He ended up on the number two spot for his article’s main keyword, but isn’t seeing any traffic.

He wrote a couple more articles, but hasn’t done any back linking. Then he asks why he should do more, since he’s number two on Google. As if he’s reached the pinnacle and his work is finished. And his subject line asks why he’s not making any money. From one article.

After all, it is number two on Google.

(I’m not going to name the poster or link to the post in order to spare embarrassment. This is a newbie issue, so no reason to cause hard feelings.)

Total Searches Is An Average

There’s one thing you must understand when researching keywords. The number of searches listed in the keyword tools is an average over time. Because of this, you shouldn’t get upset when you don’t see dozens of daily search engine hits on your article right away.

Number Of Searches Has No Connection To Actual Traffic

Also, number of searches has zero connection to your ability to pull in traffic from that search. You could have a great keyword, get ranked on page one, everyone else could be getting tons of traffic, but you might get none.

The reason lies in your page title and the description displayed on your search engine result entry. Now if those things are terrible, you probably wouldn’t get ranked on page one anyway. But if the other nine spots are filled with benefit laden copy while yours made it that high only for technical reasons, you probably won’t get many clicks.

The clicks are going to flow to the other sites because they look more promising to the searcher.

Three Steps To Traffic Success

With these ideas in mind, there are three things you can do right now to improve your flow of traffic. First, figure out how to write tempting headlines and compelling opening paragraphs. This will enliven your entry on the search engine results pages and entice people to actually click on your link. It does no good to be on the front page if no one is moved to visit your page.

Second, one article isn’t going to cut it. Write more. If you write just one article, you may have picked a loser keyword, even if it looks good in the keyword tools. So don’t tie all your hopes to a single article. Writing lots of articles increases the odds that you’ll hit on a few solid traffic magnets.

And third, don’t be like our poster here. Plan for and build out a network of back links to all your online properties. Back links are a big part of the traffic equation, so do NOT leave it out. You don’t have to enslave yourself to building a mega backlink farm, but you will need at least a few for each piece of writing you publish.

There are some pretty large photo collections available online…some are free and some charge a small amount per photo.

Since you can’t legally grab any old photograph from someone’s website, you should check into these stock photo resources. They’re royalty-free, which means you pay for them once and can use them without paying anything further, all nice and legal.

Of course, usage rights depend upon the license attached to the photos…in certain projects you can’t use them absolutely freely and without limitation. But for most ordinary projects, you can simply pay the fee, download the pic and drop it into your article or ad. As with anything, be sure to read the usage limitations.

This post comes from the following discussion found on the Warrior Forum…

Google Image Search

The first place you may want to look is on Google’s Image Search.

Once there, go to the advanced search page put your search terms into the appropriate box and select “labeled for commercial reuse with modifications”.

Here’s some info on usage rights.

Commercial Stock Photos

My favorite stock photo site is iStockPhoto.

And here’s a handful of quality commercial sites…

http://www.shutterstock.com/
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/
http://www.jupiterimages.com/
http://dreamstime.com/

Free Stock Photos

Photo Rack appears to be a higher quality than usual free stock photo site.
http://www.photorack.net/

Here’s an interesting free collection of photography intended for web site designs…
http://www.designpacks.com/

Bonus: Free Stock Video Footage

And here’s one for stock video footage…
http://stockfootageforfree.com/