How do I get more traffic from search engines?
Search engine positioning is a long-term strategy, and there are no quick-fix solutions in this area. To be really effective with search engine marketing, your site needs to be focused around the right keywords and keyword phrases. If you want to boost your traffic quickly however, Google AdWords or other paid advertisement options are available.
That said, here are some general tips to assist with ‘natural’ SEO:
1. Research the best keywords to use in your SEO plan. Use ones that people actually use to search for what you are offering. Try and picture yourself as your customer and what search words you would then use to find your products.
2. Research your Competition. When you know the key words you want, see who else is using them. It stands to reason that if the competitor’s site at position 1 on Google has a 50 page site of relevant content, that in order to compete, you will at least need to match or if possible, better the competition.
3. Go Geographic. If you don’t have a national or global company reach, set your SEO sights on a similar scale. In doing so, you will narrow down the number of results in Google and increase your chances. For example, if you sell ‘office water coolers’ (which has 1.5m Google results) but only in ‘Manchester’, then use the keys phrase/words ‘office water coolers Manchester’. The results come down to 58,500 on Google and would be representative of someone from Manchester (as opposed to globally), trying to find your product.
4. Create pages that are focused on each particular keyword phrase. For instance if your keyword phrase was ‘office water coolers Manchester’, you would want to create a page that is called “Office Water Coolers”. The page would be about your product and include the keyword phrase a few times in the copy (but don’t overdo it). By having your location, or office address in the footer, it complies with regulations, and satisfies the geographic point mentioned above.
5. Get Content Management. By having your webmaster put a content management section in place, you can control the size of the site and add new pages or new content items as you see fit. This puts you in control and will reduce overheads by not having to pay your design company to add pages/content for you.
6. Get incoming links using your keywords. A great way to do this is to exchange links with other sites in related fields and request that they link to you with the keywords in the link text. In exchange you would have a page on your site called Partners or Resources and you would link to their site. You should also pursue “widget” directories where you can submit your link (these often don’t require link-backs either) and/or paid directories where they link to your site for a fee. Each link to your page counts as a “vote” for your page. Links with text that matches your keyword phrase for that page count more. These “votes” add up to PageRank, which Google uses predominantly to establish the rank of your page on the search engine results. Along the same lines, be sure to use text links within your site to link to the various pages you’ve created.
7. Regular Performance Reviews. As you would with your sales staff, treat your website no differently and set time aside at regular intervals (daily/weekly/monthly?) in order to evaluate how your SEO is coming on. Look at your site statistics and Google Analytics and se what key words are working for you and how your site position/rank is developing. And don’t forget to keep an eye on the competition in your review. Search engine positioning takes time.