Driving people to your website
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A beginners guide to SEO?
Primarily, I am a software designer/developer or even a software architect; but I do a lot of work with websites and I work for a media agency, so I am often asked for help with “getting my site on Google”. But, really what people want is (relevant) traffic for their website, which of course may or may not come from Google.
This post contains a summary of the advice I generally give on this subject. It really is an introduction to the subject for less technical people.
I am a computer programmer / website developer, which means I can build websites and shops and other programs (like twitter, facebook, or iPhone apps). I do not tend to graphic design – so someone else would usually come up with what a website should look like, and then I can create it from there.
There are several parts to a website, and these days – its not all about your website but about your ‘online presence’. You put content (text, photos, videos) all over the internet and link it back to your website.
1. Information Architecture
This is the process of deciding what information you want to display on the website, and how it will be organised. Its like a map of the website. If you decide to revamp your current site, you’ll want to consider which parts to keep, which parts to throw away, and also how to organise the pages so the most important information / products are always easy to find.
2. Graphic Design
This is what the site will look like visually. You want it to look cool, fun, modern, and also be really easy to use. It should encourage visitors to your website to achieve your ‘goals’.
3. Goals
What do you want people to do when they visit the site? I would guess, book a lesson; buy something from the shop; or even bookmark the site so they come back again later. Maybe share the website with their friends.
I think the goals are really important. When you work with a web design agency, they will need to understand your goals in order to give you the best website. Even if you don’t change your website – its good to have thought about what you want the website to do for you.
4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
This is the process of ensuring that the text on the website is meaningful, so that people will find the website when they search for relevant terms.
5. Blog
One way to get great content on a website is to have a blog; write about any new products, experiences, advice, and tips. If you have a blog, you’ll need to update it regularly; say, at least once a month; otherwise it won’t be very valuable. The more often, the better – so long as its interesting to the people who read it!
6. Drive Traffic to your site
Just because you have a website doesn’t mean anyone can find it; the main way that people find websites is by searching on Google or Microsost Bing or Yahoo.
So you need to get the website into Google, and you need to make it appear when people search for relevant information. I recently came across a really good post on this subject – “How to give your website location relevance“. The article contains a wealth of useful information about some of the things you can do to improve your web presence.
There’s no denying the fact that local is the new global. The one topic that seems to be very hot in 2010 is location aware services, and the race for ownership of the local advertising space is apparent throughout the web.
Essentially, to drive traffic to your site, you need “links” – you need to get other sites to link to your website.
One way to achieve this is to join web communities. What that statement actually means will vary depending on the purpose of your website.
Recently I reviewed a surf school/surf shop website called “Krunk“. Suggestions for them included registering with surf school websites, getting reviews in magazines, and being featured on a “Tourist information” website. One suggestion I had for that team was to participate in online surf communities such as http://www.surfing-waves.com/forum/, sign up there, and set your ’signature’ so that it has a link to your website.
This is general advice I think; if you are able to take part in relevant communities this social interaction can really drive relevant traffic to your website.
The important thing is to take part: in this example, that means answer peoples questions about surf products, lessons; recommend great places to surf. You don’t just ‘plug’ your own website and products – just give good honest advice. The ’signature’ at the bottom of everything you write will link people back to your website. This is a great way of getting into Google, but it requires work – you need to check in with the forum(s) you decide to participate in regularly.
Another site I have been helping out with is for a local Essex wedding photographer. For a photographer, you might join wedding discussion groups; if you are photographing newborn babies, then you may want to connect with young mums, so something like MumsNet. That is probably going to work best if you are a young parent yourself!
Another way to do this is to set up a Twitter account, and use it! Twitter is supposed to be fairly personal; so you write about things that are relevant to your site, but maybe also some of the things that you personally have been doing lately, to show that you, your website, your business has a personality; has real people driving it.
Also, YouTube videos are a great way to get traffic to your site. You will need to create an account that is linked to your website, so that it has a link back to you. Using the surf school example – video some exciting surf, or some lessons, with luck capture something on video that is really funny; then post the video on YouTube. A photographer might produce a video slideshow or get some footage of a photoshoot.
Flickr (photos) – same idea really; if you have an amateur or professional photographer working for you, it’d be great to create an account and post some photos, especially if your business or location has great visual asthetics. You can feature the photos from Flickr on your website, so that the website is constantly changing when new photos are added to your Flickr account.
A photographer could be in their element here; Flickr is a great place to share photographs and receive constructive criticism, hints, and suggestions. This is because Flickr has communities of it’s own: People who share photo’s and experiences. I found a few surf groups by searching flickr http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=kite%20surfing.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/kitesurfing/ [1,594 members]
http://www.flickr.com/groups/fuerteventura/ [369 members]
So, you take photos, post them to the group, and importantly: join in the discussions. As with all these social interactions, it’s important to be subtle: do not over mention your company as people might call it ’spam’. You have to just be yourself and try to join in the conversation…
Facebook is another place to join or build communities around your website. You could set up a fan page on Facebook, and encourage people you engage with to become your “fans”. If they had fun working with you, if they appreciated your product, there is a good chance they’ll do it. What then happens – is by joining your group, they are telling all their colleagues and school friends about you. And that can be a lot of people; I am friends with people on Facebook who I have not seen since I left school; but they would all see messages like, “Adam: had a fantastic first few surf lessons at krunk…” or “received some beautiful wedding photos, thanks TC!” and so this becomes a valuable personal recommendation.
Remember, if you do start to use Twitter, YouTube, or Flickr, mention it to your Facebook group, and to your friends and acquaintances so they all get to know about it.
Depending on your product or website, search for relevant articles and blog posts, and join in those conversations. For a surf school in Fuerta Ventura – that would mean searching Google and Twitter for “fuerteventura surfing”, and if people write about it (even if they do not mention you) you can ‘comment’.
All this stuff is free – but requires you to have the time to spend sending Twitter ‘tweets’, using the facebook group, giving advice on forums etc… Even if its 15-30 minutes a day.
7. Shopping
If you want to have an online shop, thats great. Ideally you want to encourage some reviews and ratings. You could consider looking at the Amazon Marketplace — in the UK and USA, Amazon is the online shop; you could consider an Amazon storefront. Basically that then means your products are on Amazon, and people can buy them from the Amazon website.
There is also eBay. You could set up an eBay shop, similar to Amazon really. It’s just another way to get people to buy from you.
Lastly if you can get your products on Google, that would be great. Google Products is free, you just have to register an “XML feed” with them. You don’t have to pay anything, and your products will appear in google results and google shopping results – like this one http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=ion+4+flexifoil&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&show=dd&sa=N
If you go with Amazon, or e-Bay, or even both, you can still have a shop on your website – what this does, is maximise the exposure you have – getting more people to find your shop and providing more ways for them to shop with you.
8. Analytics
If you want to see how successful you are in all of this online marketing, you will want to add something like “Google Analytics” to your website.
This is another free service – it tracks how many people visit your website, what pages they look at, and it can tell you if you are meeting your ‘goals’ that I mentioned earlier.
9. Good Luck!
If you decide you want a new website, then you have to remember that it can take 2-4 weeks to build a basic site, and longer if your site is very complicated.
If you do decide to get into Twitter, and blogging, then ideally you want to feature this on your website, somewhere – so it will display the most recent things you have written about; and encourage people to “follow” you. If it works well for you, you might even put your twitter account on your leaflets/business cards..! Equally, you will want to feature your photography (flickr) and videos somewhere.
Good luck, I hope some of this was useful!