Ten Thousand Clicks Per Day, Part Three

Steven Vicinanza

November 3, 2008

In part one and part two of this series, I discussed three of the four secrets to multiplying the number of qualified prospects who visit your Web site. To recap, they are:
1.    Take your site name seriously and feature it prominently in everything you print;
2.    Promote your site using traditional marketing techniques;
3.    Get links on related sites that drive visitors back to your site;

Now I'll explain my fourth and most critical secret to driving greater traffic to your site: How to make it to the top of the list on Google and other Internet search engines.

Step 1: Pick Your Targets

Search engines represent the number one way people find information on the Internet. There are general search engines as well as topical engines and directories. The major U.S. search engines are:
•    google.com
•    yahoo.com
•    ask.com
•    live.com

There are a number of secondary search engines such as AOL and Lycos that rely on one or more of these primary engines for their results. If you rank highly in the primary engines then you will also be found in the secondary ones. The first step in getting search engine visibility is to select one or two of the primary search engines on which to concentrate your initial efforts. You may want to start with Google or Yahoo, since they are the two most popular. Start by searching for your company name. Then try some relevant search terms. Look at where you are listed and where competitors are listed to get an idea of your site ranking relative to other sites on important keywords.

Besides the general purpose search engines, there are a large number of specific topical search tools and business directories that are either searched directly, or whose content ends up in the primary search engines. For example, Atlanta has general business directories such as Kudzu.com and industry specific ones like TECHLinks.net, which focuses on information technology. Find these directories by searching the primary engines on terms for your industry. Then do the same along with a term for the local city, or county. You can also search on the names of competitors. The search results will often include links to business directories. Try searching on your firm's name directly and find any directories where you are already listed.

Step 2: Get Highly Ranked

Like a book, web pages are read from top to bottom and left to right and when scanning search results, readers see the sites at the top left of the list first. After the first few pages of results, most people stop searching entirely if they have found one or more entries meeting their needs. So if you are a plumber in Atlanta, your web site competes with about two million pages for the top Google listings for the search term: "Atlanta Plumber". With about 50 links per page, if you aren't in the top 100 or so there's not much chance of getting a click. The process that the search engines use to determine which pages come first and ultimately which ones get clicked is called ranking.

Google claims to use more than 200 factors in ranking pages. How they do it is guarded like a top-secret cola formula. While we may not know the exact formula, we do know some of the key ingredients:

•    Site name or URL
•    Page title
•    Content on the web page
•    Meta tags (keywords specifically inserted on the page)
•    Age of the domain (older domains rank higher than recent ones)
•    Number of inbound links from other ranked pages

The first four of these factors are very easy to manage and perhaps a little too easy for the Google's of the world. Webmasters started to manipulate their Web sites with the sole purpose of tricking the search engines into ranking them whether they had truly relevant content or not. Google's patented program, PageRank, includes factors outside the webmaster's control such as the number and quality of inbound links from other web domains. So it's not only the content on your page that counts, it's also how your page is linked in with the rest of the Internet – which brings us back to secret number three I covered in the last installment: getting linked on related sites.

An important and relatively easy way to create more inbound links is to make sure you are listed in the industry or regional directories I mentioned earlier. You can often place a basic listing in these directories at no charge. Whether their focus is on a specific geographic area or industry specialization, these directories can be highly ranked by the engines on search terms related to that focus area. By implication, being listed in these directories will increase your rank in the big search engines when users search for those terms.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the term used to describe designing your web site with search engines in mind. Be wary, however, of companies or individuals who purport to increase your visibility in the search engines by rigging your site to trick the engines. This can get you blacklisted from Google – which is exactly what happened to automotive giant BMW in 2006 when they rigged their site to increase ranking. Nonetheless, there are some very valid and acceptable techniques you can use to optimize your site for the engines. Here are some dos and don'ts:

Do
•    Discover the most relevant keywords – check out Google's keyword tool
•    Ensure that each page's title reflects the most relevant keywords
•    Use the HTML meta tag to insert appropriate description and keyword tags into each Web page
•    Use "alt" tags on pictures to allow the search engine to know what the picture is about
•    Keep the same domain name as long as possible
•    Use the keywords as a basis for the Web page's content
•    Encourage inbound links from other sites with similar keywords
•    Create compelling content for your intended audience

Don't
•    Embed your messages in graphics and Flash code that the search engines cannot index
•    Create pages specifically for search engine indexing with little value for your target market
•    Participate in "link schemes" where outside links are bought or traded just to increase site rank
•    Intentionally repeat and overuse your keywords – this can backfire and actually reduce the ranking

Moving up in the general rankings can take months, so be patient and continually monitor your progress. However, if you want instantaneous results – and are willing to pay for it, there is a way to propel your site to the top of the ranking list literally overnight. Read on for details.

Step 3: Leveraging PPC and PEO

PPC is pay per click, or an online marketing technique where you pay a search engine or online site every time they direct someone to your site via a link. PEO is paid engine optimization – which is simply setting up the keywords and your Web site so you get the most bang for each paid click. To use pay per click, register with the search engine, select your keywords, set a budget, put in your credit card, and sit back while visitors are directed to your site for a small fee per click. This is a hugely popular and extremely effective way to promote your site as evidenced by the fact that Google netted a cool 16 billion dollars in PPC revenue last year. But be careful what you ask for – you can easily spend $5,000 to $10,000 or more each month paying for those clicks. Look at optimizing the value of those clicks and tracking your return on investment.

Entire books have been written on how to run PPC campaigns; I'm not going to even attempt to do this topic justice here. You can go to any online bookseller's Web site and search for "Pay Per Click Marketing" to get an idea of what's out there. I will say that because of the potentially high recurring cost of PPC marketing, consider either spending a fair amount of time researching this topic or hiring a specialist to help. Some of the things a good online marketing consultant should do for you include:

•    Identifying the unique search terms that are highly tuned to attract your specific target market
•    Ensuring clicks are directed to landing pages that match the keywords and contain a compelling call to action
•    Putting an ongoing measurement plan in place using tools like Google Analytics to continually measure results and tune your keywords and landing page copy

In summary, my four secrets to driving many more visitors to your web site are:

1.    Take your site name seriously and feature it prominently in everything you print;
2.    Promote your site using traditional marketing techniques;
3.    Get links on related sites that drive visitors back to your site;
4.    Maximize your visibility with search engines and online directories

Do these four things well and you will see an exponential increase in the number of prospects who visit your Web site. Then just get out the order pad!

Steve is the CEO of BlueWave Computing, one of Atlanta’s fastest-growing IT services and consulting firm. He is a noted IT expert with over 30 years of IT experience and is frequently quoted by trade and business publications and is a published author of both academic articles as well as a book on computer programming. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Georgia Tech's School of Computer Science.

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Ten Thousand Clicks Per Day, Part Three

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Steven Vicinanza

November 3, 2008