FAQ | SEO | How can I get more visitors to my site?

You successfully started your business. You developed and launched your website. Now you need visitors, so how can you get more visitors to your site? Maybe the question should be: why would visitors want to come to your site? If you owned an empty warehouse, you wouldn't ask: “How can I get more people to come to my empty warehouse?” Instead, you would first begin by offering products and services people want. Then you would have a business.

Valued Content
Your website should be no different. You need content. It starts with basic marketing questions. What services or products do you offer? What are the benefits to the customer? How do you differentiate yourself from your competition? What reasons can you give for them to return? Your sites' information should clearly communicate these messages. Your website is like a virtual storefront. So your site should state the mission of your business, its products and services, as well as contact information and hours of operation.

Along with your static content, adding a blog to your site is a simple way to share on- going information with your customer base. In the blog, share tips, advice, latest industry news, and case studies.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Once the content is written, you'll want to optimize the content for search engines. The basic logic behind SEO is to create an information map that has markers to guide your potential customer from the info highway to the front door of your website. It’s just like when you use traffic signs to get to your store, then signs within the store to find the aisle with the product you want, you want to guide your customers to your site. You can do this with how you develop your content.

For example, in a search, you may go from the broad topic of “car” to Accord, then cherry red, to sunroof and leather seats, in Baltimore for $17,000. As you add each criterion, the search keeps narrowing and narrowing to get you to the most viable results. This is done by adding tags to the code in your sites’ web pages. You want your content to be like the signs in the store, pointing you to the right aisle. Then when a customer searches for a specific product, your page has the potential to appear higher in the search than one without the tags and the searcher (buyer!) picks your business over someone else’s.

Search engine optimization is a broad topic. Google’s purpose in directing searchers is to give them relevant content. The more often someone searches a term and then accesses useful pages, the higher Google ranks that information. Google wants satisfied searchers (see Google search video on Resource Media web site as background info: How Google Search Works

Focus on sharing your expertise and relevant information that will keep your content fresh so that searchers find the information they want.