Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Specialists

Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

Turn new traffic into regular traffic

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

No matter what business your site is centred on, repeat traffic is guaranteed to be a good thing. The more traffic your site attracts, and the more loyalty your site users exhibit, the better it is for your SEO.

There are very few businesses that can say that they don’t need repeat customers, but even those who can still need repeat traffic for their site’s ranking. Attracting return traffic tells the search engines that your site is valuable, and can be great for SEO.

For any site that’s working on its optimisation, the goal of getting more traffic through its pages probably seems hard enough. There are things you can do, however, to increase the likelihood of internet users returning to your pages after their first visit.

Attract users through difference and quality

There are two things that are necessary if you want internet users to come back to your site. The first is a high-quality site. If your site satisfies your users’ basic requirements of quality, you may attract a few back now and then. If your site impresses them, they’re more likely to want to return.

The second thing you need is a way to stand out against your competitors. In hosting quality content, you may already have the edge. If that’s not enough, providing an online tool, answering the right questions or providing better information can be the key. Talk to our consultants at SEO Consult Australia about how quality of content can affect your SEO.

Both of these elements are relative. If all of your competition has a low-quality site with no or little content, then you won’t have to try very hard to stand out. If your competitors are aware of the value of good content, however, you’ll have a bit more work ahead of you.

Boost your following through conversation

Once you’ve attracted a regular flow of traffic to your site, and got yourself some repeat visitors, you can nurture this following through interaction. Just like nurturing a seed into a fully-grown plant, treating a small group of regular users well, and making this treatment public, can grow your following.

Having a comments section is important for this process. This not only allows users to let you know how you’re going, it gives you some excellent opportunities to grow your community. You can start by publicly replying to comments, and build on this by doing things like posting a comment of the week or setting up a list of newly registered or valued users on your home page. This lets individual users know that you appreciate the time they’ve taken on your site. It also lets every single visitor know that you have a community that is mutually supportive. This encourages new users to join in.

Essentially, a site is going to attract return traffic if internet users want to see more of it. This is both very simple and very hard. Concentrate on building the value of your site to casual users, and you should soon see a big difference.

Your home page is your hub

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Home pages often get treated like the foyer of a building. They introduce the website and help to direct internet users on to pages that will be more useful to them. These are functions that every home page has to perform, but treating your home page as some kind of throughway can have a ruinous effect on your SEO.

A home page is an important player in search engine optimization. Usually, home pages are where search engines begin their scans. More often than not, home pages are where new internet users begin to learn about your business. They’re also where people go when they’re looking for something new on your site.

If your home page is nothing but a decorated lobby, you can lose the attention of all of the above groups. Yet many websites treat their home pages in exactly this way. Think about the number of times you’ve entered a website to find the home page filled with links and pictures. It might have enticed you further into the site, but it wouldn’t have provided any meaningful information. Using a home page in this way is a waste in general, even disregarding the optimization considerations.

Your home page is important to your SEO plan for a massive number of reasons. Here are just a few of them:

  • Links. Home pages tend to be the source of the most of the links in your site, possibly excluding your site map if you have one. The search engines naturally inspect this link source very closely. If it appears to not have much to say, it’s possible your site will be downgraded in relevance to your keyword topics. Talk to our experts at SEO Consult Australia about how links work.
  • More links. Inbound links will go to your home page by default. Even if you manage your link building campaign very carefully, there will always be sites that will direct their link to your home page. It’s just what everyone is used to. If this wonderful link juice is pointing to a page which appears to have little meaningful content, it’s being wasted.
  • Losing users. Most experts agree that the more times a user has to click through your pages, the more likely you are to lose them altogether. By putting up a first page that is essentially just for show, you’re risking losing a significant chunk of your traffic right off the bat. After spending so much time in getting your link to the top of the search results and making it look more attractive to your target user groups, it’s a shame to put them off with a bad home page.
  • Missed opportunities. If Google and the other search engines are paying more attention to your home page, it’s a good idea for you to give them something to look at. Every time a search engine spider visits your home page, you have an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your keywords and with the search engine generally. Setting up your home page as a foyer completely ignores this opportunity.

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