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How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site
The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long
time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means
you are missing out on getting traffic and making sales.
Google places new sites in the "sandbox" which means
they are on "hold" for a period of time before they rank.
Here are some ways to generate immediate traffic to your
web site:
1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign – you can begin a
Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the
same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you
some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to
spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce
the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these
keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search
engines.
While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing
your site for the main search engines. Once you have been
indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and
start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount
you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually
rank high enough that you won’t have to use PPC anymore
because you are getting enough visitors.
2. Optimize your site for the search engines – the keywords
that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign,
should be included in your web pages. Research alternative
keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the
Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity
of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword
campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the
keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and
see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page.
If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is
very popular and in high demand.
Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on
each of your web pages. The home page should contain the
keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with
the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with
the other pages in descending order of keyword popularity.
Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta
tags, title, h1-h3 tags, links and file names. Don’t overdo
it for you may get penalized for spamming the search
engines.
3. Increase link popularity – this refers to how many
external and internal links are pointing or linking to any
particular page. External links include those that come
from web sites other than your own whereas internal links
are those that come from within the same domain name. Link
popularity is not based on the "quantity" of links but the
"quality" of those links as well. Therefore increasing link
popularity does not necessarily require having a large
number of links pointing to your site but rather a good
number of quality links.
4. Submit to the top search engine directories – many of the
top directories have good link popularity that can be
passed on to your site. They also have specific category
pages that are related to the nature of your site. The
major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and
Zeal.
The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still
free, however it can take months or even years to get
listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your
site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included.
It is worth it if you can afford it.
Here’s a couple of articles on how to properly submit your
site to the search engine directories:
http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm
http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm
5. Submit to specialty search engine directories – you may
wonder why I haven’t mentioned submitting to the major
search engines. When you work on building the link
popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the
main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to
the main directories, find specialized directories related
to your business. Here’s a good resource:
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351
You can also research the link partners of your
competitors’ sites by entering your favorite keyword in the
search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked
sites, download the Google toolbar and check their back
links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas
to find quality links.
Once your site been indexed by the search engines and
included in the directories, focus on adding more content
and continue building your link popularity. This will help
you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result
of gaining more traffic to your new web site.
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable
Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his
“Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles.
mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
Herman Drost
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