Your Need More Than Just A Website

Too many businesses have someone build a nice website and then do nothing to get people to visit it. “Build it and they will come…” That famous line from the movie “Field Of Dreams” ties in so well with the expectations companies have after they have built their first website. Then a weeks go by and someone asks, “What’s wrong with our website? We built it but they did not come!” After a little research they find out that hardly anyone knows they have a website.

Promote Your Website

For your website to get visitors, someone must type in the website address in the address bar of their browser, or they must click on a link to your site from another website. Either method requires the promotion of your site.

To get someone to type in your address you can promote your website by word of mouth or you can promote your website through the traditional media resources like radio, print and television. To get someone to click on a link to your site you can promote it on other websites by getting webmasters to provide links from their website to yours.

Promote Through The Search Engines

The best way for most companies to promote their websites is through the search engines. And the best place to be found is through the organic search. Gaining such placement requires regular and calculated updates to your website.

Content is King and Links are Queen

To gain valuable search engine ranking you must have content on your site that the search engine determines to be valuable to the searcher. Words, phrases and their placement in your content are some of the key elements used by the algorithms that determine your websites rank. And updating that content on a regular basis is key.

Another important factor is the array of links that point to your site. Links that come from sites with related content are more valuable than links from unrelated websites.  A link from a site’s home page is more valuable than a link from a page at level 3.

What generates the most traffic to your website?

The first area you can impact the ranking of your website is the domain name. The content you the domain should include targeted words if possible. The next area is the design of your website. So when creating your website, make sure you design it with some basic considerations toward search engine rankings.

Your Site Design And Layout

Naming your pages has an impact on search engine ranking. Including targeted keywords that are relevant to your content in the referenced page can go a long way. The same holds true for the page title.

Your Key Words

Take time to target beneficial keywords. My first website customer wanted to be on the first page in the search engines under “diamonds” and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t try to get him there. I told him “You’re competing with companies that have hundreds of websites and an entire staff dedicated toward getting the top spot for ‘diamonds.’ It’s just not going to happen for you.” I then proceeded to show him how to choose keywords that targeted his specific clientele and got him rankings that were valuable.

Your Website Content

Include your keywords in your content. Your headlines, your text and the alternate text for your graphics should include relevant keywords.

And one very important note: Keep your content up to date! A website with content that has not been updated for months will loose valuable positions.

What you would like to know about search engines?

This panda is not cute, cuddly or black and white. It is the name Google gave its recent update in how it ranks pages in its search results. The idea was to give the user the most relevant results. Keywords no longer assure top positions. The emphasis now is on quality content. In other words, how much time do users spend on your site? How many pages do they visit? Do you have a presence on social media sites and frequently update your blogs?

The problem for small business owners is finding the time to constantly update their web content. Also, some sites are designed for users to find what they want quickly. Your site may also be large and contain a lot of static information, but it is still relevant to your audience. You may have a nice 5 page site and you take the time to invest in quality products and services, but don’t have the time or money to invest in blogging.

Small business owners therefore find it difficult to adapt to these changes since they may have to make another financial outlay or re-do the entire design of a site that has always worked well for them.

What is to be done?

Select your best 5 pages and redevelop their content. Get rid of duplicate content from your web pages. Strengthen your weakest pages. Start a social media strategy by implementing a blog and social media presences. If you are starting a new site, concentrate on the criteria used by  Panda.

Last, by not least, if you have neither the time nor the expertise to make these changes, give us a call. We specialize in Search Engine Optimization and can help you reclaim some of your lost rankings.

Think The Search Engine Concept is Fairly New?

Think Again…

Vannevar Bush’s article, “As We Man Think”, published in the July 1945 issue of Atlantic Monthly stated this:

Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of the systems of indexing. … Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.

The human mind does not work this way. It operates by association. … Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency.

Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his own shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory.

After that he proposed the idea of a limitless memory storage and retrieval system.

What would he think if he could see the power of the search engines today?

The market share breakdown for January according to com.Score.com is this:

Google Sites…  .66.6%

Yahoo Sites……16.0%

Microsoft Sites…12%

Google continues to dominate and should be the primary focus for most companies trying to improve their ranking services.

Contact us and ask about our Search Engine Rank Report and regular site updating services. Call Huck Huckabee at 704-438-2910

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