After several years of working in this industry, I still can't believe the number of so-called experts who pop up out of nowhere, trying to sell their “experience” and “knowledge” to newbie webmasters who want to increase search engine traffic for their websites. The business of search engine optimization has seen an entire consulting industry develop around the concept of tweaking and overhauling webpages just to get them on top of the search engine results page – and hopefully attract more traffic. But people who try their hardest to get higher rankings in search pages through deception don't get the obvious fact that they can get the same results without resorting to trickery.

Here's how you do it:

First, you have to focus on writing quality content. This means working on producing fresh content that's relevant and easy to read. You must also take into account the titles, topics, and the URLs as well. For your title, make them short and snappy. To quickly get an idea of what an ideal title should be, just skim the latest copy of your RSS feed. Take note of the titles that catch your attention and keep it in mind when writing titles. Another important thing – if you have a blog and you get titles like My Blog Title My Post Title, make sure to change it to read My Post Title My Blog Title.

If ever you need great ideas for your next content, just browse the popular bookmarked contents on Digg and , to name a few. This will give you a great idea about what people want to read or what they are linking to. Also, never ignore the power of lists and how-to articles. These types of content always make good linkbait, which means more people will link to it, which corresponds into increased search engine traffic for you.

Second, make it easy for your visitors to link to you and submit your content to social news sites and wherever else they want to. If you have a blog, you can also find some great widgets to do the work for you, with only a few minor tweaks here and there. As much as possible, make sure that your URLs contain important keywords in them. URLs will be among the first things that gets recorded by the search engine spiders, you know. Aside from that, people also have a habit of copy-pasting whole URLs into comment boxes, posts, forums, etc. The links that are generated from these contain valuable keywords that lead to your site directly from authoritative sites, which spells even more search engine traffic.

Third, expand your network. If you don't have a blog, try creating one. If you're not interested in building a blog or just don't have time, you can still visit and leave comments on other blogs related to your website's niche. Aside from blogs, there are forums, e-zines, newsletters, and groups – a whole slew of online communities with unimaginable potential. But don't forget to give also in return for what you take. Participate actively and share your ideas and thoughts. The rewards could be greater than you expected.