howl!
how to get more hits on search engines
there are millions of websites all over the globe and all of them are vying for that coveted top spot on the search engine list. there is no magic bullet to spring you to the top of the list. remember, all of your competitors are also trying to get to the top of the list as well. a strategy that employs a combination of things to help make your website most visible to your target customer works best. this is going to require a lot of work and patience and should be part of your overall marketing strategy for your business. the basics are outlined below with an indication of which things you can do yourself and which you may need help from your web designer. a list of helpful links will follow.
websites must be submitted to search engines in order for them to find you. you must let google, yahoo, bing, and others know that you exist by contacting them and pasting code into your html that the search engines give you to verify you are real. your website designer should do this as part of your web design. be sure to ask for this.
the search engines will then rank your site based on algorithms that include many factors. getting a higher rank gets you moved up in the search. here are some of the ways to get a higher ranking:
search engines crawl websites and prioritize in this order:
1. website title – the name at the top of the tab when you open the web page. for example, ours says “dogs hate jazz – website design raleigh, durham, chapel hill”
2. website content – the body of text within the web page itself. so if you want google to hit your site with the words “dogs hate jazz” or “website design chapel hill”, then those words should show up in your web page or pages within the content. “dogs hate jazz has been providing great website design in the raleigh, durham, chapel hill area since 2010.” when crafting your content, be sure to hit all the word sequences you’d like to show up in a google search.
3. meta tags – these are the keywords inside the head of the code that users will not see, but the robots will when crawling the site. they are not as important as the words in the content but will still help to elevate your rank. give a list of search terms you would like crawled to your web designer to include in the code. be sure to include common misspellings of your name or company name.
links back to your website from other websites increases your rank, visibility, and likelihood of getting more hits for your business.
1. if you belong to a trade organization that lists its members on their website, make sure your link is included in their directory. get your business and your link added to as many relative directories as possible.
2. list your business on online business listing sites such as google places, yellowpages, yahoo listings, yelp, citysearch, and others. (links to these places will follow this article.) there are many more. do a google search yourself for “list your business online” and find both free and pay sites that help you get more traffic.
3. ask friends or other businesses that are in the same industry, but not necessarily competition, to list your link on their site. the polite thing to do, of course, is to list theirs on yours as well. it never hurts to ask. and the more cross links to your site, the higher your rank.
4. use social networking sites to list your business (linkedIn, facebook, twitter, youtube, plaxo) and keep it up to date. remember, each one of these pages will link back to your website and help elevate you in searches. have your web designer include links to your social network pages.
5. create a blog that is linked closely with your website and keep it updated regularly to get more interest in your site. a good blog article can get many hits on your site on the day it is posted, but you will need to keep up the interest by continually adding articles. articles do not need to be long or time-consuming. write about your experiences with your trade and use it as a teaching tool to help your customers better understand what it is you can do for them. don’t just set up an advertisement page. be informative. blogs are relatively easy to set up, but if you are not tech savvy, have your web designer set it up for you then all you have to do is add the content, content, content.
you may also find that having a blog that serves as your company's only website may be more flexible and useable for your particular company, especially if you run lots of specials or hold special events frequently. it is the easiest way to keep your customers informed without having to pay a web designer to maintain it.
paid advertisements will get you more visibility. google, for example, will show your ad at the top of the page when someone searches for “dogs hate jazz”, and you will only pay for the ad whenever someone actually clicks on it. this should be part of your overall marketing budget consideration, but it is not cheap.
relevant links:
click here for an excellent article about writing your website content to get higher ranking.
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