Did you know that you can increase your site’s traffic without doing any marketing at all? Yes, it is possible. There’s a caveat though. The strategy that this article will teach is immensely linked with blogging. if you don’t have a blog of your own, finding a blog name is the necessary first step. If you do, you can proceed with reading the article.

So what’s the secret?

Simple, and perhaps, you have heard it before. Long-tail keywords. These are keywords containing three or more words that are very specific. These are the words that visitors are actually using in their search. As such, these can be one of the most important sources of your traffic if you know how to leverage it.
If you belong to a competitive yet generic niche, chances are, you are finding difficulties ranking for head terms (or broad keywords). Who wouldn’t want to rank for terms such as insurance, dental services, web design, etc.? However, if you would just lengthen the terms a bit, you will end up with more traffic and better ranking. That’s because long-tail keywords are less competitive than head terms.

How to use long-tail keywords?

Most probably, your website is ranking for long-tail keywords too aside from your main keywords. In fact, at least 30% of your overall traffic comes from long-tail keywords. If you’re wondering how this is even possible, you may check it on Google Analytics (GA) or Google Webmasters Tools. Both will give you an insight on the most number of queries that you can use as the basis of your long-tail keyword strategy.
In GA, click Search Engine Optimization. Choose Queries. It will show all the queries as well as the number of impressions and clicks and the average position of your site in results pages. Impressions refer to the number of times your website (any page) appeared in SERPs during inquiry while clicks refer to the number of times any page from your website is clicked. In GWT, just click Search Traffic and choose Search Analytics. The queries and the total number of clicks will be displayed.
From the list of keywords, choose head terms especially those with a higher number of impressions but with a lower number of clicks. Then, type the head keyword in Google search box. For instance, type ‘web design’ and the search engine will display ‘searches related to web design’ at the bottom. There will be at least eight related searches to choose from. Choose your long-tail keywords. For web design, one appropriate long-tail keyword is ‘web design software free download.’

What to do now?

To increase traffic to your blog organically, write an article about your chosen long-tail keyword. Google recognizes this term as similar to your head keyword that you searched for. Thus, while it may be hard to rank for ‘web design’ you may rank higher for ‘web design software free download.’
You may start blogging about it now OR you may blend in some of the related searches into your site’s most important pages. Doing so will increase the page’s traffic and move your website higher in organic searches. All of these could happen without deliberately marketing your website.