Search Engine Traffic
As an online business, the bulk of your customers will come from search engines. Therefore, you want your business website to be optimized for search engine traffic.
While most people would suggest that you hire a professional, there is really nothing about search engine optimization, or SEO, that you can’t do yourself. SEO is much easier than designing your own website or turning your visitors into buyers.
No one really knows how search engines work, but there are a few key aspects of search engine optimization that are well documented.
The first step you need to take is to eliminate any duplicate content that you may have on your website. This means that if you have two products that are exactly the same but differ in color or some other small characteristic, put them on the same page. Having such content appear multiple times on a search engine causes you to lose page rank and natural traffic.
Another technique that will yield you a much higher page rank is to make sure that everything on your site is maximized for your keyword selection. Use relevant keywords in your titles, your tags and your content itself.
Also, take advantage of the description and other tags associated with the images on your website; they are valuable places to introduce your keywords.
To rank higher in search engines, you also need a variety of backlinks to your website. These are other sites that are linking to your site. Google and other search engines use this information to help determine the significance of a particular website.
Gain backlinks by writing articles and posting them in article directories, or commenting on related blogs and forums. You’ll be well received as long as you add useful information and don’t spam.
Try contacting webmasters of other sites and ask if they might be interested in sharing links with you. Look for websites with complimentary content. For instance, the search engines won’t be impressed with a link from a dog related site if your website is about golf.
Don’t expect a site that is far more popular than yours to trade links with you. They usually won’t do it, so don’t waste your time. If you can provide a ‘win-win’ situation, other webmasters will be more likely to agree.
Think of this as a business deal and act accordingly. Don’t use slang in your email, and use proper etiquette. Explain what your site is about, any products or services, why you want to exchange links, and how you think it could benefit both of your sites. A clear and concise letter will often help seal the deal in a partnership such as this.
Another great way to drive traffic to your site is to offer an affiliate program. Affiliate programs are perfect if you have a sales, retail, or marketing website. An affiliate program is simply a program that you run as a webmaster which allows other websites to link back to products on your website. If a person purchases a product from your website by using an affiliate’s link, the affiliate gets a small percentage of the purchase. It’s like having an army of commissioned salespeople working for you on the web. They are all linking to your site and you only pay them if they bring you a sale!
Since search engine optimization is such an important part of an online business, take the time to learn as much as you can about it. Why pay for traffic when you can use organic methods that will attract targeted customers?
Technorati Tags: search engine traffic, search engine optimization, traffic to your website
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Found your blog from #30DC. Well said.
I would not worry about duplicate content before paying attention on getting page indexed fast. There are already duplicated content every where. People stealing your content or copy from article farm to gain traffic. Major search engines are getting smarter, they will know which one is more original.
Title and Description is the first step to get your site out there from experience. Would love to see how you are doing 30 days later.
Keep it up!
I’m glad you found the blog and appreciate your comments. I hope 30 days from now you will pleased with my progress. See you over at 30DC.