There are many things you can do to get more traffic. These are just the basic things you need to do when making a website & getting traffic. I have had several websites for personal & professional use that have done very well for me. I've made several websites for friends and local businesses too. Each time I make a new website I learn more and more then apply it to future & previous sites to make them better.
Your Site's Purpose:
I think one of the most important things to do if you are just starting out is to keep it simple. Ask yourself what the main purpose of the site is going to be? Ask if it's something that you really enjoy or know a lot about. If you aren't experienced or have a passion for whatever the site contains, you most likely will not get the results you are expecting.
When you find a service you like take a while to think of some good website names. You want to pick something that relates to the purpose of your website. The closer the domain name is to your site's purpose, the better your website will get noticed & hopefully help your page ranking. There are a lot of other things like keywords, meta tags, content, etc. that will help as well. We'll talk about that later though, for now you need a clever & catchy name. Also, it's a good idea to make a list or at least 2 or 3 names you like (more later). Ok, so let's say you have a site where you want to sell umbrellas. You should try to include the word "umbrella" in the website domain name. Like "umbrellastore.com" or "rainydayumbrellas.com" or "customumbrellas.com". You don't want a name that doesn't relate to the site's purpose. You wouldn't want to name it "shelly'swebsite.com" or "carportsRus" or like "gamerhut.com" etc. That would be foolish and will not help you out any in the long run. So pick something that relates to the general scope of your site. It will help you out later.
Choose a website hosting service:
After you figure out the purpose for your site, you will want to search around for a good hosting service to host your website. There are tons of them out there & I have tried several different hosting sites. I think the best so far has been iPage. It's only $3.50 per month and you get a full year of hosting, website builders, a premium domain name for life & a lot of tools that I don't know how to use yet. Don't just pick that because I used the example though, find out which service will work best for you. Some people like GoDaddy or VistaPrint or the tons of other ones that are out there. I have a VistaPrint website too but that one is more expensive and doesn't give you as many tools and options as iPage does.
Finalize your order:
So, you've chosen a hosting provider & picked a great name. Now you have to find out if the name you chose is already taken. That's why it's good to make a list of domain names and put them in order from most liked to the least. Sometimes you pick a perfect name only to find out it's already taken. There are some cases when you can purchase the domain name from the current owner but plan on paying a pretty penny if at all. So, you go to the hosting service website and sign up for a hosting package. You will have to enter you name, address, etc. as well as your billing info. You will pay most likely by credit card which is normal. Some sites require you to pay for 1 year up front and some do it by the month. Generally you will pay less when you pay for a year or two up front. The monthly ones are nice but will usually cost more in the long run. Either way, after paying for your services, you can begin to edit your site. Let the fun begin!
Creating content on your website:
I don't have a secret recipe for what is "right" or "wrong" when creating websites. I know personally I don't like clutter & I don't think many people do. I like my sites to look modern or "up-to-date". I want it to welcome my potential customers. Whenever I go to a website and it's cluttered with banners and things flashing at me, pop-ups, etc. I just want to get out of there as quick as possible. Take our music website for example (tripplebeam.net). It doesn't have a bunch of banners or unwanted blinking ads screaming to click them. It's just a music player with our songs in it and a few links to download our songs for free. It only has 2 pages and is pretty basic. If I wanted I could clutter it up with banners, ads, links etc. but that isn't my goal for that site. It's just so friends & family can enjoy and download our music. I have several other sites right now but I'm not here to promote them. I'm here to help any beginners get started and hopefully get some traffic to your website. There's no right way to make a site, it's up to the owner to design it and make it into the site they envisioned in the planning process. Just remember that if you don't feel comfortable there, chances are others won't either.
Keywords:
When you get your content posted and upload any pics or files and are feeling good about the site, you need to edit your settings. I will say that in VistaPrint, you are limited to how much you can edit as far as keywords & search engine optimization. With iPage, it allows me to edit the keywords, meta tags, header & footer notes, and more (for each page of my site). I think that is one of the major things that set those 2 services apart. With VistaPrint, you can set your keywords but it doesn't allow you to do it for each page of your site. iPage also allows you to setup your database if you are familiar with mySQL & php. That is a little more advanced so we'll talk about that later. For now, all you really need to do is use the drag-&-drop features that come with your hosting package. Most hosting packages come with website builders to make it easy for beginners to jump right in and have a site up and running within minutes.
More about keywords:
Many people make a huge mistake when they first start making websites or blogs, I did it myself. I used to think that the more words I put in the "keywords" box, the better my site would be found by people. This is far from the truth. With keywords, you want to use just a handful and make them closely related to the general idea of your site. So, back to the umbrella theme, you would want to use keywords like: (umbrella, rain, rainy days, wet, poncho, stay dry, quality). Those are just a few examples but you wouldn't want to use: (ipod, ipad, apple, xbox, psp, facebook, shelly's website, etc.). First off, you will confuse the crawlers when you submit your site into search engines (more later). Second, even if people do find your site, chances are they would be looking for ipods or xbox items then when they get there, they see the umbrellas & leave. You don't want to use keywords that you think are hot or highly searched just to try to get traffic. It will backfire on you. So if you're selling umbrellas, use associated keywords for the best results. Meta tags work the same way, use short phrases or keywords that relate to your site or that specific page on your site. Trust me!
Site description:
You will be able to edit the site description in the control panel options for whatever hosting service you are using. In the description box you want to briefly describe your site's mission. For example "Best Umbrellas - For all your umbrella & rainy day needs. We carry custom quality umbrellas, panchos, & rain gear. Stay dry with Best Umbrellas". Once again, that's just an example. Moving on....
Submit your site URL to the search engines:
When you get your site how you like it and feel good about it, submit your site's URL to all the top search engines. It's free and doesn't take long. At the very least you should submit it to Google, Yahoo,& Bing. If you click any of those 3 links it will take you directly to the page where you enter your site url (http://yoursite.com). Then they will crawl the pages and content of your site. If you did a good job with your keywords, tags, etc. and have good quality content then it shouldn't take long for your site to start showing up when people search for "umbrellas". There are also ways to get traffic by paying a certain amount of money per click or per keyword but generally people who are just starting out won't take that approach. Maybe after you have your site for a while and things are still going good, then you can look to other services to help bring more traffic. Remember to update your site frequently and give users a reason to come back. If you have good content and can keep people coming back or telling their friends, your site will grow to that site you envisioned in the beginning. Shoot for the stars!
Extra Steps:
You may want to make some videos and post them on Youtube. Youtube is one of the best free advertising sites you can use. It's super easy to make a quick video and upload it for everyone to see. I personally use Camtasia but there are a lot of video editing programs that are free. Also you could make a few blogs on blogger, wordpress, or any other blogging sites. You could make a Facebook group or page with the same name as your website. The more you network with potential customers, the better you will do. You DON'T want to spam facebook groups or website forums with your links and products. People don't like spam. Don't go to a "Farmville" group on facebook and add everyone there in hopes that you can push your links on them. They are there because they love farmville, not umbrellas. You want to join groups with a need for your services or products. Twitter is also another good place to build your network. So just explore more ways to promote your site and product (without spamming or attacking people) and you will start to see your traffic numbers grow.
I will be posting a lot more tips & topics at this blog so be sure to check back in. I want to go over making videos, affiliate programs, social networking, logo design & more. If I helped one single person with this blog, it's worth it to me. Cya!
No comments:
Post a Comment