WDTalk

When you publish your website - there are things you can do to get found and accelerate inbound traffic. I’ve seen a lot of SEO practitioners recommend submitting your site to Google and so on, but they’ll find you (quicker than you imagine). If you’re online, there isn’t much that gets by Google.

The following services are largely analytical in nature - with each of them providing some valuation of your site. Beyond that, researching your site at these locations actually helps get your site recognized and indexed.

Robtex - Swiss Army Knife Internet Tool

Alexa – is the leading provider of free, global web metrics. Search Alexa to discover the most successful sites on the web by keyword, category, or country. Use their analytics for competitive analysis, benchmarking, market research or business development.

Quantcast - Quantcast Measurement provides free, directly measured traffic and audience composition reports. These reports are Media Ratings Council-accredited, ensuring that your traffic data is both accurate and reliable.

Web Worth - is a free and innovative tool to help find out a website value or worth calculation, estimations about a web site and SEO information about any web site the user submits – you could call it a Website Value Calculator

Cubestat - is a free tool for website value calculation, estimations and information.

Website Informer - is a special service for web masters that gathers detailed information on websites – general information, statistics, main competitors, similar sites, IPs etc.

PeekStats - estimates website value based on a wide range of publicly available statistics. They provide you with insight in all these numbers and the estimated results.

Markosweb.com - is a web service that collects and analyzes any data about domains and keywords they are optimized for.

When you speak about the tradition of Internet technologies - you need only go back a couple of decades, but there is value to understanding the culture of your niche as a tool to connect with visitors on your website.

Staying connected entails identifying  - technologies, traditions or events that exist in your specific niche – that you and your audience find culturally significant. In other words, what has made your niche important to you and your visitors?

Websites with longtail (tradition relevant) keyword-rich titles – help draw a very targeted audience. When we speak of Internet technologies, we’re not necessarily spanning generations of cultures with regard to time, rather information.

Do you connect the vendor-client dots – via timetables, explaining how you, your clients or your industry have grown through the years? Taking this one step further, explain “why you now” concluding with a benefits statement and compelling call-to-action.

Every so often, I’m introduced to extraordinary entrepreneurs - like Ana Hoffman, who specialize in industries I find fascinating – in this case, SEO.  This morning, I received an alert that Ana was following my tweets , so naturally I had to check her out. What I found was a wealth of information on Search Engine Optimization, light years beyond anything I expected. And it’s presented in a manner that everyone can understand and implement themselves.

Ana has published - “7 Steps To Complete Search Engine Domination.”  I highly recommend this as a MUST read. She covers how to dominate search engines by researching keywords, studying your competition, making a plan, on-page optimization, getting indexed, RSS feeds and link building.

I’ve always asserted that VALUE is the key ingredient – to every facet of business, including SEO.  I guarantee this piece by Ana contains incredible SEO value.

There is a great giveaway going on at the Traffic Generation Cafe Blog where you can win your own copy of Thesis Theme, as well as a 30-minute consultation with Ana Hoffman.
Participating is very easy! Visit Thesis Theme giveaway page for more information.

I’ve re-posted this because Traffic and VALUE drives business.

I see this one question asked over and over - in the forums, so I took some notes about what their members recommended. It’s no surprise that writing unique, high quality content and building relevant back links took center stage.

In the order of their recommendations:

1. Build High Quality (relevant) Back Links
2. Create Unique and Fresh Content
3. Create High Quality Keyword Rich Content Pages
4. Do Social Bookmarking
5. Build Back Links from Do Follow Sites
6. Do Social Bookmarking
7. Submit Articles
8. On Page Optimization
   1. Titles
   2. Headings
   3. Anchor Text
   4. Meta Tags
   5. Alt Tags
9. Submit to Directories
10. Forum Posting
11. Submit to Blog Directories
12. Do Press Releases
13. Blog Writing
14. Target Long Tail Niche Relative Keywords
15. Review SEO tutorials
16. Keyword Density 2-4%
17. Follow Google Recommendations
18. Blog Commenting

My recommendation – varies slightly from theirs, although everything listed is important to maximize your marketing efforts. Certainly, building quality back links ranks high, as well as creating unique and fresh content (that adds value).

Value is the one word that was absent from - every thread and comment, even though it was implied. Value drives business (period). Keeping your keyword density between 2 and 4 percent won’t help one click if there’s no perception of value on your site.

