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How to increase traffic to your website

Jon Coon, President and CEO of LinkMountain is an expert in Internet security and small business search engine strategies. He believes that a blend of self help and professional assistance is the best approach for most businesses who want increased web traffic. He teaches do it yourself techniques that have a dramatic impact on quality website traffic.

Here are the ten principles he emphasizes.

Principle number 1: Understand the basics

If you bought a brick and mortar store on a street with little traffic, then opened for business without listing your phone number, with no business cards, signs or advertising, you wouldn't expect to do well.

Your website is no different, there are certain basic steps you have to take, but there is no magic to it - it's just knowledge.  Invest a couple of minutes to read what follows, and you will have a basic understanding of how search engine traffic moves on the web. Even if you decide to hire a professional to do everything, there are some things you need to know about search engines:

• In general, search engines have four components:
  1. the Crawler (aka spider or bot),
  2. the Indexing program,
  3. the Search Engine Result Page (SERP),
  4. and Validation programs. This is a generalization, and not all search engines work exactly the same way, but the major ones all  have those four components. Let's go over them one at a time:

• The Crawler. Think of the Crawler as an Internet scout. It's job is to find new stuff. New stuff means new websites, as well as changes to existing sites. Until a Crawler visits your site, you don't exist to the search engines. The crawler doesn't have much intelligence, it doesn't need to be smart - it's job is to find content and save it to the search engine database. The only thing they have to be good at is following links and saving web pages. If you went to any website, saved the page you were on, then followed all the links on the page, and saved those pages and kept going until told to stop, you would be doing the same thing Crawlers do - you would just be a lot slower at it.
• The Indexing Program. The indexing programs are responsible for examining what the Crawlers find, and deciding how it should be categorized. This is where the real intelligence is. Some time after the crawler finds your site, the Indexing program takes a look at the content and decides what the content is about, how to divide it up, what parts of it match with predefined categories, what  parts should be 'indexed' for fast database access, and so on. The Crawler might have found your site, but until the indexing program does it's thing you're not going to show up on a search engine result page.
• The Search Engine Result Page (SERP). The SERP is the search engine web page that displays the results after you search for something. When you navigate to google.com and search for 'widgets', the google SERP will display between 10 and 100 results, depending on the search options you use. The position of your site in the SERP is critical to the amount of traffic you can expect from search engines - the top ten sites listed for any search term will take the lion's share of traffic for that term. Your goal is to occupy that first page for as many relevant search terms as possible.
• The Validation Program. This is really not a program, but several programs. The behavior of these programs can vary widely depending on the search engine. Validation programs go beyond what the indexing programs do, and try to rank websites for various search terms using all kinds of additional factors. This is an area where search engines really compete with each other, and details about most of these are kept quite secret. One example of this is the Google Page Rank algorithm - this is the common name of the google program that keeps track of the number and context of the inbound links to your site. The basic assumption is that the more popular sites will have more links to them than the unpopular sites, and that the more popular sites will be better, all other things being equal. When deciding how to rank sites for any particular search term, google often gives a higher rank to sites with more inbound links. The context of the inbound links is also considered. A site that has a strong index for 'widgets' will benefit more from links that come from sites that also have a strong 'widget' context. This is a gross generalization of how Page Rank works, but it's a good example of a validation program.

In addition to these four components, there is one more critical component that all search engines share, and that you must be aware of to be successful - the Revenue Model. If you get nothing else from this tutorial, you need to understand this. It's so important that I cover it separately under the next principle - making yourself useful.

Principle number 2: Make yourself useful

Successful search engine optimization is not about driving traffic to your site, it's about attracting traffic to your site. You do that by making your site attractive to search engines. If your goal is to get to page one and stay there, you must understand the difference between search engine optimization and search engine spamming.
           
It's helpful to remember that search engines are companies and they are trying to satisfy their customers. Their revenue stream is largely derived from advertising, and user perception of their usefulness is critical.  Search engines are always seeking ways to provide useful, meaningful results to their users. They are also constantly developing new ways to eliminate the worthless garbage results that are irritating to you, me and the rest of their users.
           
