Building Web Traffic
The biggest pitfall one can have when getting a website
designed is to subscribe to the "If you build it, they will come"
theory. At Huenig Webdesign, we have devoted our time to do what we
do best, designing quality websites and building quality web applications.
We're the website builders. If you had a building built for business
and then complained to your builder that nobody ever came to your
business, they would probably chuckle and tell you "tough luck"!
Construction companies generally don't promote and advertise businesses
that they do construction for.
The best advice we could ever give our clients to build traffic is
to have a marketing budget in association with building your website.
To fail to plan is to plan to fail when it comes to marketing your
website on the Internet. But there are so many ways, many of them
cost ineffective, to spend your money promoting a site that it is
very confusing to a novice.
To this end, we offer the following advice garnered from years of
experience building websites:
Hire An Expert
(Highly Recommended!)
There is no such thing as a web designer who is also an "expert"
at search engine optimization. There are simply not enough hours in
the day to do both. A good search engine optimization expert spends
100% of his time analyzing, submitting, tweaking, and researching.
We at Huenig Webdesign know a lot about the search engines, and we
can offer good advice. However, the SEO experts are exactly that...
experts. The services of a good SEO expert do not come cheap. Why?
Analyzing and optimizing a single web page can take several hours.
Submitting the pages take more time. Then analyzing your rankings,
re-optimizing the page and resubmitting takes even more time. In short,
it is a very manually intensive process.
When choosing a SEO expert, get a long list of references, and contact
them! Also, beware of SEO experts that promise top 10 results for
very common keyword phrases. For example, if you have a travel website
that customers can make hotel reservations on, and your chosen SEO
expert claims that he can get you in the top 10 listings for the search
phrase "hotels" on Google take your money and go somewhere
else! On the other hand, if you own a hotel in Dallas, Tx and would
like to be in the top 5 or 10 on Google when someone types in "Dallas
Hotels" there is a good chance that the expert can deliver the
rankings you desire.
SEO Referral Service
If you would like us to recommend a Search Engine Optimization expert
that we have investigated and found to be successful and legitimate,
just call us at 02602-959540.
Pay-Per-Click
You can be at the top of the listings on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and
Lycos for only $0.05 per click... guaranteed! However, if someone
else is doing the same thing for the same keywords you chose, you
have to bid against them. Example: If your business is selling civil
war bugles, you would bid $0.05 per click on Overture.com and Google
Adwords for the search phrase "civil war bugles". Then every
time someone typed in "civil war bugles" on Google, MSN
or AOL (for example) your company would come up at the top of the
page and you are MUCH more likely to get the sale. If they click your
link, you are charged $0.05. If you word your descriptions carefully
to show that your site sells civil war bugles, people who aren't actually
looking to buy a bugle probably will NOT click on your link and that
saves you money! If your competitor, Bugles by Bob, also bids then
your minimum bid might be $0.09 or $0.30, depending on how much Bob
thinks a website visitor is worth! Also realize that you do not have
to be #1. Sometimes you can bid on the second or third spot and pay
MUCH LESS than the #1 bidder gets. This can be good for you in some
cases. If you're below 10th place, you're wasting your time.
Low
minimum investment: Currently, you can open a Pay-Per-Click account
for $50. You will have a good chance to play around with search phrases
and descriptions that will draw interested parties to your site. Even
if you don't get any results, you've only invested $50 rather than
hundreds or thousands on an advertising campaign.
Target your marketing - If you use Pay-Per-Click advertising, you
need to make sure that you don't get seduced into bidding on keyword
phrases that are extremely popular. This is a great way of wasting
a LOT of money. A good example would be as follows: If you sell cars
in Lexington, KY and you bid $0.75 per click, you would indeed be
at the top of the list every time someone typed cars in one of the
major search engines. However, someone in England, or even Ohio, is
not very likely to purchase a car in Kentucky. If you were to bid
$0.10 on the phrase "Kentucky Cars", you would get less
traffic, but you would be much more likely to actually get a contact
that resulted in a sale... and you saved money as well!
Cost effective - Pay per click can be very cost effective in bringing
visitors to your site. The best thing you can do is to educate yourself
in the world of Pay-Per-Click and read ALL advice that the pay-per-click
engines have to offer!
Utilize existing advertising!
If your company or organization already advertises using traditional
media outlets, there is NO earthly reason not to put your website
address on them. Period! Put the address on TV, put it on radio, put
it on your billboard (big enough for people to see and read from the
highway at 60mph), and put it on your print ads.
In addition, you NEED to put your website address on your company
vehicles, company letterhead, receipts, business cards, marquee, shopping
bags, products, invoices, and anyplace else you can find room to print,
stamp or sticker your web address. Are you getting it yet? Get the
website address out there!!!
Get Linked
If you want to score well with Google, the top dog in the search
engine world, you must have quality links pointing to you. The more
popular the site is that is pointing to you, the higher your score
is. For example, if you sell Nascar related merchandise, a link from
Nascar.com would be worth a lot more than links from Nascar fan pages.
Is it worth paying Nascar.com hundreds or thousands of dollars a month
for a link? Probably not if you're only doing it to try to improve
your search engine rankings, but you would probably get heavy traffic
from a major website like Nascar.com if you were well presented.
Professional Presence
While it is tempting for some companies to have the teenager next
door, or the secretary who designs her homepage with Front Page to
do their websites, they inevitably end up with a site that has the
word AMATEUR written all over it. These are the same companies who
think nothing of spending $100,000 - $1,000,000 on a multimedia ad
campaign from traditional ad agencies. Web surfers won't buy from
amateurish sites and companies that have informational sites lose
out on making a professional impression when their site is designed
by amateurs.
Educate Yourself
If you're reading this, there is a good chance that the ultimate
responsibility for building traffic to your web site falls on your
shoulders. You need to get educated and fast. There is no better place
to do this that to visit www.searchengineforums.com. You need to read,
and read, and read some more before you start asking questions here
though. Also, take what you read with a grain of salt. Just because
one person says it's so, doesn't mean it is the truth. We are convinced
that there is a certain amount of disinformation on these boards to
keep the competition confused. If you read enough on these boards
you'll get the hang of things!
In conclusion
Yes, there is definitely money to be made on the Internet. Billions
are being spent every month. There are sales opportunities and opportunities
to advertise your organization. Yes, there are ways of getting your
website to the top of the search engines. However, it takes money,
effort, good old-fashioned hard work and business smarts, but the
results are worth it!
CONTACT
