You have an invisible website, Well 90% of the web is invisible. It may be indexed but nobody is seeing the sites. Statistics tell us that 83% of the webs traffic comes from search engines.
Statistics also tell us that if your site is not on the front page of the search engines 86% of that traffic will never see your website. If you are not even on page two 99.4% of the search engine traffic will ignore your website.
It is estimated that up to 70% of websites are invisible. What these websites have in common is that the search engines do not know that they exist. Google, Yahoo and MSN are the big 3 search engines but Google gets more traffic than Yahoo, MSN and all the other smaller search engines do together. 70% of search engine traffic is from Google.
So you spent money on a website and you have yet to see a return on your investment. Shall we start by checking if your site is invisible or just hidden. It’s really easy. Go to Google and type in site:yoursitename.co.za and see what results you get. If your site does not appear at all, it’s invisible. If it appears congratulations your site has been indexed.
Having an indexed site is great, It means you have less work to do than if your site is invisible but it may also not be that good. Next lets search for one of the brandnames on your website, like for instance “Rubicon Retirement home”. You will note that the number one position on Google is for a site called retirementstyle.co.za. They are not invisible or hidden because I can find this site using “Nelspruit Retirement Village”, “Mpumalangs retirement” and Nelspruit “Aftree oord.”
But I search for Laeveld Bou and I find a lot of sites that mention Laeveld Bou, notably the top one is lowveldnet.co.za. http://lowveldnet.co.za is a site where you can advertise your lowveld based business for free complete with backlinks to your own website. Just go to the site and select the add your listing free link. Laeveld bou’s own website is invisible. I did the first test as well.
I checked site:lambsonshire.co.za and found the website. I searched for Lambsons hire and found Lambsons at number one. I then searched for “tool hire” “plant hire” and “compactor hire” and they were not in the first ten pages for any of those terms. This site is not invisible but is hidden for one of their main search terms.
Not knowing much about the Lambsons Hire website I am guessing that they may get the odd search engine result for people who know the company name, but their competitors are cleaning up. Is this the case for your business?
Yesterday we talked about backlinks from forums. Today I want to tell you how to get backlinks by blogging. There are many free blogging sites on the web. Today I want to talk to you about Tumblr.com Tumblr is a micro blogging site. You can use Tumblr as a full blog but I would not do that. Tumblr do not like spammers be warned. If they deem you to be a spammer they will delete first and ask questions later.
Micro blogs are blogs that basically are used to do quick short articles. I use Tumblr because it gives me the advantage of a Tumblr this toolbar. When I find something interesting about my chosen field I tumbl it. I copy a section that really grabs me and I post it to Tumblr. I post random stuff from other peoples blogs and websites to my Tumblr and they get backlinks from my efforts.
I also use Tumblr to write articles that point back to my website. The reason I add other peoples stuff to my Tumblr is for two reasons. I share the love and my Tumblr does not look like it is purely to promote myself. My tumblr site will get good traffic from people interested in the subject because I am adding regular good content, yet they will see my links back to my site and best of all Google likes Tumblr and I have seen Tumblr Site ranking higher than the site they promote.
Mweb is a smallish blogging community, They have a lot of sparkly brain dead bloggers with a few worth reading. Blogging here allows you to add backlinks to your blogs but expect complaints if your blog is purely commercial. If you blog here keep copies of all your posts. You have been warned.
24Blogs is another small community, Staying under the radar is easier here than most as most pages don’t stay on the front page for extended periods. If you blog here keep copies of all your posts. You have been warned. These guys are owned by the same people that own MWEB.
WordPress Do what you want here, I have not yet heard of anyone being banned or having their blogs deleted for commercial activity.
Blogger Googles blogspace, I have seen some pretty offensive blogs and know that they don’t often get censured.
Hubpages differs from the traditional blog in many respects. A Hub page is more like a wikipedia entry. You have a number of categories that you need to add content to and each hubpage is a stand alone information pack about the chosen subject.
Squidoo like hub pages is not a traditional blog site. Each lense is a stand alone info pack about the chosen subject.
