Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Where are all those people going and why aren't they visiting MY website?

How can you be sure that people will visit your site?

Not every web-user will know just how great your site is. The internet is filled with a vast number of websites, many similar to yours. And each site claims to offer something unique. Whatever you can name, there is a website for it. Name any type of business and you can expect it probably has a website. With all this competition, how do you plan to make your mark and stand out from the rest?

How do you bring internet traffic to your website?

Web surfers know how to use the search engines. This internet tool that bridges the gap between the users’ search for a particular thing and the website that offers just that. To find what they want, they just need to use words or phrases that relate to their need.

For example, if you are doing a search on gardening. You just type in keywords like “flower gardening”, “vegetable gardening” or “gardening tools”. The search engine will immediately return an exhaustive list of websites on the gardening niche you are interested in.

Obviously, the websites which are featured at the top of the search engine result page get the highest number of clicks and visitors. Being in a top position translates to “authority” and “best” so a visitor will search those first, almost all of the time. There is enormous competition to reach the top positions in the search engines, so that visitors get to see your website displayed first among many others. Getting the top rank is, however, not easy. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) makes this possible.

What is search engine optimization? Considering all the aspects of optimizing a site, it does come down to a few focused but not entirely complicated, tasks that will not only help you achieve a high listing in the search engines for your site, but will also ensure more internet traffic to it:

Keywords that are relevant to your page

Many web users do not use well-thought-out keywords in their first search. After a few attempts at “gardening”, when what they really needed to learn about is “planting iris plants”, they start narrowing down to a more focused query. You should focus on a keyword (or keyword phrase) that is what your site or a page on your site is most about. The page about “iris planting” should have those words—in your description, your content, your alt tags (image names), and your navigation and page name. How else can the search engines find your page without this information?

Lots of links (if they make sense)

The more links to your site, the more “popular” your site is perceived to be by the search engines. If other sites and other pages are pointing to your pages, you look like the Big Man On Campus, right? So get as many links as possible to your site—both internal links that link the various web-pages within your site and external links that link to other websites. But also consider this analogy—if the BMOC is surrounded by, let’s say, not so attractive and non reciprocal link buddies, his status can drop, rather than grow as it would with the top, highly attractive and related interest campus stars. You don’t want to be one link in a sea of weak links on someone else’s site but rather a strong link among fewer links. Choose your link partners wisely. And remember that your own internal page links count just as well. The more internet “real estate” you own that links to itself, the better. The more links from other sites who link back (essentially "voting" for your site), the more powerful your ranking possibilities.
Note: there is a tool that does the legwork for you and shows you how the top sites do it so you can, too.

Lots of content

Content plays a vital role when it comes to ranking high in search engines. Keyword-rich content always creates opportunity for a high listing. The search engines rank websites based on their content proportion. Relevant content on your site maximizes the chances of keyword inclusion. Remember, however, keywords alone don't do the whole job. Search engines do not rank websites very well if they are rich in keywords but scarce on content. Understand that the search engines couldn’t care less what you are selling—they are there to provide information sources to web users. Make sure you provide information that will be “rich content” in the form of articles, news, descriptions, tips, reviews, whatever will create an air of “authority” for the subject/product you present on your site.

While many of these techniques will get you closer to the first pages of the search engines, one other factor will also make a difference—time. The age of your website will mean even more as you remain in business, and your authority moves upward.
So among all these methods to implement, it may be that the practice of patience could be the most important of all.


You must know EXACTLY why the top 10 ranked sites in Google are currently ranked where they are. You can't guess by simply looking at their web page itself.
Drive traffic to your site with search engine listings that will rank right up there with the big guys with your own SEO tool.


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