Traffic Tip #1: Proper HTML Structure This may sound very basic to many of you, but I'm amazed at how many people still do not ensure their pages have the basic HTML components and tagging. If this info is elementary to you, skip to the latter tips by using the navigation above. I promise they get more advanced. If you want the engines to know what your pages are about, the following tags are very important and should not be left out. There are three HTML tags that every page should have at the top of the page, right below the opening <HEAD> tag and they are: 1) Title Tag 2) Meta Description Tag 3) Meta Keywords Tag If you need help with learning how to add this code to your pages then, see my HTML tutorial. In each of these attributes, you should mention your main keyword at least once and not more than twice. If you get too repetitive, the search engines may ignore the page. Let's say you are trying to optimize a page for the phrase "skin care". Your opening HTML code may look something like this: <html> <head> <title>Skin Care Tips For People of All Ages</title> <meta name="description" content="How to develop a healthy skin care regimen"> <meta name="keywords" content="skin care, healthy skin, looking young"> </head> H1, H2, and H3 Tags are Important Too Many search engines also pay special attention to what you have inside your header tags. For example, the most important headline on your page should be inside the <H1> tag, the second most important under the <H2>, and so on. So if you are trying to optimize your page for the phrase "skin care" then you'll want to ensure your <H1> headline has that keyword inside it. Here's an example... <H1>Skin Care Tips for Women</H1> The <H1> tag should appear as close to your opening <body> tag as possible, then <H2> and so on. Important Message About Meta Tags Years ago meta tags played a HUGE role in how your pages ranked in the major search engines. These days, not so much. It's all about the content on your pages and the number of quality backlinks (related sites linking to you). So while you should use meta tags as descriptors (the search engines use that info to describe your site when it appears in the results), don't expect ranking miracles because of them.
My first two tips center around "search engine strategies" because this kind of traffic is not only targeted but it's FREE! Sites like Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL, etc. can bring in tons of traffic to your site, so it's important the search engine spiders and bots can read your pages. A spider is a script the search engines send out to your site that collects information about your code, content, site popularity (how many sites link to you), etc. Based on the information it collects, it will determine your page rank for various keyword phrases. HTML Works Best Flash, javascript and all those other fancy languages that make your site look "cool" may hinder the search engines from reading your content. Even though engines like Google are getting better at reading javascript code, it's still best to just use good ole' clean HTML. If you want to validate your HTML code, go to W3C's site. Get Rid of Frames Search engine spiders cannot read content that sits inside frames. So if you use them, you are jeopardizing your search engine rankings. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks When you are linking to internal pages within your site, it's a good idea to use the keywords that describe that page. This may help that page rank higher for that phrase. So for example, if you are linking to a page about golf tips, instead of saying "Click here to view that page", it would be more useful to say, "View my article on golf tips." Notice the important phrase "golf tips" is inside the hyperlink. Use Keywords for Your Filenames When naming your pages, it's also important that you include your important keywords in the filenames. Some search engines use these to help determine page rank. Using the golf tips example again, you could name one of your HTML pages, golf-tips.html instead of page1.html. It's also beneficial to separate multiple words with a hyphen instead of running them together (golftips.html).
There are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of search engines out there on the web, but the reality is 90 to 95% of web surfers only use a handful of them. Google, Live, Yahoo, AOL and Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves) are the most popular right now, and they are all you really need to be concerned with at the moment. Once you get listed with the main ones, you'll eventually show up in some of the other "less important" engines since many of them are just portals of the more popular ones. For example, Netscape.com has a search engine, but they pull their results in from Google. So if you're ranked #1 in Google for "blue widgets" then you'll have the same ranking in Netscape for that keyword phrase. There are many engines that feed from the popular ones so there is no need to go and submit to these portal engines since you're covered under the main ones. Where to Submit Once your site has at least 15 pages, submit your URL to the big three: Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl Yahoo: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request Live (Formerly MSN): http://search.msn.co.in/docs/submit.aspx Please be patient. It may take weeks, or even months for your site to appear, especially with Google. Live usually adds your site pretty quickly. To check to see if your site has been indexed, simply type your full URL into the search box. Don't Keep Submitting Many people get anxious while waiting for the search engines to add their site, and they keep submitting. You run the risk of getting your site banned if you do this. I know it's tempting, but rest assured that your site was received the first time. The Engines Love Content If you find that your site is not showing up in the major engines, it may be time to take a look at your content. How many pages are on your site, for example? You should have at least 15 to 20 pages, as the engines love meaty sites -- especially Google. The more content, the better. What About The Other Engines? You may be wondering about Ask, AOL, etc. As, I mentioned earlier, a lot of those other engines are just portals. So once you show up in the big three, you'll eventually begin seeing traffic from the other engines. Just be patient.
