Website traffic is not like the movie “Field of Dreams.“  Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.  You have to do some planning and intentional work to get visitors to your website through organic searches.  You could spend your hard earned cash and create a pay-per-click campaign and get some site traffic, but to really build site traffic naturally, you need to follow a few specific guidelines.

The purpose of this post is to help shed some light on what the small business owner can do to help build site traffic.  There are no magic bullets or gimmicks that will work 100% of the time, there are, however, some very basic steps that make your website much more Google or Yahoo friendly.

Build Site Traffic

• Keywords: Words or short phrases that appear in a post or page of your website are known as “Keywords” to search engines.  When you do a search for “build site traffic” in Google or Yahoo, the search engine looks through the cataloged websites for the search word or phrase.  They then list the sites for you to view based on what they deem most relevant to your search word or phrase.  If you want to build site traffic, you need to be using keywords that your ideal client/customer is using in their searches to find you.  Use the Google Keyword Tool to help you find quality words or phrases.

   

  

• Post/Page Title: The title of your page or post should contain the keyword you have selected.  Stay away from trying to use catchy titles or generic wording.  Search Engines compare the title with the text to find quality keywords.
• H2 and H3 Headings: Make sure to include the use of H2 and H3 headings.  Using them along with your chosen keyword, will help your rank, which will help build site traffic.  Avoid using H1 headings in the body of  post or page.

• Description: The website description is 160 characters that briefly describe your websites page or post.  It also needs to contain your keyword and accurately describe you content.  The description is what shows up in search engine results.

Your small business website can build site traffic without having to spend large amounts of money on Pay-Per-Click campaigns.  Site building is dependent upon quality SEO and planning ahead.

What are some of the techniques you use to build site traffic to your website?  How has your small business brought visitors through the door of your blog or site?

If you own a small business and are not running a blog on your website, you may be missing a lot of potential business.  One of the key elements of quality marketing is getting people talking about you and your products or services.  This social communication, whether online or in person, is critical for growing a successful small business, it builds likability and trust.  The quickest way for you to be involved in that conversation is through your own company blog.  Every small business should be blogging!

Why Blog?

- It makes it easy to add regular content to your website.  The saying “content is king” for the web is only valid if the content is GOOD content.  By blogging regularly, you are providing your clients with high quality, informative content on a regular basis.  This will help build trust and loyalty, two factors of quality marketing.

- Gain exposure in your local community.  By using using your blog to promote local events that relate to your core business, you help generate local exposure that is valuable for your small business.

- Obtain the ever elusive SEO goals.  Blogging is a great way to improve organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  For various reasons, search engines like Google and Yahoo, love blogs.  Blogging regularly for you small business will have a positive effect on your ranking and site traffic.

- Continually writing blogs for your site will improve you ability to SELL your product and services.  Because you are having to focus your attention on clearly communicating your business message in writing you will get better at communicating to your clients.  Writing will help your business grow.

- Establish yourself as the local expert.  By writing blogs for your small business, you develop a community of people that begin to trust you as the expert.  This is valuable for marketing your business.

How to get started Blog?

If you already have a website, your hosting service should have blogging software like WordPress already installed for you to use.  If you do not have a website, we offer a hosting service that will have you blogging in no time.  Check out our hosting plans and services that we offer and let Media317 get your small business blogging today.

What are some reasons you blog?  Share your thoughts with others.

One of the fundamental rules of marketing or business is know your audience.  If you intend to sell a service or a product to a consumer, you MUST know the ideal consumer.  Characteristics like age, gender, income level, family status, affinity sites, etc are small pieces of demographic data that help you clearly focus on who you need to be targeting you marketing message.

Getting this data is not incredibly difficult to obtain, but most businesses fail to learn who they need to target.  This post will provide you with a couple helpful tools that will aid you in understanding your demographics better.

Compare Sites

First thing to do is find some comparable websites that do the same kind of business or offer similar services.  The objective here is find sites that will attract the same kind of audience you are looking to attract.  Google searches can help find websites that have significant traffic and significant data for you demographic study.

The Tools

Once you have your comparable sites, head over to Alexa and Quantcast to begin obtaining that valuable demographic data.  Enter one of your comparable sites in the search box at the top of the page.
Quantcast will generate data for the site you selected.  You will see site traffic values and demographic data.  The demographic data shows you gender, age, education, family, income and ethnicity.  When you compare this with all the other sites you selected, you should be able to get a good picture of the type of client you will attract to your site.

Now What?