If you know of more like this please add them to the comments.
Guy McLaren is an SEO and webdesign fundi. He has been doing this since 1996. If you need help with your website visit his website about Search Engine optimisation here.
Marketing a website is not rocket science. There are very specific things to be done. With the neccessary skills and time anyone can optimise their own website. There are a lot of factors in play and overwhelmed is not an unknown emotion when tackling a task like this.
Whether you have the skills or not, is not a question I can answer. So I thought I would create a checklist for you. OK admittedly this is not everything that needs doing but that would not leave any reason for me to be available to assist you. So in all fairness I am going to keep a few things to myself. I do after all want you to hire me for the job.
What I am going to do is tell you about 20 things you can do to Market your website more effectively. Much of what I am including in this missive is based on my own preferences and experience. Some of it may not be essential or even neccessary.
1. Domain Names
Lets start off with the domain name. I know I hate typing despite doing so much of it so shorter is better. Memorable is important. Use it for your email as well. The more it gets seen the better. Your webhost doesn’t offer email, Just ask me.
2. Directory names
Categorise everything and use keywords in your directory names. Always have multiple pages per directory.
3. Browser issues
OK most web designers hate Internet Explorer, well those that have a clue anyway but make sure your website displays in all browsers. Starting with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. I note that there is now a Google Browser but I won’t be too concerned untill they actually achieve some market share.
4. Site logo
Your site logo should display the site name clearly and when clicked link back to the home page. Use something unique and original. Don’t copy your oppositions website. Be a leader not a follower
5. Site consistency
Every page should look like the one preceding it, Make the site easy to identify. Keep it simple and clean. Too much clutter is disturbing. Ease of navigation is essential.
6. Contact Details
Have a contact page with every contact in the business immediately apparent. Remember to make it easy for customers to not only find you but also to complain.
7. Flash and animation
Use sparingly. These are not guaranteed to impress your visitors, They want information not ego masturbation from your design team. Flash has its uses but using it as a website design strategy has too many downsides to list.
8. Robots.txt
Ensure you know where the Search engines are spidering, A good robots.txt file will keep certain parts of your website non searchable.
9. Link Colours
Ensure that your links are a different colour to your text. It makes them easy to spot.
10. No Follow advertising links
In fact no follow any links you don’t want the search engines to spider. Advertisements that are not no followed can lead to Google disliking your site. Be warned.
11. Unique Titles on all pages.
Its actually quite scary how many sites have a generic title throughout their website. If every page is different surely they all deserve a unique title. In fact the title seems to be a major component of the indexing by the search engines. Just changing this has made vast difference for many of my websites.
12. Alt tags on images
This is an opportunity to get some mileage out of your keywords, Make sure your images are all added with alt tags. Describe the image at worst.
13. Bloated Code
Using software like Frontpage adds excess code, Don’t even talk about Word or Publisher. These are not web design tools, they are tools to allow the uninitiated to build invisible websites and use about 5x as much code as is essential.
Architectural issues
14. Check Broken links
I am totally convinced there is no need for me to tell you about this until I start clicking broken links on websites.
15. Content
Good content is not only essential, It needs to get to the point, Answer Whats in it for me and tie needs to benefits.
16. Jargon
Industry specific jargon is bad, repeat after me Industry specific jargon is bad. We are not all rocket scientists or plumbers. I may know what a monkey wrench is but I may not have a clue what a S Trap is. You should be writing for 16 year olds. In fact if a 12 year old can understand what you have written it’s safe to assume most of humanity can. Remove the jargon.
17. Unsubstantiated statements
How many sites have you seen that say make a million in 3 months. I know from my exposure to Network or Multi Level Marketing that most people trying to convince me to join the quick rich schemes are worse of financially than me and that takes some doing after the last year or so. If it can’t be proven don’t say it.
18. Splash page
NO NO NO. This is not in your interest, It is not in the users interest. I don’t for the life of me understand why you would want to add yet another step between your customer and the information.