Blogging is becoming more and more popular. At first, people used blogs for online journaling, now they have emerged into money-making machines just like regular websites. Most blogs allow you to leave comments, and with your comment, you are usually allowed to leave your website address. The point is not to comment on any and every blog. It's more effective to find blogs that relate to the theme of your site because their audience is similar to yours. And when you comment, make it useful. Don't just spam the blog and say "Hey, visit my site." Not only will that prevent your comment from getting approved, but there's no value in that comment. Your goal is to build credibility to make people want to visit your site. So make your comment relevant to the blog post and add some useful information that will catch the eye of other commentors and even the blog owner. Let's say you have a site about iPods and you find an iPod blog that allows comments. The author has just written about the iPod Touch product, but left out some key information you felt would have added to the piece. You could comment on how great the article was and briefly mention some key points you felt the author left out.
Link popularity is probably the most important criteria engines use for ranking your site (especially Google). They want to see how many different websites are pointing back to you. However, it's not just about the number of links anymore. What's more important is the quality of links. The search engines don't care if you have 10,000 different websites linking to you if 9900 of them are irrelevant to your site's theme. Here's an example... Let's say your site is about investing stocks. You scour the net looking for anyone that will exchange links with you, no matter the topic of their site. After about 2 months you have successfully found 60 link partners that agree to put a link back to your site in exchange for a link to theirs. There's one problem though. Fifty of those 60 partners' sites have nothing to do with stocks. The search engines see this when they go and spider the net and they check your backlinks (sites that link to you). So they discount many of those links pointing to your site that are not related to your theme. In a nutshell, they are viewed as irrelevant from a search engine's point of view. That's why it's very important for you to seek out link partnerships with sites that are related to your website's theme. If your site is about stocks, you want to find websites related to investing and other money related topics. It will help your search engine presence in the long run. Not to mention, it's pretty worthless for your site's traffic when you partner with sites not related to your theme. A gardening website, for example, probably wouldn't generate much interest for a stock related site anyway. Contextual Links are Best Contextual links are links that appear within the context of an article. So let's say you have a site on plants and you're writing an article about plant food. You know of an excellent site that gives great advice about feeding plants so you decide to mention that site within the article. This does the website owner a huge favor because that link is surrounding by content that relates to their site. The engines pick up on this and will give them "points" for having a link amidst relevant information. So when you exchange links with someone, don't just slap their link on a "Links" or "Partners" page. Not only do search engines ignore these pages, but so do Web surfers. Review their site and suggest a place for your link and allow them to do the same. Explain to them you'll both receive greater benefits if you engage in a contextual exchange, where the link appears within a relevant body of content. Join Value Exchange Value Exchange is a free program that puts you in contact with people in your niche that are willing to exchange links. It's great because it takes the hassle out of going out and searching for potential partners. Join today.
There's no better way to gain credibility than write useful articles in front of your target audience. But what if you're site is brand new and you have no audience? Find someone who does! Many blogs and websites increase their content and gain popularity by finding 3rd party contributors. Think about it. It's a win-win. The owner of the site gets a break from writing, and the authors who are featured get some added exposure. Search for sites and blogs within your niche and contact the Webmasters to see if they allow guest contributors. Have a few sample articles ready to display in case they ask.
