Your website is an important reflection of your business. It is where
most people go to look you up before taking the next step to contact
and then hire you. Being found on the internet is crucial in today's
business world. Not many businesses can brag that they have so much
business that they do not need a website to generate more. However, even
if you have enough work to keep you steadily employed, there still
should be a placeholder on the internet for your business which, at the
very least, provides contact information for your clients.
Many
services are out there to help you optimize your website for search
engines. This is a good resource for businesses that have the capital to
spend on professional management, however, there are free methods to
organically growing your website, if you take the time. Here are a few
steps that you can take to grow your website and help it to be seen as
valuable and thus better promoted on the internet.
What determines
"value" in website ranking? Value is an intangible quality that search
engines attempt to quantify by measuring concrete data about your
website:
Does your website have pertinent information about your organization? This is measured by:
Word
Content: The words you use on your web pages are noted by search
engines and used to help people looking to match what they type in the
search box to what's out there on the internet.
Videos and
pictures: Providing more information in a variety of methods to your
audience improves your chances of being listed higher in searches.
Does your website get a lot of traffic? Measured by:
Visitors
to your website: Visitors to your website are noted for the length of
time they spend at each page. This helps Google and other search engines
recognize that the website you have is valuable because people are
reading and lingering at your site.
Links to your website:
Demographics are maintained by search engines to see how many other
sources find your website valuable and worth pointing their audience
toward you with a link. (Coming soon in another article- how to get more
links to your website!)
Active websites are more likely to find
themselves on the first page of a Google search than inactive websites.
This means adding content, such as a blog, editing and updating your
website and keeping the content fresh. This also helps keep your
customers coming back to see what's new.
Writing a blog may seem
intimidating, but there is good news! Figuring out enjoyable topics (for
the writer and the audience) is easier than what you may expect. Once
you get the hang of it, you'll be taking notes for future topics that
you'll want to write and post from every day experiences and activities.
First
of all, let's look at the history and use of blogs; this will give us a
better understanding of what blog readers (your audience) tend to read
more and why.
"The modern blog evolved from the online diary,
where people would keep a running account of their personal lives.
(source: Wikipedia) Websites, including both corporate sites and
personal homepages, had and still often have "What's New" or "News"
sections, often on the index page and sorted by date."
Coming from
a vantage of why and how blogs were formed, we see that it is a useful
tool for communicating with your target audience; in most cases for
businesses- you blog for your current and your potential clients.
Take
a solid, solitary moment to imagine yourself as someone who may be
interested in what your business has to offer. * Think from your
customer's point of view. Ask yourself about what your customers have
recently been inquiring when they come and see you. What are your
customers interested in buying from you? What are the latest trends in
what you've been selling the most? What types of questions have your
customers been asking you or your representatives?
When you listen
to your customers, you will have topics for your blogs readily pouring
forth by their questions, purchasing habits and problems. When a
customer has a problem, this is a golden opportunity for you to jot down
some interesting facts about the case and to share with others in a
blog!
The increased reading and writing of blogs have since
transformed the ease of web-interface. You can get a free blog set up
through your Google account with http://www.blogspot.com or integrate the free website platform http://www.WordPress.org,
specifically created for website blogs. Now you can easily personalize
your blog-page, upload all types of content with point and click
instructions (no code learning necessary!), and share it with selective
audiences, or the entire world.
The steady improvement of your
website by yourself and your colleagues will enhance the substance of
your content, the ease of use and layout of the web design and will
continue to please the search engines in quickly finding your site.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
How To Grow Your Website Organically
9:38 PM
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