must be your written article. Every featured graphic must be a graphic that can only be found on your website. If you plagiarize writing or copy stock photographs, search engines will be able to detect that you have duplicated content from elsewhere and penalize your ranking. As common sense as this sounds, many website authors are too quick to copy content from other websites, which immediately plunges their website into the abyss, never to be seen by the lights of a search engine.

Remember, if you are creating a website, you’d better have content of your own creation to publish. If you didn’t, why would you be making a website? The second thing you need to be aware of is keywords. Again, it sounds simple, but the practicality is more complex than most people realize. Most people, in an effort to expand their net as wide as possible, think of a few keywords related to their site, and then explode into every keyword related to those keywords. Don’t do that. All that does is weaken the core keywords of your site and confuse search engines. It’s effectively spreading your website out too thinly, and again throwing it to the bottom of the search engine heap. Instead, identify your core keywords and attach synonymous keywords. For example, if you identify “t shirt” as a keyword, also use “tee shirt” and “tees”.

Notice how they’re referring to the same thing, just in different ways? The error would be using “polo shirts” and “clothes”, as those are too far away from your target. Remember, to get a good result on a search engine, you want to be specific. There’s a million and one websites about general clothing, but so many less about t-shirts specifically. Thirdly, you want to pay attention to Google Analytics. While parts of Google Analytics are pay, many of its tools are 100% free to use.

Although this is mostly a tertiary concern, intelligent use of data from Google Analytics and create a significant uptick in traffic towards your website. Detailing how to use this tool would be another essay in itself, and would vary for each user depending on the website he or she wishes to increase traffic flow to. Regardless, do not hesitate to create a Google Analytics account right now, and start poking around.

Though it can be difficult to parse all the information at once, access to more data can only help rather than harm. To recap, the tricks to increase traffic flow to your website are original content, narrow keywords, and intelligent use of Google Analytics. With these ideas under your belt, you’re likely as qualified as any “search engine optimization expert” to increase your website’s popularity. Now that you have these tools, get out there and fine tune your website so you can get new visitors!