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Thursday, 05 February 2009 |
Effective Ideas for Driving Traffic to Your Website
Driving traffic to your website is one of the most challenging and
important tasks you will face. There`s a lot to learn and think about
but there`s no need to worry. Once you understand the key principles
and if you are willing to put the time and commitment into designing
and executing a well though through online marketing plan, you will be
able to drive more traffic to your site than ever! The following are
some basic concepts and some simple steps that are worth taking on
board for starters.
Page Rank
Page Rank is a system that Google uses to assign importance to websites
based on how many other websites link to them and on the quality of
those links. The more relevant, decent quality websites that link to
yours, the higher your page rank should be and, all other things being
equal (see below), the higher your website should appear in Google`s
natural (unpaid) search listings. Page Rank ranges from 0 to 10 and is
displayed in the form of a green bar on the Google tool bar if you have
that installed with your browser. Very few sites reach page rank 10 -
only truly global portals such as yahoo.com
and certain Google pages. In reality, the vast majority of sites are at
page rank 3 or below. Webmasters can become rather obsessed with the
`dreaded green` bar. It is in fact only one of many hundreds of
measures of the importance and relevance of your site. Visitors don`t
care but other site owners may factor page rank in when deciding
whether to link with you or not so it can matter from that
perspective.
Alexa Ranking
Alexa is owned by Amazon.com and records traffic rankings and some
useful graphical information on search trends. This makes Alexa useful
for comparing the traffic your site is getting in comparison with other
websites in your sector. Some text link ad companies use Alexa rankings
to decide how to price the adverts on a given site. Alexa is only as
good as the data it received which is harvested via the Alexa tool bar
for those who have this installed. Alexa is quite revealing: the
traffic levels required to get within the top 100,000 are not immense
but if you run into a site in the top 20,000, be impressed! To increase
your own Alexa ranking, simply install the Alexa Toolbar. It will
register a hit whenever you view your own website. Next, encourage your
friends to install the toolbar too, you`ll get an Alexa hit from each
of them. Finally, put an Alexa Rank Widget on your website, this will
help Alexa to log hits from people who don`t have the toolbar
installed.
Key Traffic Driving Tips
Online marketing is a vast, multi-disciplinary subject. Broadly speaking it can be divided into 3 main areas:-
Paid Search
Pay Per Click or PPC is a means by which to drive traffic to your site,
paying for each visitor at an agreed rate depending on the keyword
involved. Most PPC traffic is driven through the major PPC search
engines, Google and Yahoo. The key to success with paid search is in
identifying the right keywords or search terms. the PPC engines display
your adverts whenever users enter those terms into the main search
engine search boxes. If you choose the right terms, balancing between
the broadness of the term, a broad example being "mobile phone" and
more specific or so-called longtail terms such as "Nokia 6110", you
should be able to find a "sweet spot" where you can drive sufficient
quantities of relevant traffic at sensible unit costs. For many people,
despite the higher costs, may not yield traffic that will actually
convert into sales or enquiries at a sensible rate. On the other hand,
make the terms too narrow and there will be insufficient searches to
drive the desired traffic. PPC campaigns require constant adjustment
and refinement as they progress.
Search Engine Optimisation
Where a PPC campaign can start driving traffic to you in a matter of
minutes once you switch it on, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is
focused on achieving good positions in the search engines` natural
(unpaid) listings. These are the results that people trust the most.
They are also the hardest to achieve and SEO success is measured in
months rather than weeks in most cases. A decent SEO campaign starts in
the same place as a PPC campaign: identifying the right search terms,
Indeed many webmasters use the results of PPC campaigns and the
refinements they make to the PPC terms in identifying the terms at
which their subsequent SEO efforts should be directed as the principles
involved are very close indeed. With keywords identified, you need to
optimise the code on your site in accordance with best practice and use
it to its fullest effect to promote the site for the terms you want.
You must then add rich, fresh, regularly updated and most importantly
unique content to the site. Content is the lifeblood of the search
engines and also motivates others to link to your site, all of which
reinforces your position as a valuable resource or the search terms in
question.
You will also need to work specifically to attract links from other
sites. By this we don`t mean paying other websites to link to you which
is rightfully frowned upon and punished by the search engines. We mean
offering value in return for a link: perhaps a reciprocal `you scratch
my back and I`ll scratch yours` arrangement (becoming less popular) or
something else of value such as offering to write content for a site in
return for a link; offering affiliate commissions and so forth: there
are many innovative and complex approaches to link building. With
decent, constantly updated content and links regularly added, you
should see your site rise in the search engine results over time but it
is a huge amount of work.
Social Media Optimisation
Social Media Optimisation or SMO is a relatively new discipline. As
with most online marketing activities, it has its share of charlatans
and poor practitioners. That said, creating and maintaining a decent
blog around your subject areas; adding company profiles to MySpace,
LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sites has become more
prevalent in many a corporate marking strategy in the last couple of
years and has been held to yield results. Perhaps more importantly,
focus on creating high quality "link bait" on your own site and don`t
be shy to post pointers to it on relevant industry forums and blogs.
Others who find this useful will also link to you, further increasing
your link equity and search engine rankings.
Ultimately, fresh, regularly updated content, on a site properly
optimised and structured for the right keywords and backed by building
inbound links from other websites and social media sites is a
powerful combination. Very few people manage to get all of these
elements properly under control.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 February 2009 )
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