So, Now What?  Once you have filtered through your data, you now need to use this to help focus you marketing efforts.  You need to spend your time and money marketing to people who meet your ideal client or customer.  Market to them based on your research.

If you find that people 35 to 55 are your primary demographic, do not spend your money marketing to teens or retiree’s.  You may have crossover at the upper and lower limits of your range, but your focus should be your primary demographic.

As you continue to focus on the target demographic, your marketing efforts will more laser focused and you will see a growth in revenue.  The laser approach takes time to develop and focus to maintain, but if you want the people visiting your site to engage in transactions, then make sure market according to your demographic data.

Do you have other ways you gain demographic data for your website?  Share your experience with Media317 community.

Many small businesses struggle trying to figure out how to get their website to rank high in Google searches.  With all the recommendations about SEO and Page Ranking for organic traffic, it is easy to loose sight of the objective, be found in Google.

For most small businesses, the primary market is local.  They are doing business in their community and spending time marketing to that community.  So, why is it so important to be number one in Google search for someone outside you local community?  It isn’t!  It’s just bad business to spend time marketing to people you are not going to be selling your goods or services.

This is where Google Places offers an advantage.  Places list your registered business to searches in your local community.  It is simple to use and highly effective.  Here is how you get your business to appear on page one of a Google search in your local community.

Get Googled

If you do not have a Google account, now is the time to get one.  Fill in the blanks with the required information and you are ready to get your small business listed with Google.

Get Places

Once you have your account, go to Google Places and Sign In.  Under the Dashboard tab you will see a link to “Add new listing.”  Fill in the information requested about your small business.  As you move through the process you will be able to include information about your hours of operation, payment methods, and upload video’s and photo’s.  You will have the ability to add as much information about you business as you feel is appropriate and necessary for you potential clients or customers.

Get Ranked

Once you have submitted your small business to Google, it will be reviewed and added to Google listings.  Now, when people search for your services or products in your community, Google will put your small business at the top of the list with all the details your customers need to connect with you.

Will this help you connect with your local customers better?  Tell us what you think below.

If you haven’t noticed, Facebook has been facing alot of criticism lately over its privacy policy.  It hasn’t been a very easy few months for the young leader at the center of the internet universe.  It seems that many facebook users, have become upset with the policy changes and the Open Graph.  Some have even proposed quitting Facebook.

This week, Mark Zuckerberg discussed the new changes with the Washington Post.  And today he announced the changes at Facebook offices.

The FIX

The solution to the privacy issues rest in three sets of simple controls: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications.

If you would like to get a detailed explanation of the direction Facebook is going with the new security features, check out the companies latest blog post.  It is obvious that Facebook is listening to the community and trying to improve the security of users data.  The question will be have they done enough.

Do you think Facebook’s new security features have gone far enough?  Tell us your thoughts!

When it comes to running a business, marketing budgets often get overlooked.  This could be a problem if we lived in a world where large marketing budgets were needed to effectively reach your clients.  With the power of the social web, a small business owner can now spread the word about products or services with NO BUDGET!  The social media accounts are free and using them effectively usually only requires an investment of time.

The fact is, however, that the primary obstacle facing most small businesses today is not budgets, but finding an effective strategy that gets your message through all the web chatter.  It is easy for a small business message to get lost in the noise of the social web, but with some strategies suggested by the Social Media Experts at Mashable, any small business can get out their marketing message with little money in the budget.

Become an Expert

By leveraging the power of blogging, twittering, sharing, and engaging on forums, you can build a level of credibility within your market.  By sharing information and expertise about your market, you are developing brand awareness and a following.  These people will turn to you when it comes time to buy your product or services, because they have grown to trust you.  After all, you are the expert.

One way to do this effectively is with a YouTube channel that contains valuable video content.  By offering a training course, or a series of “How to” video’s, you empower you audience and you build your business.

Become Local

The phone book used to be the primary way people would find local businesses.  Now, search engines are the source that most people trust to find a local business.  The reason is simple, the search engine provides all the information needed to contact the business, but also a map to locate the offices.  The search engines will list your business as a service, for no charge.  Take the time to ensure that your business is listed with the proper categories so your small business shows up in local search engines traffic.

Leyl Master Black a Managing Director at Sparkpr suggest that small businesses look beyond Google or Yahoo.  “MerchantCircle, Google Local Business Center, Angie’s List, Yahoo! Local, YellowPages.com, SearchLocal, and SuperPages are some of the online directory services that allow businesses to create a free listing. Make sure that you’re on these sites, and if the site already lists your business, you should ‘claim’ it by adding more details to the listing, such as your company website URL, a map, phone numbers, or business hours.”

