By Jim Hague, CEO, CrystalDI Web Design (www.crystaldiwebdesign.com)

My client Yanai is a hair stylist in Beverly Hills specializing in curly hairstyles. Yanai is talented, hard working, and has curly hair! We managed to rank his website (yanaivan.com) to the top of the Google search results. Yet many days he waits for customers in his salon. Frustrated for the lack of business, he calls me asking, ‘what do I do? My site is number one on Google. Why is no one calling me?” 

I tell him, “Just because your site is number one on Google doesn’t mean it generates traffic!”
It only means you are #1 on Google. Being on top of the searches is one thing, people entering your website is a different matter.

We researched the volume of traffic entering Yanai’s website and found that only 50 visitors a month enter his website. Weak!

Businesses should take responsibility for their web site’s performance on search engines. Three important things to do: (1) submit your site; (2) Monitor your site’s traffic; (3) and generate traffic from different sources.

SUBMIT YOUR WEBSITE:

1.      Start an account on Google.com.
They have great tools to help you monitor your site performance.

2.      Select the most popular keywords to embed into your website.
Note, I mentioned popular keywords! Log onto https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal’ and select words that pertain to your website and searched by high volume of people. Then have your Webmaster add those terms into the ‘title tag’ and ‘content’ on your website’s homepage.

3.      Submit your site to Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ
These are the big three. We all know about Google and Yahoo, but what is DMOZ?
DMOZ is the ‘Open Directory Project’. Why so important? Because Google gets much of it’s information from this site.

a.      Google: ‘http://www.google.com/addurl/’

b.      Yahoo: ‘http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit’

c.      DMOZ: ‘http://www.dmoz.com’
 

4.      Add to Google’s Local Search Engine
So we now operate in a global economy. However, Yanai is a hairstylist in Beverly Hills. What good does it do if his site appears in a Tokyo search results?  Unless he’s committed to traveling across the ocean to give a haircut for some serious cash and authentic sushi, it’s unlikely to help him.

Within your Google account, click on “Local Business Center” icon and follow the instructions. Google will list your company name within their directory, so if someone type’s in Beverly Hills curly hair stylist, Google will supply Yanai with a map to his business location, contact number, and he can upload videos and reviews.

5.      Add an XML site map to your website
Why? Because Google likes to know about the different pages on your website and whatever Google likes, you must comply. A site map is a file that identifies the files within your website faster and more efficiently. To generate a site map go to ‘http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/’. Follow the instructions and download your site map.
The file should have an extention, ‘.xml’ like sitemap.xml.

Upload the site map to your website directory. Then log into your Google account, click on ‘webmaster tools’ and follow the instructions to submit your sitemap.

MONITOR THE WEBSITE TRAFFIC, YOURSELF!
That’s right monitor the traffic yourself. Do not rely on Webmasters.

1.      Google Analytics:
Analytics is the only online tool you need to analyze your website traffic. Log in to your Google account and click on Google Analytics link. Follow the instructions there to generate the code for you or your Webmaster to install into as many web pages you want to monitor.

2.      Use Webmaster Tools
Not just for webmasters, these tools will monitor the efficiency of your website. Most people are not aware that Google looks for sites that are clean and free of errors such as missing pages and bad links.

Pages that irk Google are:

§         Links on websites that links to non-existent pages

§         Time Out – If page appears there, seconds later not there!

§         Unreachable – Page exist, but server problems

§         Sites maps with unusable or non-existent web addresses

GENERATE TRAFFIC FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES

Don’t just rely on Google or Yahoo for web traffic. You need to do whatever it takes to generate traffic to generate business. Here is a list of possible ways to increase traffic to your website.

1. Link Exchange: Ask friends, colleagues, and especially owners of high volume websites that generate high volume traffic. You can add a like to their website, but make sure they add your link to theirs. Both parties will benefit from each other’s traffic
   
   
2. Social Networking Sites: Go on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to network, network, network! These are great places to communicate news and information regarding your company.
   
   
3. Mass Email: Build an email list of names and emails. Then, when possible, send out emails and be sure to include a link back to your website.
   
   
4. Pay for an ad on a large email list. While most companies will not share list, ask that company if, for a fee, you can add a banner or some verbiage that links back to your site.
   
   
5. Radio / TV / Newspaper: Publicize your website. If you have the money, use these.

I hope this article helps. If I can be of service or if you need any more information feel free to email me at jimh@crystaldi.com.