Bring Traffic To Your Website Class

NOTE: This is a work in progress started 7/17/12. Please check back for updates.

Optimize your website for traffic

Keywords

Keywords: A collection of words and short phrases that are used strategically to garner traffic from search engines.

• Research what people look for concerning your business
• Think from the customer's perspective!!! What would the average person type into Google if they were looking for a business like yours. Type that in and see what comes up. Look at the content and tags of the first few sites.
• Ask family and friends what words and phrases they would use if they were looking for a product like yours.
• Target keywords to fit your business. What product do you most want to push? Are you selling locally, nationally or globally?

Google keyword tool (adwords keyword tool) – possibly using misspelled words, gauging competition and effectiveness vs. price

• http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Inserting keywords into contents

• Use keyword-heavy writing. Keyword density.
  • In this scenario, you are trying to compete locally and you find your customers are looking for quality, low-priced computers of specific brands.
    • ComputerManufacturer, Inc. makes computers to fit your needs. Come shop at our store-room.
    • ComputerManufacturer, Inc., located in Portland, Oregon, makes high-quality, affordable computers such as Brand A, Brand B and Brand C. Come shop for deals and discounts at our show-room which is located at 1234 SE 10th St, Portland, OR 97201(with embedded map or link that opens in a new window)

Black hat vs. white hat tactics - http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

• Don't use font colors too similar to the background.
• Don't keyword stuff.

Font size

• Words and phrases with larger header tags and in bold are weighed more by search engines.

Domain name

Make it easy to remember/spell.

Use your keyword research in considering names.

The keywords in domain names are considered heavily by search engines.

If Computermanufacturer, Inc. has a local store, they should consider variations on portlandcomputer(s).com/org/etc. If they also do repairs they might consider using names like computerrepairs.com, portlandcomputerrepairs, etc.

Multiple names leading to one site - Computermanufacturerinc.com/biz/org, portlandcomputer.com, portlandbranda.com, etc

Possible Domain Registrars:

• http://www.namecheap.com

• http://www.networksolutions.com/domain-name-registration/index.jsp

• http://www.name.com

Meta tags and title

These have been deprecated in most search engines as far as ranking is concerned, but are useful for search engine results display.

Title

Description

Title and Description as It relates to search engine search results

• Title shows up as the clickable header in search results.
• Description shows up as the wording under that.
• While they don't affect rankings, title and description could lead someone to click on your site as opposed to another on the search engine results page.

Keywords

• This used to be critical, but is now something that should be avoided

Robots

• The robots tag is used to let search engines whether you want to be indexed (appear on search results) or have them follow your links
• The tag to use for public pages on your website is <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067564/How-To-Use-HTML-Meta-Tags

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_element

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=79812

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp

Content is king (or queen)

Original Content

• Making your content available to other websites
  • Creative Commons licensing stating attribution and non-commerical use
  • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Other's content that your are licensed to use

•  Creative Commons
•  Public Domain

Update regularly/be consistent

Get people to interact with you (end with a question)

• Enabling feedback forms, live chat, emails
• Prizes and contests
• Enable reviews
• Enabling interaction make a customer feels safe, gives them a sense of importance and makes for customer relationships

Leaky vs. leak-proof websites

• The goal is to make people stay on your site.
• Use target="_blank" to get links to open in a new page, keeping them on your page.
• Never link to manufacturers or competitors.

Reference other websites (and link to them) to get their attention

• Make sure the sites don't link to competitors or manufacturers

Link back to your own posts

• Use your website and social media in your email signature, on forum signatures, in blog posts, etc

Write content on other websites (guest blog, etc.) Make it easy for people to subscribe (via email or RSS) - Feedburner

Site analytics

Using logs (incoming and search) to determine what people are looking for and amend pages accordingly

Find online venues to bring in traffic

Should be related to your topic

• http://www.google.com/adplanner/site_profile

Forums

• Lurk Moar - Shadow for a while to get a feel for the culture. Study their nettiquette.
• Don't want to "spam" these forums. Write something because it is relevant and interesting.

Provide quality content Links back to your website include your key search terms

Using social media

Encourage people to share.

Use each venue specifically with as much unique content as possible.

Remind people about social media class

• http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=p3cbgpr03ofq2lngffkn333u20%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles

http://namechk.com/

Offline/non-website methods

Put your website on ALL 'old media' advertising (billboards, TV, newspaper, etc)

Make sure at least your website URL and main email are on your business card

Put up flyers in related businesses/businesses of friends

Put all your information (name, phone, address, email, website and social media) on receipts and invoices.

Other resources

http://searchengineland.com/

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

http://mashable.com/

http://seo.alltop.com/

http://browsershots.org

A listing of Google services - http://www.googlekeywordtool.com/

• Most critical
  • Google Keywords Tool - http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
  • Google Analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html
  • Google Webmaster Tools - http://www.google.com/webmasters/