How Search Engines Work
Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. This means that, as a business owner, its important to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the user initiating a search.
They use programs called ‘spiders’ to index websites. This spider is an automated program that crawls a website, reads the content on the it and follows the links that the site connects to. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository where the data is indexed. It will visit each link listed on the website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so its not recommended to have a website with more than 500 pages.
Increasing Your Online Traffic
A website without traffic is like a city without people. It is wasted, as the sole purpose for it being created was for others to use it. Therefore, you need to spend as least as much time building access routes to your website, just like roads are built to a city, as you spend on the design of it, and the content for it.
You probably already know about the general methods of getting people to visit your website, so only a brief mention will be given to them here. Essentially, all traffic come from one of these three sources…
Lead Generation Through Affiliates
Affiliate programs are a great way to increase your revenue: both by promoting affiliate products in return for a commission and in establishing your own affiliate program. By selling other people’s products and services on commission, you can more effectively monetize your customer base after they’ve bought from you. If you can find complimentary products and services to promote that can provide added value to your prospects and customers, you can earn more money from each contact, which will have a positive effect on your trading profits.
Particularly when combined with an effective email marketing campaign, marketing affiliate offers to your existing customers and prospects can be a good way to maximize revenue by enabling a means to sell other products and services to those that might not be interested in your primary offering.
The Architecture of a Website
Website architecture refers to the specific design and layout of the web pages on a given website. There are some things that should be considered for both a visitor point of view, and a search engine point of view.
It’s important to have a web design that is appealing to the human eye so that visitors stay a while and come back often. The problem is that often what is appealing to the human eye is not so appealing to Google’s algorithm. This can create problems when it comes to getting the web pages to rank well in the search engines.
Google looks at text when it visits each web page. It doesn’t “see” images and it doesn’t view videos. It sees text content on the page and in the code of the page – not much else. Websites that make heavy use of such things as Flash and javascripts often have trouble getting a high ranking from Google.
Javascripts
Lately Google is starting to get a better handle on java, so its use is becoming more acceptable as long as it’s placed correctly within the code of the page. For example, javascripts should be placed in a file that resides in the root directory of the server. Then the coding on the page should refer to the file in order to call up the script.
Boosting Your Online Mailing List
One of the most powerful ways to build a successful online business is by creating relationships with your visitors so they can begin to trust you and feel comfortable ordering from you. One way of building these relationships is by having a mailing list so you can keep in contact with your subscribers. This helps form a bond and will start to build that foundation of trust and credibility.
Sending out weekly online newsletters or mailings is a great way to solidify the trust relationship. But who do you send it to? Taking the time and effort to build a responsive email list is not easy but it certainly can be done.
The ten tips below will help you get started building that all important list of names and email addresses.