Another key point is your Title tag – it’s the heavyweight contender with On Page Optimization. Too often I see the same title tag repeated on every page of a website. And many of them lack keywords that are relevant to their specific page. The title tag on your home page should highlight your entire site, but title tags on interior pages should target that specific audience.

Following Google’s recommendations is - (very) smart advice. I’d also search for SEO tutorials; being careful to concentrate on current articles (what worked yesterday doesn’t work today).

And last, but not least, ABSOLUTELY – add VIDEO to your site and place it at the top left of your pages – why? Google indexes video and displays that on SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). It’s very possible to get a first page listing for a video, even when competing with the giants in your industry (you know – the ones with 1000′s of back links to their site).

Ok, I admit that – I didn’t jump on the Twitter bandwagon right away. I didn’t perceive a great deal of value with a lot of tweets I read. Twitter has evolved though, and I now realize there are plenty of super ways to leverage Twitter to grow your business.

Brand awareness – is huge on Twitter. The key to branding is keeping your business in the public eye, using promotions to increase conversions for your products and services.

Engagement with your target audience – lends to a heightened perception of know, like and trust, a crucial element in the sale of ANYTHING. And you don’t have to be the originator – simply show an interest in their tweets by reposting them or commenting on them.

Listening to tweets can identify market trends – What are people interested in today – RIGHT NOW?

Gain a competitive advantage – by monitoring your competition’s tweets. Are they coming out with a new product or service? Or are they using Twitter in a way you haven’t thought of yet?

Reputation management – is another critical app for Twitter as it allows you to know what’s being said about your brand in real-time. Quite often, simply by responding that you’re working on an issue helps quell any negativity.

Directing tweets to landing pages – can help with conversions, especially if the offer is so compelling that your tweet gets reposted. A significant side effect would be higher ranking in SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) leading to increased organic conversions.

Participating in industry discussions – may help others perceive your business as EXPERTS in the field.

Set up your corporate blog – to feed Twitter your URLs automatically. WordPress plug-ins are great for this.

Don’t forget mobile apps – for people on the move. Twitter is ideal as a mobile communications tool.

Just issued a Press Release – and want to get your announcement out quickly? Spread the word by Tweeting it.

Designing your site for e-commerce – begins with keyword research, matching keywords and phrases that most closely match today’s search queries. Why? Because designing a site with keywords or phrases that no one searches for makes conversions very very difficult (lack of traffic). Of course you can still advertise via article, blog and forum posting, or micro-sites, which should provide some very targeted leads, but you lose the viral power of organic search results.

I’ve seen sites that dominate –  SERPS (search engine results pages) for their particular niche, but can’t convert a prospect. Frequently, keyword research reveals that NO ONE is searching for that niche. In simple terms, if you’re getting 6 pageviews/month, it doesn’t matter if you have the best design, intuitive navigation and a kick a** shopping cart, your ROI (return on investment) will suffer.

Taking keywords one step further - selling anything is about the perception of providing value & solutions, and this applies to everything from selling toothpaste to cloud hosting – which leads us to Landing Pages and relevancy, and on to compelling calls-to-action. The words you use cross-site and intra-site need to be relevant to the search query. Getting traffic from a search query that leads to a product or service that’s either in conflict with the search, unreadable (poor theme or contrast), not compelling or out of alignment with the rest of the industry won’t convert well.

My recommendation - absolutely use keyword research tools to match the products and services you want to sell – with the keywords and keyword phrases currently entered into search queries – that will produce sufficient traffic to sustain and grow your business.

As Google continues to tweak – its algorithms to improve relevancy, business reviews got added to the mix. This morning, I moderated a spam comment on WDTalk that promoted an unethical method to work around that, promising to raise your search rankings by writing thousands of fake positive reviews.

The commenter did make – a few excellent points about positive reviews which I’ve quoted below:

Google is now using reviews to determine ranking.

How do positive reviews help in your businesses Google ranking?

1. Positive reviews increase your business rank by linking important and relevant websites to your website.
2. A constant stream of positive reviews improves your online reputation.
3. Positive reviews drive traffic to your business.
4. Positive reviews restore a tarnished reputation by pushing down negative reviews and links.
5. Helps protect against competitors or anyone else from attempting to run your ranking.

 All good points, but my recommendation is – to simply provide superior products, services and support – with the aim to make each of your clients ‘Raving Fans.’ When you go that extra 1% on every call and interaction with your prospects and clients, your business grows internally and externally.