If you employ tricks that rely on fooling the search engines to drive traffic to your site instead of focusing on providing real value, you are engaged in search engine spamming. You will be positioning your site on the wrong side of the search engine's revenue stream, and you will end up being ranked accordingly. You may even need to abandon your domain name and start over completely because sometimes search engine companies play hardball - sometimes your site is blacklisted completely.  Google, Yahoo and MSN have enough financial incentive that they employ programmers who's sole function is to write programs to detect spamming. So unless you can afford to match their programming budget, be careful about what you do and who you hire.

If you want to have long term success with search engine placement, you need to get on the right side of their revenue stream. You need to become an asset to the search engines -  by providing content that their users find useful. If you do that the search engines indexing programs will find you and reward you with better placement. In fact, they are in a competitive race to find sites that provide better content. Here are some ways to do that:

• Reports - whatever industry you are in, it's a safe bet that you know something useful about it. Try writing regular reports on the 'state of the widget industry'  from your perspective. These reports offer lots of opportunity to work in key words and phrases, and you never have to remove them, just keep adding new ones.
• Resource pages - It doesn't take long to gather up a list of web sites that searchers would find useful. After that, make short descriptions of each site, and make legitimate use of your target search terms when you describe them. Just don't forget to add value, otherwise you are just aggregating content that the search engines already had. One good way to do this is by categorizing. Search engines still have trouble categorizing pages, and if you do it for them it helps them provide better results. Examples? Search engines have trouble distinguishing between a company page that announces the launch of a new widget product, and news pages and blogs that discuss the same thing. If you categorized these links into 'widget companies', 'widget news' and 'widget blog posts', you would be adding value.
• FAQ pages - Lots of sites have pages devoted to frequently asked questions. These pages are a great opportunity to provide answers to wide ranging questions that would be helpful to searchers who are looking for information. Work in your target search terms, and keep adding to it.
• Glossary pages - There are probably quite a few words, phrases and terms used in your industry that could use some explanation. You are in a prefect position to do it, and it affords a very legitimate and convenient way to use exact industry terms.
• Gadgets and downloads - I've seen everything from amortization calculators to genetic programs that calculate the probable coat color of your labrador retriever's next litter of puppies. The right gadget will be extremely useful or interesting to the searchers you are looking for.

I put this principle at number one because I believe that it's the single most important factor in long term success. Understand the difference between real value and empty tricks and you will have the right foundation for your climb to the top. Make yourself useful.

Principle number 3: Help the search engines find you

Architect your site to be easy to index. Don't use content links that require javascript to function, and be careful about flash content that plays a navigation role. Simple hyperlinks are the best answer.
           
Make sure your site is reachable for indexing. You don't have to pay anyone to 'submit' your site to the search engines, but you do need to make sure that it is linked to from a site that is already well indexed. See the topic below on Intelligent use of paid advertising.
           
Content, content, content. The more relevant text you have, loaded with key words, the better you will do. Use simple links, simple navigation, and lots of text loaded with key words.
       

Principle number 3: Help your visitors find what they need.
       
 Search engines use algorithms that keep track of the number of times that searchers return to the search engine result page (SERP) after visiting your site. They do the same for all sites. If someone returns to the result page after visiting your site, these algorithms downgrade your relative value for whatever search term was used. The reasoning is simple - if they had found what they wanted, they probably would not have came back.

Create pages that offer legitimate assistance and information, help your visitors find what they are looking for even if it doesn't benefit you. Fewer people will return to the result page, and your site's ranking will rise over competing sites.

This is a big one for advertising sites to remember. Ad sites have a tendency to consider their business objectives met as soon as a display ad is viewed or a click add is clicked. For an Ad site, that IS conversion, but Ad sites should make every effort to satisfy the visitors search by linking to more information, internal search pages, and so on. This yields more opportunity to sell advertising and lessens the likelihood that the visitor will return to the SERP.
       

Principle number 4: Measure things
       

It's hard to get anywhere if you don't know where you're at to start with, and can't define where you are going. The more of the following that you know, the better off you will be:

• What search terms people are using when they search for businesses like yours
• Relative volume of each of those terms
• Your starting and current position for each term, with each of the search engines you are targeting
• Your starting and current inbound link count
• Your competitors inbound link counts

Principle number 5: Never break the path to a successful resource.
       

