If you could spend an hour or two and improve traffic to your website, would that be worthwhile?· We want all of our clients to have more success in getting traffic to their websites. This document will let you know what YOU can do to bring more people to your website.Get more links to your website
Links back to your website are probably the most important thing Google uses to determine that you have a relevant site. This is something that you can do yourself. Here’s how:·
1. Google yourself. This is usually not a very productive thing to do, because if people knew about your business, they wouldn’t have to Google it at all. But in this case, you can learn valuable information about your site, and help get more links TO your site.·
Google the name of your business. Chances are (if you’ve been around for awhile) that you will find other sites with information about you. You could be listed at the Better Business Bureau, SuperPages, the local Chamber of Commerce and many other sites. A lot of companies list business types. So check those websites out. Very often you’ll find that your business is listed, but there is no link to your website.· When you find this (and you WILL find this…)·you will often see something like “Is this your business?” somewhere on the page. You can create an account there and edit the content of your “free” listing, INCLUDING adding a link to your website.
It can be a tedious process, but it WILL pay off in site visits. Do this for as many sites that already list your business as you can, even the ones that seem insignificant. Make sure that in those listings, you include a lot of keywords and phrases pertaining to your business. These will show up on Google, and strengthen your brand recognition. For more about this, see the blog article we wrote about this very topic.·
2. Create your own listing on SuperPages. SuperPages is a terrible place to buy a website from, but you can join and create a listing for your own business.· Go to their website and click the “Sign In” button on the top right of the page. A new window will open. Click the “New User” tab and fill out the fields.· Once you have registered, you can go to the Home page and click the “Hello (your name)” link at the top of the page. Then you will see a link called “Add a Business” in the middle of the page. Click that link, and you can create a listing for your business that people will find when they search on SuperPages.· This will also help your Google Ranking.·
3. Find other sources to get links back to your website. Depending on your business, there are usually groups and forums about it. If you sell professional hair cutting supplies, Google “hair stylist forum” (without the asterisks). You will find message boards about the subject. Join those forums and post there. Make sure you add your website address, either in your posts, or in your forum signature.·
4. Manufacturers’ Links. If you sell products made by a manufacturer, they often list their retailers on their own website. If this is the case, contact them and ask that they include a link to your site. Google loves links like this, they see them as very relevant to your business.
See what Google sees
Get the Google Toolbar.· With this, you can see your Page Rank, when Google last visited your site, and most important, links BACK to your site that Google has found.·
Know what Google WANTS to seeThe things Google finds most important about a website are:
1.·Links back to your site from other websites. This shows Google that your site is “important”.
2. Your Home page text content. Google looks at the text on your Home page to determine when to include you in someone’s Google search.· Look at your Home page text. How many keywords are there for Google to see? You need to imagine what people would search for pertaining to your business, then you need to include those words in your Home page text. Several times. This is known as “Keyword Density”, and it is VERY important to Google. We realize that this is not something you can do yourself, but if you send us edited text for your Home page, we will usually add it for free (or for a small fee).· Again, we WANT you to get good Google hits. It makes us look good too!
You can use the Google Rankings tool to see how Google interprets your page text. Enter your web address (URL) and Google will show you the words and phrases it uses to include your site into Google searches.
3. The title of your pages. What Google likes to see usually changes several times a year. If you have an older website, chances are that your page title (this is what you see in the title bar at the very top of your web browser) is very long, and runs off the page.· Several years ago, this was considered to be good practice for Google, but not anymore. Now there is a limit of around 65 characters that Google will look at. So check out your page title, If it runs off the browser window, chances are that there is a lot of stuff there that Google doesn’t see anymore.· If so, let us know. We can change it for you.
These are a few simple things that will greatly increase your Google Ranking, and draw more visitors to your site. There are many more things you can do of course, but these are some of the essentials that you can accomplish with little help.
Want to learn more? Contact us.