Increase Web Traffic: Part 3 of 4

Now we are on a roll!  The focus of Part Three is how to increase Web traffic from the search engines.

To give you some ball park stats on search engine market share:  Google holds approximately 65%, Yahoo about 20%, MSN about 8%, Ask has about 3%, and all the others hold the remaining 1-2%.  Why is this important?  Because in a perfect world your Web site analytics should reflect these percentages.  If they don’t, then you may be missing out on part of your target market.

If you remember, Part One stated you may increase search engine traffic through natural optimization or Paid Search.  Which one is better?  Well, that’s a bit of a trick question.  On the surface, natural seems better.  It is free and all, it elicits more clicks, and, believe or not, studies show that the conversion rate is nearly equal to that of Paid Search.  It is, however, the combination or mix of both that I think works best.

As the graph illustrates, there are really two ways for increasing this kind of traffic: pay more or become more relevant.  It might not be the best philosophy, but you can always throw money at it (think Target).  Logic follows that the more you pay, the more your ads display, the more users see the ads, the more likely they will be to click on your ads, the more you’re likely to see conversions, and on and on and on.

Strategies for increasing your relevancy are also pretty basic.  Ensure you offer what you’re selling (you would be surprised how many miss this point).  In other words, if you’re a car dealership trying to sell flip flops, and flip flops are never mentioned on your site, ta da! It’s not relevant (and Google gets less money, yeah, I went there), which lowers your quality score.  So, if you’re selling a Ford F150, then I would be sure to include “Ford 150″ on my landing page.  You’re using landing pages, right?

Google has something like 288 parameters that comprise their algorithm, working together to determine what pages get ranked where and for what terms.  No one outside the Google bubble knows exactly what these parameters are; I don’t, nor would I want to, have a clue what they all could possibly be, but there’s a general idea of what these parameters measure and how they impact your rankings.

DOMAIN NAME is the same as your Web site address, which is the same as your URL.  I’ve personally noticed that it carries a lot of weight.  If you want to rank for a specific phrase that gets a lot of traffic (think foreclosures.com or shoes.com) then really think about your domain name.  It isn’t everything, but it is one important part.  There are many online businesses built around a powerful domain (again think shoes.com vs. zappos.com)

ON-PAGE optimization refers to title and Meta tags, clean URLs, H1 and H2 tags, content, technical structure, et cetera.  I recommend using WordPress as your optimization tool; it makes it almost impossible to mess up (with the right plug-ins).  For example, while researching to write this four-part series, I knew I wanted to target “increase Web traffic.”  If you look at this page, it’s in the title tag, URL, H1 tag, and also in the content.

GOOD CONTENT has to be unique and, for the engine’s benefit, repeat the exact phrase you are targeting (“increase Web traffic”).  While optimizing content, however, don’t think solely of the engine’s satisfaction; it’s more important that users will read and appreciate it.

LINKS come in two shapes, on the page and external.  You can control intra-site, page links; you are writing them in, after all.  In this post, I will be sure to link to increase Web traffic back to my first post.  I will also ask my co-workers to give me a link or two

If you follow these simple strategies and do the right research you will start to notice an increase in your search engine rankings.  In fact, research is the foundation for all of this.  Make sure you are targeting phrases that make sense, but also that will bring in some good traffic.  I use Google Keyword Tool among others, which provide statistics on how frequently a term is searched for and how many other Web pages compete for placement under that term.  The last piece of the puzzle relates to gaining off-page (or external) links, a topic with which we’ll conclude this series next time.

Most recent posts by Brian

• SEO Fundamentals in a Social Media World? - September 10th, 2009
• Tales from Web Marketing Meetings - July 29th, 2009
• Increase Web Traffic: Part 4 of 4 - May 20th, 2009
• The "Power of One" Link - May 8th, 2009
• Increase Web Traffic: Part 2 of 4 - April 8th, 2009