FIVE TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR WEBSITE VISIBILITY…
For many of the readers of this column, you have a website. Its adorable, but nobody is coming to the site and the only thing is for certain is that you are paying money out each month for an Internet company to host your site. I am hopeful that this article will provide some tips on how to boost your on-line visibility. Here are five ideas to get you started.
Blogging:
Blogging can produce a large amount of traffic based on its usefulness and content. Blogs allow owners to add new content daily and often the blog encourage adding comments. Blogs also create a community for surrounding your website and its product and services. As an example, we have a blog site that is centered on Savannah (www.savannahtraveler.com) and people interested in our historic city will find our site and come often to read our new postings. Hopefully, they will encourage others to come as well. The blog provides a forum for people to share their thoughts about your products/services, and through their comments you will gain a better understanding of how visitors are judging your product, service and site.
Online or Social Networking:
Facebook and Myspace are prime examples of good places to start online networking. They allow users to create their own site providing information about themselves such as hobbies, favorite movies, etc. Using these sites to gather data on possible target markets can be very useful. They also have countless forums on almost any subject, interest or whatever. These social networking sites are great places to introduce your site but, please, do not be to aggressive!
Viral or Email Marketing:
This can consist of an email campaign (only solicited material no spam) add videos and even pod casts. If you can provide something that people find interesting then you will more likely be able expand your visibility. One easy way to do this is add a “newsletter” feature to your site that encourages a visitor to sign up to either get your monthly newsletter or an update. One of our clients’, Alligator Soul Restrauant has a very effective email program and the owner uses the email addresses to tell the email list what is new at her restaurant or a special event that she is introducing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engine results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, the more searchers will visit that site. There are many books, articles and professionals who can help you gain a higher rating by finding the right keywords.
Remember, when constructing your keywords and phrases, think like a potential visitor. What would he/she type in the search box. We recently designed a site titled Savannah Wedding Directory and if you type in Savannah Wedding Directory, the site will be ranked number one on Google. Another point I want to make is your “TITLE” tag that you see on the top of your screen. Many site owners make the mistake of not using this tag to reflect (in 10 words or less) who they are or the product/service they are promoting. It is useless to use the title tag to promote your name, such as: Bigtownlawfirm.com. IBM, Disney and GM can do this because their company name is branded.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. It is the fastest way to increase your visibility, but it is also the most expensive. When planning to use PPC it is important to make sure you market to your target audience. Example, you own a tour company so the audience you want to attract are tourists and visitors so you would look for these words on the three major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) and see what matches you get for these words (include Savannah). If you don't locate them for your advertisements, you are wasting your money.
If you use the five action tips, I can assure you that your site ranking will improve and so will your visibility and …more sales!
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