19. Product Pages
Product pages need to have details, Don’t skimp, be clear in the purpose of the page. In fact even give me the pricing. Make it easy for the customer to make a decision and then show them how to buy.
20. Links
Limit the amount of outgoing links on each page. Backlinks are the key to your success. Get backlinks and lots of them
I am not listing these sites in any particular order
StumbleUpon.com
Every Article I post to stumbleupon.com gets at least 110 visitors in 24 hours. I have had as many as 600 and the best of all is my bounce rate from Stumble upon is very low. This means that most of my stumbleupon traffic sticks for at least two articles. See the Tumblr Article to see why you should stumble other peoples stuff as well.
Muti.co.za
Muti is for South African traffic. The traffic from MUTI is not as plentiful as from Stumble upon but is very South African focused. You are not likely to get a whole lot of foreign traffic from MUTI. MUTI is a community and they don’t like you submitting your own stuff. In fact it’s a big no no. Why the submitter is of importance I have no idea. If you are not submitting your own stuff its easy enough to get a friend to submit your articles. But heres the thing its a good idea to get more than one friend to share this responsibility with so that they don’t get accused of spamming the board with your stuff.
Amatomu.com
Amatomu is another South African site. I love Amatomu for one main reason. I submit my site and Amatomu grabs the feed and updates automatically. You don’t need to submit your articles manually as Amatomu is an aggregator. It spiders every site in its list and adds any new stuff. Amatomu also has some basic statistics, allowing you to compare your sites results with others in South Africa.
Afrigator.com
Like Amatomu, Afrigator is an aggregator. I don’t use it myself because I disagree with one or two of their policies. I know it definitely brought traffic when I tested it but not in such numbers that I regret not adding my sites. If things have change feel free to tell me.
EntreCard
Entrecard allows you to advertise on others blogs in exchange for them advertising on yours. They also have a visit websites in the system thing going to earn entrecard points with which to advertise. I get lots of traffic but very little sticks. The bounce rate is very high(80% plus). See they allow you to accrue credits and you may visit 300 blogs a day.
I know that If I visit 100 a day, I have enough time to scroll through the latest article and drop my entrecard. That also takes out a good 2 hours out of my day. The rewards are not worth the input im my opinion. The guys doing 300 a day must be hitting, dropping and running. In fact I have seen complaints from these big droppers about drop spots below the line.
Twitter.com
Twitter is maximicro blogging, say what you have to say in 140 characters or less. I get a good amount of traffic from my followers. I in fact am going to spend more time mining twitter for better results. Join Twitter now and follow me. Guy McLaren Twitter.
Digg.com
DIGG, like MUTI is a community, but much more cosmopolitan. Ther are DIGGers from all corners of the world. I have had minimal traffic from DIGG as I have yet to write an article that gets enough votes to gain traction. DIGG has a friends system, It may pay you to make many friends that you can use to help you gain traction. I have not put much effort into DIGG as yet. Beware of the DIGG bury squad.
REDDIT.com
Very Similar to Digg, Reddit can add traffic but recently I have seen more articles about the bury squads and that Reddit has been usurped by angry political people.
Guy McLaren is an SEO and web design fundi. He has been doing this since 1996. If you need help with your website visit his website about Search engine optimisation here.
Sports Photography: Martial arts
Still at Wolves martial arts in Nelspruit, I was told about Brandon’s running on walls. So here I was expecting him to run at the wall take a couple of steps up and jump back. Brandon does it differently, a death defying run up to the wall, leaping into the air, running along the wall from one end to the other.
Martial arts it seems is more than just kicking and punching. There are all sorts of interesting weapons that look like sticks to the uninitiated. Well it seems that Martial arts and web design have a few things in common, There’s all the surface stuff that everyone sees, and then there are the things you don’t see that make it work.
Search Engine Optimisation can be as simple as just using the right keywords or key phrases in your titles. There is however a lot more to it than just the obvious. Guy McLaren beside being a good photographer is a skilled SEO practitioner. He built his first website in 1996. He has owned the search engines for many search terms over the years.
