Getting More Hits on my Website

Black Ice

So, a while back, I started a thread on web design with some AAA advice that has helped me with my web business. I'm looking for some more help on a more specific subject now - securing a greater web presence.

I'm aware of submitting my website to search engines and using meta tags. I've read this article on About.com that has some good fundamentals. However, I'm advertising a business, so I also think I'll be looking at submitting this business to YellowPages and Google Ads. The person I'm doing this website for wants to get hits more than anything else - what can I do to increase traffic to his website?

Thanks in advance!

flatlinegraphics

provide good info. stuff that people actually want.

failing that, make sure that your site is fully optimized. you want to download and use google webmaster tools.
*use google services, such as maps and search.

*make and submit a sitemap.xml

*make sure all your pages are named for what they contain. about.html is good, about-our-practice.html is better. fully descriptive titles are even better. make sure all links have alt text and titles.

*use css sprites or text links rahter than inline images.

*make sure your keywords and all meta info is actually relavent to the page. you can get penalized for keyword stuffing.

*build good inbound and outbound links. you will get better rankings by being a better net citizen.

*make sure the site is updated regularly, via a news posting or something. google will give more weight to sites that aren't 'dead'.

alternately, buy keywords and text ads. making the site is step one in a marketing campaign. building social networks, advertising, etc. direct mail, both physical and email, can drive people to the site, but you have to be careful and toe the line between 'offering services' and 'spam'. giving people things such as coupon codes and advertisements they want will go much further than random email blasts. i open the newegg spam every day, as i like tech deals and want to see whats on sale. the ticketmaster emails about keith urban concerts go in the trash, as they are randomly spamming things i'm not interested in.

Jasconius

garararagagagahhh

flatlinegraphics wrote: »

*use google services, such as maps and search.
I seriously doubt this impacts actual search rankings. If that ever got out there would be a sever backlash against Google.

*make sure all your pages are named for what they contain. about.html is good, about-our-practice.html is better. fully descriptive titles are even better. make sure all links have alt text and titles.

This is a half truth. There is nothing wrong with "About" for a page that is simply "about". The cases where you want descriptive hyphen separated names are thinks like "web-design.html", "search-engine-optimization.html", and so forth. Naming generic pages that way like About and Contact are just tacky fluff..

The most important thing you can do to increase search exposure is use keywords that emphasize location in your keywords. If your keyword is "Cityname Web Design" as opposed to "Web Design", you're going to have much better luck.

You will never. Ever. Ever. EVER even remotely hit first page for generic thinks like "web design", etc. However, if you live in a small to medium market you at least have a chance at the first page.

Page titles are very important, don't undersell them. I've seen some reading to suggest they are more important than meta keywords themselves.


It's probably not feasible since you are a on man operation, but there are virtual PR agencies that will create lame press releases and stuff them down the throats of local business journals, etc. It will generate link traffic which will help your search engine rank and drive small business owners at your service.


The easy route for generating business is actually getting your hands dirty and mingling with people. You can't just magically make a living for yourself by putting your site on google and staring at the phone.

Echo

Jasconius wrote: »

Page titles are very important, don't undersell them. I've seen some reading to suggest they are more important than meta keywords themselves.

A lot of search engines don't really care all that much about meta keywords since you can stuff whatever the heck you want in there. Page titles and page headers tend to rank higher. A lot higher.

Jasconius

The last thing I read from a Google engineer was something like

1) domain name
2) page title
3) keyword density (defined as more than two appearances of a keyword within body copy as determined by googlebot)
4) an amalgam of other goo including page names, meta shit, etc

An-D

If you get a Stumbleupon set up, you might surprise yourself with the results. I've gotten hundreds of hits on websites within a few minutes with stumble. Depending on how popular it is, it drops to a steady, but increased daily rate.

EskimoDave

Google maps has found me business' that were better than the top ranking pages.

edit - I use stumple upon all the time. My sister does as well. Its a great add-on. Definitely add yourself to that.

Jasconius

EskimoDave wrote: »

Google maps has found me business' that were better than the top ranking pages.

edit - I use stumple upon all the time. My sister does as well. Its a great add-on. Definitely add yourself to that.

Yes but when you are a freelancer, listing your business on google maps and then they do a street view and realize it's just an apartment is a lot worse than just not doing it at all.

flatlinegraphics

Jasconius wrote: »

garararagagagahhh

flatlinegraphics wrote: »

*use google services, such as maps and search.
I seriously doubt this impacts actual search rankings. If that ever got out there would be a sever backlash against Google.

Well, at least for the maps, we have found that you get more location specific stuff. ie, when people google 'your hometown' and 'something product' it pops up both in maps.google.com, the main google page outside the ranked links, and generally seems higher. using google custom search will force google to index you, and more often, than waiting around for the spiders to get to you. and its better than any search you could write yourself.

Jasconius wrote: »

*make sure all your pages are named for what they contain. about.html is good, about-our-practice.html is better. fully descriptive titles are even better. make sure all links have alt text and titles.

This is a half truth. There is nothing wrong with "About" for a page that is simply "about". The cases where you want descriptive hyphen separated names are thinks like "web-design.html", "search-engine-optimization.html", and so forth. Naming generic pages that way like About and Contact are just tacky fluff..

[/QUOTE]
yeah, thats what i mean. 'about', 'about-us', is fine for generic top level about pages. 'about-this-specific-part-of-my-business' is better for lower level pages. using mod rewrite may be even better.

Jasconius wrote: »

The most important thing you can do to increase search exposure is use keywords that emphasize location in your keywords. If your keyword is "Cityname Web Design" as opposed to "Web Design", you're going to have much better luck.

this ties into the comment about google maps. as now you not only have the "company name - city name company type" in the title, but you have a hard geo coordinate. and the integrated map looks cool.

Jasconius wrote: »

stuff

and the rest. networking will get you better everything, and using the website as just part of your overall strategy is the best way.