It amazes me how many people don't capture email addresses on their site. Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways of creating loyalty and trust with your visitors. Newsletters can keep your visitors informed with what's new at your site, and it also provides you with the opportunity to market additional products and services to them. What's great about a newsletter subscriber is that they've already told you they like what you have to offer. They wouldn't have given you their email address if they didn't right? So it's important you keep their interest so they don't unsubscribe. Don't Go For The Sale Every Time Many people make the mistake of trying to throw in too many sales pitches in their newsletters. If you appear as though you're just trying to get your visitors to buy something every time you send out an email, they'll catch on quickly and unsubscribe. Now, there is the exception. If you own a shopping website then this rule doesn't apply as much. Your visitors expect you to send information on new products in your store. For example, when you sign up with Target.com's newsletter, you expect them to send you deals and information on products you can purchase on Target.com. What else would you do at Target.com but shop? However, if you have an information website on how to play tennis, and in your newsletter you're constantly trying to get people to buy from different sports stores you're affiliated with, that's a different story. Eventually your subscribers will start to feel like they're being pitched to over and over again. Pretty soon they'll get the idea that you're just trying to earn a commission and sell products. Mix Relevant Information With Product Recommendations It's important that you find a nice mix of providing quality information and soft selling. In other words, every email you send out should not be promoting something. Sometimes you should just send out helpful information that your audience can use. Then once and a while you can throw in a recommendation for a product you believe your subscribers will be interested in. This is where you plug the company you're affiliated with. Let's say you send out a newsletter on how to perfect your tennis swing. You can go through the techniques in your email and at the end you can recommend your favorite tennis video from Amazon. com. This is where you send them to buy the video and Amazon.com's affiliate program pays you. So even though you are promoting a product, you still began the email by offering them valuable information about the topic of tennis. What's great is if you do this effectively, it doesn't come off as "selling". It just appears that you're making a recommendation for a product you love. I Use Aweber I tried running a newsletter script on my own server, but it was not very robust. Unless you are really into programming, I'd recommend using a third party site to manage your newsletter. With Aweber, you can collect demographic information from your website visitors when they subscribe, and you can send targeted messages based upon the information you collect. So for example, let's say when people subscribe to your newsletter you ask them for their age and their sex. With Aweber, you can send a targeted email out to females under the age of 30 if you wish.
An autoresponder is an automated message that is sent to your subscriber's email address at intervals you specify. It's another great way to stay in touch with your visitors and create loyalty by sending a series of follow up messages. If you sell goods on your site, you can use an autoresponder to contact the customer a few days after the purchase to ask them how they like the product. This is an opportune time to solicit testimonials and use them on your site. In addition, you can use the autoresponder to inform your customers about other products you have to offer. Autoresponders also work great for sites that teach people how to perform certain tasks, and they work well for sites that offer any kind of follow-up information. Let's say you built a site called jokes4you.com and you want to send out a new joke every week to your subscribers. You can set them up on your autoresponder and schedule them to send every 7 days. This tool can be used in so many different ways, and you can get as creative with them as you'd like. The point is, they allow you to stay in touch with your visitors and continue to promote your website with every email that is sent. How I Use My Autoresponder I have another website called www.flat-stomach-exercises.com. It offers tips for people who want to tone up their middle section. I use Aweber's autoresponder to send weekly tips on diet and exercise. It's so convenient because I set them all up in advance and the tips are automatically sent out every seven days. Not only am I providing my visitors with useful information, but I'm putting that little bug in their ear reminding them to visit my site.
Blogs (short for web logs) are not only free and easy to create, but they can help you generate traffic if you produce good content and actively promote them. The key to building free search engine traffic is to get as many quality, related sites to link back to yours. Google, Yahoo, Live and others take this into great consideration when ranking your website for keywords you seem to be targeting. Your blog can act as that high-quality, "related website" to point to your own, and in the long run it can attract its own traffic. My Blog Example I used to use Blogger.com but switched to WordPress because it offers more flexibility. So now my blog is hosted on my own domain at http://blog.2createawebsite.com. It looks more professional to have your blog on your domain than hosted at a 3rd party and WordPress has a ton of plug-ins you can use to enhance and customize your blog's look and functionality. If you do decide to use WordPress, I would highly suggest you use HostGator as your host. They have a program called Fantastico that allows you to install WordPress in seconds right on your domain.
