seems like i'm pretty at good at raising my PR (up to a pr 5) after 2 updates, but i can't seem to get more traffic to my site. It's really frustrating. Can anyone help me out. What do i need to do to drive more traffic? I think i went after the wrong keywords since they are highly competitive. Anyone have ideas?
Yeah it will take time to build traffic. You just have to keep working at it. You may also want to submit to tons of directories if you've already haven't.
Submit to directories as mentioned, backlink building, article writing/submission and word of mouth if possible. What makes your site(s) unique and different than everyone elses? Focus on that and build, build, build!
I just posted this in another forum (at WAHM.com) but it seemed worth repeating here in this thread: What you are seeing on your Google Toolbar is referred to as "Tool Bar Page Rank" (or TBPR). It isnt an accurate reflection of your actual PageRank. Google only updates the toolbar every 3 months (or something like that) - but "real" PageRank is constantly changing. Also, Google is always trying to keep people (specifically SEO's) from manipulating their search results, so its been said that TBRP is not at all accurate - and sometimes very skewed, in an effort to throw people off (that are using it as a guage). Long story short, seasoned experts will tell us to ignore PageRank altogether. What you should focus on is traffic, conversions and continuously seeking out quality inbound links to your site. The more inbound links you have (quality inbound links, that is) the better your pages will rank. As for your keywords - you can always change that or add new keywords that you want to optimize for. Also, consider buying traffic from Adwords & Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing) and test to see which keywords convert best for you. You may find that it's a good additional source for traffic while you are waiting on good rankings... or you may decide to optimize for a different set of keywords that convert particularly well for you.