Driving traffic to your website can be a time consuming task. However, these easy tips may help you increase traffic and convert those visitors into actual customers.
1. Title on your main URL and secondary pages
Originally, my title was ADVANCED SYSTEMS-A Leadership & Organizational Training & Development Firm near Chicago, IL. If I searched for the first two words ADVANCED SYSTEMS using Overture at http://inventory.overture.com I found a little over 4,000 keyword searches. By using this tool, I entered various key words and discovered that the term education and training had over 210,000 searches during the previous month. Research also recommends that the title length not exceed 77 characters and so I continued researching the most effective key words to pair with my first two terms. Also, additional reading suggested that you indicate your location within this title. Even though the completed title may exceed the recommended length, this is OK because the search engines do read beyond 77 characters. Also, as you construct or revise each page, make sure that title has the appropriate key words. Currently, I am doing that for my site because as stated earlier ADVANCED SYSTEMS is not a popular searched term.
2. Content
Both my Internet marketing coach (www.leaders-perspective.com) and my marketing consultant (www.hodgecommunications.com) acknowledged that the content on my site of which I wrote was of exceptional editorial quality. Their praises made me feel very good. However, both told me that the content wouldnt sell an igloo to an Eskimo. This wasnt what I wanted to hear after spending hundreds of hours writing this exceptional content. Currently, I am revisiting each page and rewriting the content using a marketing content focus instead of editorial one. I had failed one of the basic lessons in marketing write to the audience needs by identifying potential benefits not your expertise.
3. Search Words
Again using the mentioned site in tip #1, I began to rewrite the content and then checked key words and phrases to ensure that they were embedded within the content. Writing in Microsoft Word, the writer can go to the Edit button and scroll down to the Find icon. By typing in a specific word or phrase, this handy tool will check to see how many times it appears in the document. A note of caution Be careful not to overload your content with search words because the robots are quite sophisticated and can distinguish this overload.
4. Call to Action
Within the content on each page should be a call to action. The visitor should be encouraged to sign up for a free newsletter or contact your office by phone or email. Also, you can provide links to other pages within your website such as click to hear read more articles.
5. Thematic Approach
Using a theme entices search engines to travel through all the pages within your site. The theme can be your unique selling proposition. Also, a thematic approach encourages your visitors to visit more than one or two pages.
6. Use of Pictures, Graphics and Flash
Pictures are far more effective than clip art. Remember to use a variety of genders and ethnicity because your Internet audience is diverse. Be careful with flash and other time consuming graphics as they may consume too much time to download. Many visitors leave sites if the site doesnt download in a matter of seconds. Time is money not only for you, but your visitors as well.
7. Free Offers
Visitors like to receive free offers from ezine booklets to articles to recommendations on books and other sites. Entice your visitors with freebies and have them coming back for more.
8. Regular Updates
Sites need to be updated on a regular basis to encourage Search Engines to continually visit your site. A static site is not good for web traffic or building relationships with your visitors. Construct a plan to revisit your pages to provide new content for Search Engines. HINT: Remember to check Key Words as you update your pages.
9. Perfection and Under Construction
Since web sites should not be static, perfection is an ongoing experience. Dont wait until the content is perfect. Load it and then watch your statistics. Under construction shouldnt be forever, however prioritize those pages you wish to update first. If you need to add a page, do so and mark it as Under Construction. I currently have several new pages Under Construction and still have yet to revise all my pages. Working using a plan (see tip 8), I anticipate completing the entire site within the next 30 days. And then, revisit at least 2 pages each month to update the content.
These last two months have been an incredible learning experience for me as I continue to work on my site to expand traffic and therefore potential clients. For example, one of the most visible results has been a 300% increase on one of my revised pages (http://www.processspecialist.com/youth.htm). Even though the site is still has pages under construction, I know that following these 9 simple tips will continue to multiply traffic and eventually increase my client base.
Copyright 2005(c) Leanne Hoagland-Smith, www.processspecialist.com
This article may be freely published. Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. CEO of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, is the Learning & Process Specialist. With over 25 years of business & education experience, she helps her clients to double their performance. By uniting systems, strategies and people to create loyal internal customers, Leanne delivers ROI solutions in 4 key areas: financials, leadership, relationships and growth & innovation within a variety of industries including education, healthcare, manufacturing and professional services. As co-author of M.A.G.I.C.A.L. Potential: 7 Capacities for Living an Amazing Life Beyond Purpose to Achievement due for 2005 release, Leanne speaks nationally to a variety of audiences. Please contact Leanne at 219.759.5601 or visit if you are seeking to connect your passion to your purpose to double your performance and receive unheard of results.
The Importance of Page Content
The content of a page is probably the most important consideration when building traffic to your web site. Other techniques do gain more traffic but page content and content of your web site in general is most important when producing a good quality site that will naturally build traffic.
1.1 General guidelines for a pageFor a page to rank well with the search engines, the page should be optimized and have sufficient text that is of relevance to your visitor. Ideally the page will be written and presented to be easy to read. It will have a good use of white space and placing of text blocks and pictures (graphics).
The text you write should be warm and compelling. It should flow well so it is easy to read and be in short paragraphs so interest is easy to maintain.
The content you place on the page should be reflected by the page name, title, the H1 heading, description and meta tag keywords.1.2 Page ContentAs the number of pages on the web increases, it is becoming more difficult to achieve a high page ranking. There is much you can do and the most important consideration is the content on the page. Search engines are becoming more specialized at looking at the page as a whole and ranking the page on the basis if its content rather than just the title, meta tag keywords and the description. The text or copy on the page is now becoming the most important feature with the all the properties of the page being used to judge its ranking.
This is good from our point of view. Let me explain. If we are interested in creating a page that is relevant to our site visitor then the copy of the page will contain accurate and compelling information about its topic. The page will naturally rank higher than other less well constructed pages. If our pages are the best we can make them, when compared with much poorer pages, our pages will rapidly rise in ranking.
When a search engines refers a visitor to your page, they will record the time that they spend at your site (as long as the visitor clicks back to the search engine). This information is used to rank pages. If your visitor stays longer on your site compared with other sites, your page ranking will naturally improve.
So creating pages that are sticky will help ranking and in turn increase traffic to your site.
This is a short piece taken from my eBook on Web Site Traffic Building techniques. My eBook summarises the best techniques I have used over the last three years in creating successful commercial sites.
The full eBook is available from http://www.web-site-traffic-building.com
Nigel Stephens is a Microsoft MCP and has extensive experience in creating database driven web sites such as that are commercially successful. His eBook of the best techniques for developing targeted traffic is available from