Articles @ Long Grove Web>> Search Engine Facts
Sales or business promotion on the Web is a function of the number of people who find your Website. If you are likely to make 1 sale for every 200 visitors (.5% is not an unrealistic expectation) then you can project how many visitors you will need to make your sales goals. Since Web traffic is very competitive, you need to give frequent attention to the issue of how visitors will find your site.
In most cases, the customer will search on a keyword phrase that describes what they are looking for. To find a motel in Orlando, Florida the visitor won't type "motel" or they could get motels in Alaska. They will have much better luck searching on "Orlando Motels", "Motels in Orlando", "Motels near Disney World", etc. Having a good grasp of the likely keyword phrases is critical to page design and marketing.
Beyond just being appropriate keyword phrases, they also need to be the phrases that people actually use. There are tools that help to show how often phrases are used in searches. Some very good keyword phrases just don't happen to be things people search on!
Among the search engines, Google is the market leader. Over time, the ability of the small merchant to get a good page ranking in Google has become difficult. The level playing field that the Web originally presented is gone. Some sites spend thousands of dollars each month to be found and have staff or consultants that continuously work on search engine positioning. Other sites are so large that their relevance to a subject--the thing that the search engine is ranking you on--drives them to the top of the list.
What can a merchant do to drive traffic to their Website? Here are some recommendations:
1. Make sure that your site is listed in Google and DMOZ.org. Submission is free in both cases. The DMOZ site (also called the Open Directory Project) is a human-reviewed site that is used by other search engines to provide relevant search information. Its search engine results are used by nearly 300 smaller search engines and supplement the searches done at AOL, AltaVista, Ask, Google, Lycos, MSN, and Yahoo.
2. Use good submission practices. For Google, it's recommended that you create an XML sitemap (to tell the search engine spider which pages to crawl). For the Open Directory Project it's very important to select the proper category and use a concise, informative site description.
3. Exercise caution with SEO firms. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firms can promise to get your site in the top 10 for a fee. The problem is that many of their techniques (e.g. multiple pages with similar or identical content, auto-forwarding pages, link sites) can result in having Google suspect that the site is using spam techniques. The result of this is that you will be banished to Google's secondary directory, also called "Google Hell." You will not have search engine success in Google Hell.
4. Provide Web content that makes your site more relevant to your product or service. A site selling Olive Oil, like The Olive Tap, should include pages with recipes that use olive oil, articles about olive oil, and product pages that discuss olive oil. A site for a motel might include local attractions, activities, travel tips, and even something like recipes for local dishes. The point is to make your site seems a resource for information about your product or service.
5. For Long Grove merchants, take advantage of Long Grove Online. This is a high-traffic site that is regularly re-indexed by the search engines. Merchants have the option of having a one-page Website in the merchant pages and always can have space on the News page simply by submitting some information about a sale, store event, or seasonal offering. All merchants appear on three separate listing pages on the site.
6. Consider using Google Adwords to bid on the advertising that appears in the right-hand column on the search page. For as little as 25 cents per visitor that clicks on the advertisement, you can appear periodically when your chosen keywords are typed into a search. There are certainly cautions about using pay-per-click advertising, but experimenting in a fixed budget would be wise. To evaluate your keyword choices, use their service at this address: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to learn both the frequency of searches and the competitive situation relative to the keywords.
7. Lastly, promote your own Website. Everyone who enters your store should see that you have a Website. Everyone who purchases something should leave with a label, flyer, promotional item, or even receipt that includes your Website address.
Feel free to contact me with additional questions.
Published in sections: Marketing Articles :: |
