Driving Web Traffic - Common SEO Practices

DRIVING WEB TRAFFIC

            What good
is having a store without customers? A TV commercial with no viewers?
Similarly, a website without visitors is a waste of cyberspace and money. The
reality is that many businesses have ineffective website marketing that fails
to deliver sufficient return for the time, effort and money spent. 

            How does a
small business draw visitors to its site? It can be like finding a needle
in a haystack without the proper methods of identification and promotion. One
solution is Search Engine Optimization. 

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

            There are
millions of websites vying for attention. The worldwide web contains over
5 billion web pages, with nearly 7 million new pages—added daily! Optimum
search engine optimization (SEO) is one way to ensure a constant stream of
traffic to the site. 

            SEO is a
necessity so that your website ranks in the top 30 search engine
results. Submitting a site that is successfully indexed by a search engine
is only the beginning. Content must be relevant to the search terms. Reciprocal
links with complimentary websites also give a big boost in search engines.

HINTS FOR UTILIZING SEO

            When you
use the internet, what do you use for searching across billions of websites for
the information you need? Do you use Google? Yahoo? AOL? MSN? There are
hundreds of smaller search engines, but over 95% of all web searching is done
on these search engines.

            So how do
you actually find relevant information? Do you go to Page 31 for results, or do
you stop on Page 1 or 2? Search Engine Optimization is the art of structuring a
website and providing content that is clear, cohesive, relevant, and popular—a
crucial element of internet marketing.

            It is the
most economical method of achieving best results with search engines, and a
great accomplishment to appear on a search engine under a keyword that is
relevant to your business. Here are a few things to consider for your website
so you can get the most out of SEO:

ü  Content. Offer lots of content that is
relevant to your small business or industry.

ü  Keyword
Enrichment. Make
sure keywords that relate to your small business appear often throughout the
body of your content.

ü  Clarity and Grammar. Complex algorithms can look at the sentence structure and
format, and will favor the sites that are well written.

ü  Links. Send links to your website to your
friends and family through email and explain what the company does in a clear,
cohesive method. Have them forward the information to their friends, family and
even acquaintances. Encourage them to talk about it with people on the
internet.

ü  Forums. Find forums that are related to
your industry, product, or service. Create an account and offer free advice.
Make sure to provide some links to your website where they can go to get
additional information, but be careful to avoid spamming. (See below.)

ü  Chatrooms. Offer free help and advice in
chatrooms. If your website contains useful information, direct people there.
Avoid spamming at all costs.

ü  Traffic.Websites that receive high traffic
are more popular than those that don’t. Even if the content is better on one
that receives less traffic, it will not appear as close to the top of the first
results page as the one with poorer content with higher traffic. In order for
your website to be considered popular, it should receive more traffic than your
competitors for that top position. This is where all visitors to your website
make a difference. The more news you spread about your website (non-spam), and
the more people you get involved, the more visitors your website will receive.
With increased visitors, your website is more likely to be ranked higher, and
therefore displayed higher.

SEARCH
ENGINE ADVERTISING

            Web advertising through search engines is also called sponsored search and search engine advertising. The most
popular programs are offered by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. Some offer Pay Per Click (PPC) services, also known
as Cost Per Click (CPC), where the
advertiser is only charged when a user visits the ad. Others use a Cost Per Impression (CPM) model where
advertisers are charged every time the Advertisement appears on their website.
Ads can take many forms, including text, banner ads, video ads, map ads, and
even audio ads.

KEYWORD-BASED
WEB MARKETING

            Marketing based on a keyword search could take place
through a search engine such as google.com, or a search engine partner site,
such as shopping.com. For example, Google offers a service called AdWords, which allows companies, for a
small fee, to have a link to their website featured when a user searches a
specific keyword.

CONTENT-BASED
WEB MARKETING

            Many search engines (Google, Ask.com, Yahoo!, Search,
etc.) have partner websites with specific content. The websites agree to let
the search engines place content-specific advertising on their website, in
return for a fee. The search engine then finds companies interested in
advertising on websites with their desired content. For example, an online dog
food retailer might have their advertisement placed on a site about dogs.

            Both of these advertising formats allow advertisers to
target specific users with certain interests. Generally, these advertisements
are paid for based on either a pay per
click campaign or an impression-based
campaign.

SPAM
AND OTHER BAD INTERNET MARKETING PRACTICES

            Spamming
is the abuse of the internet and email in order to send unsolicited and
undesired bulk messages. The best recognized method of spamming is junk email.
In fact, over 95% of email messages transmitted over the internet is SPAM.

Sincerely,

Ilya Bodner

Small Business Credit