I call this one  the 10 second disaster. Here is an example:
           
 Jane has steadily increased her search position for her business over the last three years, but she doesn't like the way the site is organized. She feels that her very successful 'helpful hints' page would be better placed under a 'more information' category. So she re-vamps the site by creating a new directory. The address for the helpful hints page changes from 'www.janes.com/helpfulhints.html' to  'www.janes.com/moreinformation/helpfulhints.html'.
           
Let's look at some of the results of her decision.
           

•  All of the existing inbound links to her helpful hints page are now broken. Link checker programs are flagging those broken links, and web masters or automatic link removal programs are now removing links to her page. Within weeks, her inbound links have dropped to 50% of the previous number, and those that remain are broken and can't be followed.

• Search engine spiders can't find the resource, and the indexing programs immediately start downgrading the page and stop listing it. If they do list it, searchers will find that the link is broken and search engines HATE THAT.
             
• The search engines find the page at the new location all right, but they don't relate it to the old one. It's a new resource as far as the indexing programs are concerned, it has no inbound links and it starts where all new resources start - at the bottom.

• Her organic traffic tanks. No traffic is coming at all, and even if she puts it back the way it was she has lost half her inbound links and search engine indexing programs have downgraded the page. She's starting over.
             
  Never break the path to a successful resource.
         

Principle number 6: Design to convert.

Traffic by itself does nothing to help you - you have to convert that traffic to some form of useful result, or it's a waste of time. Every company and organization has some outcome that they expect from the traffic. Your site needs to be designed to promote that outcome. Sites that derive income from advertising usually understand this well, and every page carries prominent advertising. Sites that rely on orders or inquiries often make big mistakes though. A typical bad scenario would have a contact page that is only accessible from the home page. Another common fault is complicated or difficult to use forms or shopping carts. Here are some solid principles for traffic conversion:
           

• Every page should have a conversion device (shopping cart button, contact form, etc.) prominently displayed. After your site is optimized and indexed by the search engines traffic can come into your site through any page. There is a tendency to think that traffic comes in through the home page, with visitors first exposed to your business pitch and guided through the site from there. That perception is just flat out wrong. Chances are your traffic will come from a search engine result page and go directly to whichever page satisfied the search. Your visitor may never see your home page. Every page needs to stand on it's own, sell your product or service and offer a simple conversion mechanism.

• Keep it simple. The more hoops you hold up for your visitors to jump through, the fewer of them will do it. If all you need is their email address, don't require them to give you their phone number, address, mother's maiden name, etc. Unless you are actually conducting a survey and that is the purpose of the page, don't ask for more than is needed to turn the visit into a success.

• Keep it standard HTML. Don't use activeX, flash, javascript, cookies, or any non-standard 'features' with your conversion device. You would be amazed how much business is lost because the conversion mechanism needs flash or cookies and the visitor has them disabled, or the device uses javascript that fails to work correctly in all browsers, or css positioning sometimes hides the 'Purchase' button with a pretty graphic. If you must use something non-standard make sure you test it in every browser and common configuration. It's much easier and reliable to just keep it standard.

• Out of site, out of mind. Keep it right in front of them. Don't give them a link to a contact form if the form itself can be made short, simple and displayed right on the page.

•  Convert them in one step - don't make your visitor go through two or three steps if it can be done in one. It's sad when someone starts a contact or buying process, then quits before they complete. It often means that you had them, then lost them because you required to much effort. If you absolutely must take them through more than one step, tell them that up front. Make sure they know it's a three step process, and where they are in that process. People often bail out on a multi-step process because they grow impatient and have no idea how much more will be required of them.

• Offer rewards for using your conversion device. You can come up with something - new subscribers from your website receive a free issue, or web inquiries get priority response, etc. Give them added reason to use it and more of them will.

• Solid conversion strategies yield higher search engine ranking. When people find what they are looking for and go through a conversion process, they often quit looking any further. That means they don't return to the SERP, and every time that happens you gain ground on competing sites that aren't doing the job as well as you are.
             

 Principal number 7: Make intelligent use of paid advertising.

