How to increase search traffic to your website

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
The most well thought out (content) and beautifully designed websites may NOT be optimized for search traffic. Do your sites rank well? Have you pondered why your site doesn’t fare as well as you’ve expected?

Capturing organic search traffic (not paid) to your website that produces results

Ideally, you’ll need a compelling search result that causes a click through, but how does that happen? Two very important components you’ll need to analyze:

Your Title
Your Description​

Title

Your ‘Title’ logs in as the heavyweight contender. While it appears first on the search result, its power punch is in how it’s massaged - if your domain is included in the Title it’s displayed in bold typeface and the entire Title is hyperlinked. Keywords in the Title are important as well, since they are one of the components in Google’s ranking algorithm. Ensure your title is keyword rich. In other words, use keywords that are currently being searched for in your niche. It’s best to perform keyword analysis from the onset.

Description

I always recommend managing your prospects expectations. Your description may not have an effect on Google’s ranking, but it could project a powerful perception of your business’ relevancy to a prospects search. Again, Google may boldface the searchers keyword in your description. I know when I type in a phrase, I look to see if the entire phrase is boldfaced, or simply pieces here and there. I perceive immediately, as I suspect others do, the level of relevance this site has to my interest. Managing your description to maximize relevant traffic (and ultimately conversions) is paramount to optimizing your website.

How is the description displayed on Google searches?

Google uses a combination of META tags or abstracts from your page to display the description of your site to the prospect - not always under your control. If you have a description META Tag, Google will likely use it or relevant phrases from it.

They often extract phrases from the body of your website, as well, usually from the first few paragraphs. To maximize the click through rate, use compelling and accurate descriptions on each page of your site that best match that individual page. On your home page, describe your website as a whole.

Google attempts to rank based on value to the end user so try to avoid market hype. Match your description to what the prospect will expect to see should they click through. Misleading your prospects is frowned upon. Place emphasis on providing benefits and solutions.

I’m often asked if phrasing is permitted. The answer is absolutely. Google limits the description META tag to approximately 20-25 words (115 characters - including spaces), so select your phrasing carefully - to match and flow with content on that specific page.

As always, the best to your success. :)

- Steve
 
Nice post..... I think learning never ends in SEO because I come across so many new things everyday and everyday I learn something.
 
It’s best to perform keyword analysis from the onset
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Steve, could you please elaborate on keyword analysis ? Are there any good tools you know of for keyword analysis ? Very good post, by the way.
 
Nice post! I think if you give more emphasis on your description as suggested by Steve, there are also chances that google may start showing your site links in search results.
 
Certainly, a very useful Post. Content is really important to determine the Rankings of your website on Search Engines for Specific Keywords. Hence, the Better the Content, the Better the Rankings of your website on Search Engines :-)

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A very good post, well done mate. I liked this a lot, could have been expanded a lot mor ebut overall its very well/

I hop the new guys to webmast'ing and web hosting will get around to reading this, great t leap in seo advice.
 
Exa_Ankur said:
Steve, could you please elaborate on keyword analysis ? Are there any good tools you know of for keyword analysis ? Very good post, by the way.
Click to expand...

I would like the answer to that one just the same. I see a ton of places going up all over that are all SEO Friendly Tools, but most of them kind of conflict with each other so its hard to tel the good from the bad.
 
Great post! Thank you for sharing your knowledge :). I will apply these tips to every website I own now and in the future.
 
Website Optimization

Hi, I have to agree with Steves` description here for optimizing your site for search engines in general. Going a bit further some have asked about using other tools to help optimize their site. A lot of them are based around the same principles but you need to test and analyze what can make the changes. This can take time of course. Most of these are desktop software whch always seem to update themselves before you actually get around to using them. A Free web based tool I find useful is Googles own set of Analytic tools at http://www.google.com/analytics/
I have found over the past two and half years of research that keeping it simple and following Googles own guidelines, better than some sites that promise to promote your site for x amount. Links are still the most important part of any websites development. The better the link from a mature website 2 years plus as a one way link the better. Some have frowned at times of the value of reciprocal links. This is still an important part of the linking process. GotLinks.com have a large community and they monitor the links each one places with you. Very necessary when most will place a link then remove it months down the line, it`s also Free to use.
I also just use CCS web templates these days as there are less tables for the search spiders to navigate, making it easier for them to collate data. Another way to do this if you have a stable tables based site is to write a pdf and link it from your index page. This is an HTML document and has no tables. This is pure HTML which the spiders suck up. Even writing one or two pages with your websites main keywords sprinkled through and of course your websites url as the pdf will be indexed seperately. I had one of these rank higher in the search engines than the actual site!
 
Very well said Steve and AnyoneElse. Keeping it simple and following googles guidelines will increase your search traffic from google.
 
An important ingredient to successful SEO is tracking. What keywords are relevant to your products and services TODAY? For example, which are more popular keyword phrases: dual core or quad core? SAS or SATA? DDR2 or DDR3?

Do any of these apply to you?
 
Tracking is an important part of deciding what is working for your site and can be obtained through checking your weblogs within cpanel. However using accronyms or abbreviations such as SAS will not give your site any relevance as these are general terms and can be misinterpreted for any amount of organisations. Your website such have a theme running through all your pages and this is what will determine your sites main keyword and structure. Even keywords branch out. A keyword has derivatives in different English languages and so search engines treat each one differently in spelling such as "civilisation" and civilization" . Wordtracker has a search count for the first of 1528 and 11205 for the latter. Synonyms are also a branching out of a particular keyword and will help in two ways. Firstly it will open up the content perspective of how you can describe your site, keeping within the sites theme and secondly as a search phrase it will help broaden longtail search phrases. SATA is a registered company name and harddrive is the main keyword here. Not a lot of emphasis should be given to keywords as most search engines prefer to `make up` their own mind by assesing the full sites theme.
 
AnyoneElse said:
Tracking is an important part of deciding what is working for your site and can be obtained through checking your weblogs within cpanel. However using accronyms or abbreviations such as SAS will not give your site any relevance as these are general terms and can be misinterpreted for any amount of organisations. Your website such have a theme running through all your pages and this is what will determine your sites main keyword and structure. Even keywords branch out. A keyword has derivatives in different English languages and so search engines treat each one differently in spelling such as "civilisation" and civilization" . Wordtracker has a search count for the first of 1528 and 11205 for the latter. Synonyms are also a branching out of a particular keyword and will help in two ways. Firstly it will open up the content perspective of how you can describe your site, keeping within the sites theme and secondly as a search phrase it will help broaden longtail search phrases. SATA is a registered company name and harddrive is the main keyword here. Not a lot of emphasis should be given to keywords as most search engines prefer to `make up` their own mind by assesing the full sites theme.
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This really goes deeper than what's working for your site as it stands today. First, you need to define the core focus of your business and search for keywords that aren't necessarily already in the theme of your existing site. If you're offering dedicated and colo services, would it be to your advantage to offer shared services as well? Is anyone searching for shared hosting now? When I talk about relevancy, it's not necessarily those products or services you advertise online today, rather matching what prospects are looking for - that may be within the framework of your abilities, but not yet commited to as a business model.
 
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