What You Can Do to Find New Customers Online (REWRITE)

05.09.07

Filed Under: Website Profitablity, Google and the Hamptons

When Google or any other engine finds your website, and indexes it, they look specifically for a few things and if they are not there, they ignore your website.

When nothing happens on your website, Google says - “OK, nothing new, keep them listed in the rank for the keywords people use to find them, and don’t do anything new” and they pass your site right up as if it wasn’t there at all - more, if a website’s content is poor, and not relevant, it can stop being spidered (viewed and listed) altogether which will result in being pushed down in rank on a consistent basis so when someone types in your domain - you’re on page gazillion and two!
The key here is MOST do nothing on a consistent basis you probably don’t either.

So any real (relevant) change can up your rank above your competition. Being in a local area, people searching for you is far less competitive than world wide searches. If you’re serious about your site, then having a quality rank, changing content and doing a few other important things can help you have a consistently higher placement in the engines for those searches, and also make your visitors that return want to stay longer. More, other sites start to find you, and give you links on their websites without you knowing it because when you have higher rank in engines, others see you, and want to participate.

Google and any search engine, wants to know that your site is relevant, up to date, that other websites online are taking you seriously, and that you are too, that your information is “transparent” meaning easy to understand and to the point not a hyped up line of garbage geared at tricking someone into buying something or misleading them. So having a website is a great first step, but it really cannot stop there.

The problem is, most people stop there.

Google has approximately 50% of the world search today - it’s a major big deal - and you need to take this company seriously. Their listings don’t just show up on Google but huge networks of other major engines as well as millions of websites and billions of pages world wide - and also locally! It’s no more a matter of world-wide searching - Google, focuses also on local reach in numerous ways and is building this into their offerings. The Internet is changing.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? Here are a few tips:

Your website needs to have important keywords for your business that people are actually using online, sifted into the text of your pages, as well as have links created called Anchor Text, within the pages. The keywords must be those people are USING, not guessing what you “think” they’re using - that’s a waste of time.

Many people show me how their site comes up FIRST when they type in their domain name - so what? The only reason that is happening is that you are the only site in the world with that domain name - same for keywords that no one else but you type in. So keyword RESEARCH is a big part of the copy that must go into your site - not guesswork.

We can research those keywords or you can buy a program to help you do that for you - Google Ad Words has a keyword research tool but I feel it’s limited compared to the robust keyword research tools out there today.

Once you find the keywords being used you need to select the best ones (ones use the most) and sift them into your copy so the engines scan your pages, and show listings when those keywords are typed in - this is how you get exposure using keyword research.

In addition, fresh content has to be added, on a weekly or monthly basis to the pages of your site. This is a simple thing to do - a few photos in galleries, one linked on the homepage with a description and anchor text in it, a short article or tip, linked to an article in the site, etc.

Links that are on OTHER websites linking TO your website are a major criteria for keeping the site fresh, increasing link partners on a regular basis which is like a heavy-duty recommendation to Google that your site is being taken seriously by other sites, active and relevant  - the more links back by relevant sites, the better. The larger those sites and the more traffic they have on a weekly basis, the better too. So if you do business with a huge company like Anderson Windows for instance, getting them to put a link on their website to your site - is a big deal. Finding link partners is not easy - it’s time consuming - but there is a NEW WAY to accomplish this, without much work at all.

Article Marketing:

Before you say “no way” realize these facts:

I am not talking about highly sophisticated, fancy articles. I am talking about simple, informative ones that you can write because you talk to your customers and clients all the time about your business. People want to know that information. It may be second nature to you, but to them it’s golden. Articles can be 2 or 3 paragraphs with 5 tips or maybe 10 tips with a description of each. We’re talking 1 hour if you’re a slow write, and 10 minutes if you’re not.

Writing a short, informative article (or articles if you like to write), about important aspects of your business, can provide a way to find link partners without you do ANYTHING beyond that effort - and more, it can continually add link partners over time.

These articles have to be set up correctly, and, submitted to specific sites that Google and other engines go to - as well as have a large audience who take your article and put it on THEIR website as content for their site.

How this helps you:

CONTENT is KING online - so there are sources where your articles are offered free to any site that wants to put your article on theirs! People with newsletters are hungry for relevant NEW content for their readers - too. This can drive traffic from a targeted audience to your site on the back of someone else’s efforts! This is a really important thing.

When they do put the article on their site (and many do once they’re’ in the newsletter or, when they take the article specifically for their site) the links in your articles, link back to your site as if they had put a link on your site directly - thus an ever-growing source of link partners and fresh content for your site. One of the most important factors for Google and other engines when they determine the rank and relevancy of your website is how many link partners you have. The more the better. Usually this method targets similar kinds of sites or industries which gains weight with the recommendation.

A good article can get you 100’s of link partners while you sleep. So if those 2 hours thinking and writing an article is still too much - think again. Getting link partners by calling or emailing them is a VERY  time-consuming process. This is a great solution to that problem.

GOOGLE PAID ADVERTISING for Local Businesses

This can be inexpensive if done correctly but most do not do it correctly. That said, some industries like Real Estate will not be cheap simply because it’s a very competitive market. But for most local businesses seeking local customers, it’s an insurance policy that when someone is looking for you, you come up.

Google’s Ad Words interface is easy to use, and pretty straight forward. But how it works to find customers is not - and that is where people lose money and/or do not see the results they expected. Local advertising on Google requires several really important factors, but Google has focused their powerful advertising system to Local Businesses seeking to find Local Business online.

But even local businesses in the Hamptons become the source for searches from people all over the world due to its high status as a famous tourist area. Tourists are seeking EVERYTHING here… that would include you.

BEING A TOURIST AREA - creating a site that has decent rank in the engines, especially Google, and having an AdWords Campaign running YEAR-ROUND - can help increase exposure to people seeking exactly what you offer, and find new prospective customers for your business. But this is true for any website or local community based site too.

Don’t think because it’s Fall and Winter will soon be here, your site suddenly ends and you can slack off. Thinking this way is the WORST POSSIBLE WAY TO view this process because Google doesn’t. Google focuses on relevancy, the AGE of your site and the traffic sent to it (how many times it’s shown and clicked) means a lot in terms of how Google and other engines view the relevancy of your site.

It’s part of the overall decision-making process of Google:

RELEVANCY is the KEY factor in everything Google does and it’s the same for other engines like Yahoo too. So eliminating your site’s growth, ending an ad campaign, and stopping articles and link partnering, is a sure way to let your competition’s website appear to be far more important than yours.

VIDEO

Creating simple videos with home cameras and editing software and putting it on YouTUBE with the right keywords can help increase your exposure as a relevant site to Google who owns YouTUBE. Google spiders these listings daily, and creates new listings with images in them linking to the YouTUBE video of your business. Similarly, you can have a link to your site there, and others can do the same thing with your video as they do with your articles.

Refer to my article on using Video to Market but as an overview:

Do you have a question right now? - Ask and I will answer it.

be sure to leave your phone # in the email. I only answer in person.

Click here to talk to me :)

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Written by
John Monteleone
www.HamptonsWebDesign.com
www.HamptonsDirectory.com
631-725-5251

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