Building Traffic to Your Website
One of the questions that we hear quite often from our 34SP.com clients is: "How can I get more traffic to my online business website?". This month our 34SP.com Newsletter will be giving you a few ideas on generating more website traffic. Regardless of your account type - whether it is Business Web Hosting, Professional Web Hosting, or Reseller Web Hosting - you can most likely get more traffic to your site with one or more of the following suggestions.
Make certain that your website loads up quickly
Testing across a wide cross section of Internet users shows that the faster your website loads, the more likely visitors are to stay. Take a look at this great infographic on page speeds, to understand how page speed could affect your visitor's behavior. Additionally Google uses site speed as a metric in determining your search engine rankings. To get your website to load as quickly as possible, reduce the amount of items that load on your first page. Also reduce any images to their lightest possible file size which still looks sharp and clear when fully loaded. Use images and graphics appropriately as needed - but be aware that each extra photo, image or other graphic you add to your website will slow down the load time. Finally, consider moving any items that load from external sources such as Twitter, Facebook or other live feeds to pages further into your website. Waiting for external sources to load can slow your main page down. Google has created a tool to help with page load speeds you can view here: https://developers.google.com/pagespeed.
Create a 'search engine friendly' website
There are a number of detailed websites which address all facets of creating a search engine friendly website. One great reference site is the blog of Google employee Matt Cutts. Here are a few tips that are often suggested by experts:
- Make certain to create a unique title tag for each page of your website. Use descriptive keywords in the title so that search engines can easily determine what type of content is on that page.
- Reduce or eliminate any duplicate content on your website.
- Be sure to link to various pages within your website using descriptive anchor text - not just repeating ''Click here'' throughout your site.
For those without coding knowledge, we recommend contacting your web designer if you wish to make 'search engine friendly' improvements to your website.
Announce new products and news on your website and through press releases
Inbound links to your website are always great for both search engines and general traffic flow. One great way to establish inbound links to your website is to create press releases about interesting or newsworthy activities you are pursuing. New product announcements are a prime candidate, as are any industry awards or trade shows you are attending, exhibiting or will be speaking at. For best results you should always distribute your major press releases using a distribution service such as PRWeb or Marketwire. Additionally, email your press releases to any news sites in your industry. These sites are always hungry for new content that is industry focused. You should also create a 'News' section for your own website and post any press releases or product news. This will help create fresh content (see below).
Keep your website content fresh
Another key to driving traffic into your website is to have relevant content which is updated periodically. Many websites maintain a blog which covers topical material of interest to visitors. Remember when you create content to have a compelling title for your piece and also a descriptive title tag - so that search engine spiders can understand and properly classify your content. Of course its a good idea to place any new product announcements or special offers onto your site as well. These should be updated from time to time to keep your website fresh. Most search engines now have the capability of searching for relevant content by ''freshness''. Therefore, a search may be conducted only for material created in the past 24 hours or the past week. The more up to date your content, the more likely your website will appear in those search results and drive additional traffic.
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