RSS stands for "really simple syndication" and it's a new way to allow people to access your site's content through other channels. Here's an example... Let's say you love reading the entertainment headlines from USAToday.com and CNN.com every morning. Instead of going to the individual sites, you can subscribe to these feeds with your own RSS reader and receive this content all at once through your reader. You can subscribe to any site that offers feeds and manage them all in one place. Mozilla Firefox also has a built in RSS reader. So when you subscribe to a site that has feeds available, the content appears in your Mozilla bookmarks. As a webmaster, you can create your own content feeds so your visitors can subscribe to them. Anytime someone opens up their reader, your updated content feeds will be listed. Great For Blogs If you have a blog with WordPress or Blogger then your RSS feed is automatically created for you. Once your feed has been created, you can sign up with a service like Feedburner and they will help promote your feed.
People often estimate the power of message forums, and as a webmaster, you can benefit from them in two different ways: 1) Posting to forums in your niche 2) Creating a forum for your site Posting to Message Forums One of the keys to having a successful site is to become the "expert" in your field or topic. You gain credibility by offering advice and finding solutions to problems people may have. The great thing about posting on message forums is that most of them allow you to add a signature file to your profile so every time you post, a link to your website appears. Find a forum in your site's niche and become a regular member. Visit frequently with sound advice and helpful hints. Over time you build credibility and people are more likely to visit your website, take your advice and buy products you recommend. Another bonus about posting on message boards is that many of them are spidered by the search engines. The more posts you have on a forum, the more places your link will appear. That's another reason why it's so important to have a signature on every post. Finding Forums The best way to find forums in your niche is to simply use a search engine and type your keywords followed by "forums" or "message boards." So if your site is about acne and you're looking for forums on this topic, just type in "acne forums" or "acne message boards". Create Your Own Message Forum Having an active forum on a website provides so many benefits to a webmaster: 1) Another venue to post ads 2) Build credibility by posting helpful information 3) Creates more traffic because people will return to read and respond to posts 4) Many forums allow you to email your forum members (more promotion opportunities) See my forum here. A Bit of Advice... DO NOT open a forum on your site until you're getting good amounts of traffic. Often times people start one without enough visitors, and it just sits there collecting dust. An empty forum makes your site look uninhabited and unpopular.
A tell-a-friend (TAF) script is like online word-of-mouth advertising. It's a free way to get other people to tell their friends and family about your site. That's why it's important to make your website as useful and unique as possible. I was floored at the number of people that used my tell-a-friend-script on www.2createawebsite.com. When I launched it I didn't really expect it to get that much activity. To my surprise, I received about 75 to 100 referrals per month. Setting Up a TAF Script There are two ways to get a TAF script on your site: 1) Install it on your own server 2) Use a 3rd party Installing a Script On Your Server If you do this, you have to have your own domain name or at least a web host that allows you to install scripts. Most free providers do not allow this because of security reasons. Installing it yourself will require you to know a bit about uploading and configuring files on your web server, but I'm sure your web host can help you. The CGI Resource Index has a ton of different TAF scripts and many of them are free. Another benefit of hosting the script yourself is that most of them offer an option to send a customized "thank you" email to the referrer. This is yet another opportunity to promote your website. Using a 3rd Party (Remotely Hosted TAF Scripts) This is the easiest way to setup a TAF function, but the downside to this method is you don't have complete control over the look and feel. Since you're using a 3rd party site, the person using the script will be taken away from your site to fill out the form. This is somewhat of a risk because the 3rd party site will have the opportunity to advertise to your visitors. Although if you do not want to bother with script installation, this is the best option to use. The CGI Resource Index also has a list of remotely hosted TAF programs. Update & Warning About TAF Scripts If you decide to use these scripts, make sure you find one that is secure and uses something like CAPTCHA to protect it from spam. A CAPTCHA scripts forces the user to enter a letter and/or number combination before they submit your TAF form. This prevents spambots from compromising the form and sending out spam through your TAF script.