Your Thoughts?

Have you discovered other valuable ways to promote and market your business on a small budget?  Share your comments.

Facebook has been developing new ways to protect our login procedures from scams and to help keep our accounts more secure.  They have recently released a new set of tools and systems designed to keep the bad guys out and help keep you aware of any odd or unusual activity related to your account.  Hopefully these measures will allow you, the user, to have better security with your account.

Login Notifications

Login Notifications is a system that allows you to authorize a device you use to access Facebook regularly and to be notified whenever your account is being accessed from a device you have not approved.  This should help keep you aware of potential hacks or unauthorized access to you account.

Facebook has provided the following instructions on how to activate and utilize this feature:

To try it out, go to the Account Settings page and click on the link next to “Account Security” at the bottom of the page. If you select the option to receive notifications for logins from new devices, when you log in, you’ll be asked to name and save the various devices you use to access Facebook.

You can save your home computer, your school computer or work computer, and your mobile device.  Once you have registered these devices, whenever someone attempts to login to your account from another device, Facebook will ask to name the device.

An email or text message will be sent to you, the account holder, immediately.  This will notify you on how to reset your password and remove the device, so that you can quickly secure your account.

Blocking Suspicious Logins

Facebook has also created a system that will block suspicious login attempts before they happen.  If Facebook notices someone trying to access your account from an “unusual device,” a series of questions will be asked to be verified to prove the identity of the user.  The questions are intended to be easy for the account holder, such as your birthday or identity of a friend in a photo, but hard for an unauthorized user.

Once you have confirmed your identity,  you will be able to review recent logins and modify your account if you see anything suspicious.

The steps that Facebook have taken to reduce the risk of one’s account being hacked is good.  They are obviously listening to the Facebook community and trying to develop better security features to protect our content and identity.  Do you think these features will help keep your account safer?  What do you think of these systems?

For Facebook users who do not have a data plan with their wireless carrier, accessing their Facebook account has been impossible.  Until now!  Facebook has just launched a new way for people to access Facebook anywhere, anyplace, and at anytime: 0.facebook.com.  It is a new mobile site that includes all the key features of Facebook, but it is optimized for speed.

When using the mobile internet, we are faced with two main challenges – speed and cost.  Either access to the internet is too slow to enjoy its use or the data plans offered by wireless carries are cost prohibitive. 0.facebook is designed to address these two challenges.

50 mobile carries in 45 countries and territories have already made 0.facebook available to their subscribers with ZERO data chages.  The list is growing.  Chances are, if you are in the US, your carrier is already on the list.

The new site has been developed with the following two main attributes:

• Speed – 0.facebook.com is FAST: 0.facebook includes all the key features of the standard mobile site, such as status updates, news feeds, like or comment post, just to name few.  To view photo’s or video would tap into your carriers regular data fees.

• FREE – 0.faceb00k.com for ZERO: Thanks to work with mobile carries, facebook users can access 0.facebook without having to incur any data charges.  It is completely FREE.  People will only pay if they view photo’s or leave the 0.facebook and browse to other sites on the mobile web.

Do you find this exciting?  Would you use the 0.facebook.com on your mobile device to not have to pay for a data plan?  What do you think of Facebooks new service?

Media317 is proud to announce our latest project.  We have redesigned the website for Bridges Learning Center in Columbus, GA.  The Learning Center offers education for children with autism.  The old site was simple and clean, but very difficult to manage and update.  The Learning Center does not have a webmaster to manage and maintain the site on a regular basis, so the site quickly became outdated.

Media317 was given the opportunity to redesign the site and provide a platform that would allow the staff of the Learning Center to manage and update the site.  We built the new site on the WordPress platform to meet their needs.  WordPress offers the flexibility they need while maintaining the professional look they deserve.

Check them out at http://bridgeslearningcenter.org

http://littlebranchfarm.com

Media317 was given the opportunity to redesign the website of Littlebranch Farm, a small business in Hamilton, Georgia that makes rustic log furniture.  They are master craftsmen and have had furniture highlighted and displayed all across the country.  They came to Media317 with the goal to freshen and redesign their site to better reflect their core business and all for easier content management.

We provided Littlebranch Farm with easy content management by building the site on the WordPress platform.  By providing them with a stable, simple to use platform that is easy to expand and develop as the business grows, Media317 was able to provide Littlebranch Farm with the perfect solution.  They are now able to manage their content, upload images and provide real time information about their products without having to incur monthly maintenance charges.

If you have any web design needs, please contact Media317 at 706.888.8659 or via email at asmith(at)media317.net.