{   eFAQ - September 2007   }

Today's Leading eFAQs HEADLINES . . . HOW TO INCREASE YOUR SITE TRAFFIC

One of the most pressing questions our clients ask us as we begin building their websites is:

"Once our cool, new site is launched, how do we get lots of traffic?"

This is actually a question about search engine optimization and eMarketing. While the strategies will vary depending on your business goals, there are a number of general practices that you can use to steadily increase your traffic.

ORGANIC SEARCH: LINK STRATEGY

Sure, it's trendy to be "green," but organic search has little to do with nitrogen tea or ladybugs.

Rather, organic search refers to the free page rankings you get when your site is crawled and cataloged by the search engines.

During the past year, Web 2.0 has dramatically changed the landscape of search optimization. The new Google buzzword de jour is "Blended" or "Universal Search."

These days, the SERPs (search engine results pages) don't just bring you a bunch of text links when you enter a search term. On Google and Ask.com, in particular, the SERPs now also retrieve data about maps, video, images, audio, news and blogs.

A mere few months ago, in the old days, it used to be that keyword strategy was The King when it came to getting top ranks on the SERPs. Hours were spent researching under-used but popular terms to pepper across web page copy.

While keywords are still paramount, building high-quality incoming and outgoing links is now far more critical than it used to be. Here are a few organic tricks to give your attention to.

Getting Ranked – Linking Search Tips: MORE>>

THE POWER OF THE BLOG

brandUNITY has designed and built a number of seamless Wordpress blogs directly in the websites of several of our most active clients. We closely track and maintain our client blogs, and we are seeing some interesting results:

• blogs gain PageRank in Google quickly
• information-rich blogs can easily attract important incoming links from other blogs
• you can participate in conversation with other bloggers to build a linking network nicely attracting the search engines
• a regularly updated blog can help your entire site get crawled more frequently by search engines
• blog pages can also be distributed through RSS feeds

Tips for Building Traffic: MORE>>

IN SUMMARY - WHAT YOU CAN DO

1) Attract quality incoming links: It's your link network that attracts Google. In the same way that you collect testimonials from your satisfied customers and patrons, make it a point to exchange links with colleagues with active sites.

2) Pay attention to your keywords: Evaluate your keywords at least once each quarter to verify page rank, usage, and popularity. Use only 2 or 3 keywords per page, and include them in headers and content. Keep your page content to a minimum of 500-700 words of copy, using your keywords about 4-5 times per page.

Take advantage of internal linking opportunities within your own site by using keyword phrases that link to other pages on your site.

3) Provide opportunities for conversation: Interactive engagement increases visitor involvement, augmenting your site's impact. Video, animated flash that beckons mouse-overs, audio-casts, webinars, and blogs are some of the new solutions to consider when you are building outreach strategies.

The new rules for engagement involve combining the traditional search methodologies with the new Web 2.0 tools for online community building. Frequently and regularly update your site content, build your inbound links network, and track your keywords to steadily grow your site traffic to solid new levels.

Add impact and conversation features to your site by implementing some of the new Web 2.0 tools, like blogs. With your steady attention, your eMarketing programs will demonstrate measurable progress through your visitor statistics.

IN THE NEWS:

Welcome to our new Clients:
Dr. John Lo, DMD and Dr. Karen Yee-Lo, DMD
McKay Wealth Management
Lost Arts Architecture, LLC

New and Ongoing Projects – Upcoming Launches:
eCommerce for The Gallery at BAC: bacart.org
Site Redesign for artshum.org
Managing Conflict, Blog & Search Optimization
JNyden & Company Blog & Search Optimization
Mastery of Practice Book Covers, eCommerce

SDMA Board of Directors:
Ann Warman, president and founder of brandUNITY, was elected to the 2007-08 Seattle Direct Marketing Association Board of Directors as the organization's National Liaison. In this capacity, she will be traveling to the national Direct Marketing Conference, DMA07, in October. The Conference offers a full slate of marketing workshop intensives and 9 tracks of marketing sessions and keynote speakers, all focusing on strategies to increase sales, business growth, and profit: www.the-dma.or

 

Call or email us to discuss your brand
strategies, marketing campaigns, or print,
web, & eMarketing projects.

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f: 206 . 842 . 4958

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