I'm not saying you should rely on paid advertising to get traffic to your site. The whole purpose of Search Engine Optimization is getting organic traffic, not paid traffic. That being said, there is much to be gained from using paid advertising if you have specific objectives in mind. Here are a few really good ways to use it.

• When your site is brand new, and has never been indexed by a search engine. In this case, one of the best things you can do is get a google adwords account, buy 1 day's worth of content pay per click with a small budget. Why? I normally don't recommend buying content ads for most of my clients - you rarely get your money's worth. If you do it as I just described however, you will have links to your site scattered all over the web where they will  be picked up by all of the major search engine crawlers, and at very little cost. I have seen these content ads still displaying months after the one day campaign is finished. You rarely get any business from them, but you get a lot of search engine exposure for very little money. Ten or twenty bucks goes a long way...
• Having a google adwords account gets you access to the google key word tools, and this is the best free tool I have found for estimating the relative value of search terms. It's worth having an account for that reason alone.
• When you don't know if it's worth the effort to be on page one for a search term, buy a pay per click campaign for a few days and monitor the results. You are going to want to bid high, so you can be sure to be at the top. It's highly unlikely that you will make money doing this, but you could save yourself a ton of effort. It can take one to two years for SEO efforts to really pay off, and this gives you a way to find out immediately if the effort makes sense. This is one of the best uses there is for pay per click. Do not buy content ads for this one.

Principle number 8: Quality inbound links

Everyone has heard that inbound links to your site are important, and they are. That doesn't mean that all inbound links are equal. Search engines are getting very good at discriminating between quality inbound links and links created through automated 'link swap' programs and similar tricks.

This is another example of following the 'trick of the month' club. Search engines starting using inbound links as a measure of a site's popularity. This resulted in link swap strategies whereby two sites could both increase their search engine ranking by simply swapping links to each other - a trick of the month strategy that worked - for a while. Like all other strategies that attempt to gain SERP position with little or no work, it was only a matter of time before the search engines caught on and implemented programs that are much smarter at checking the real value of inbound links. What the search engines are really looking for is links that others have made to your site because they think your content is worthwhile.

Search engines are aware of the source and the context of the source for all inbound links to your site. If you manufacture widgets, and you have an inbound link from a Ferret farm, it isn't likely to help much with the kind of traffic you want (unless Ferret farms are a market for you, and therefore in context). Links from your local chamber of commerce, widget associations and members of the widget press will help a lot.

Another big factor is where the inbound links actually point to. When all of your inbound links point to your home page, it smacks of automation. Inbound links that point to individual pages with relevant content are far better. One inbound link from a member of the widget press, pointing to a page that displays one of your articles on new widget manufacturing techniques is worth a pile and a half of link swaps pointing to your home page. Lots of inbound links pointing to many internal pages tells the search engines that you have lots of worthwhile, relevant content.

Another good reason for encouraging links to pages other than your home page is the ephemeral nature of the home page. You will be changing it often, and it is much easier for a search engine to establish context when the resource is not changing.

In SEO lingo, this is known as deep linking, as opposed to shallow linking. Sites with many links to the home page are shallow, those with many links to internal pages are deep.

You want deep.

Principle number 10: Know when to hire a professional

This tutorial is intended to give you the basics, and in many cases the basics are sufficient to dramatically increase your web traffic. For those who like to learn and have sufficient time to devote to the task, there is no more cost effective way to get it done. There is almost always a benefit to tackling at least some of the work yourself, but there  are times when it makes a lot of sense to hire a pro:

• If you can't commit to at least a couple of hours each week to improving your site
• If you don't have a basic understanding of web site design, and can't afford the time to learn
• If you are up against competitors who have hired professionals
• If you have hired the wrong people, who employed methods you don't understand and you suspect your site has been downgraded as a result
• If you don't have access to your web logs or don't know how to interpret them
• You don't know where to start, and don't know if it's worth doing

Hopefully this tutorial has armed you with enough information to ask the right questions if you need to hire professional help. Of course, we would like it if you would consider hiring us. At LinkMountain, we have a wide range of options, including tools that help you do as much as you want on your own, and leave to us the things that you don't understand or don't want to undertake yourself. We can help you decide if it's worth doing, figure out what your competitors are up to, and fix any existing problems with your site.