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Part 1: Driving Traffic to Your New Website – For FREE

June 16th, 2010

141 Little Suamico House 26

photo credit: MorrowLess - Corn on the Ty Cobb anyone?

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

It’s the nature of the entrepreneur. You’ve invested some money into your website, giving it a fresh new look and all kinds of great new features that are going to have your customers drooling and itching to throw fistfuls of cash at you like Steve Jobs at an Apple Developers Conference. Now you want to start cashing in a return on your investment.

Alas, you’ve launched the website and not much is happening. You’ve built it, so why aren’t they coming? Well unfortunately, unlike the vast cornfields of Iowa that are inhabited by hoards of dead baseball players just waiting to flock to Kevin Costner’s house for a game of poltergeist stickball, search engines don’t give you that automatic drawing power just because you’re there. You need to earn their respect.

When you first launch a website, you’re seen virtually as a new business. Search engines have a lot to learn about you. Are you legit? Are you out to scam people? What other organizations are you linked to? All of these things are studied by search engines over time before they can figure out how to rank you. It takes time. It can take weeks or months before search engines can begin to identify you and properly index your website.

So how do I speed up this process?

The key to earning brownie points with search engines is to keep populating your website with content and keep building quality incoming links. If you’re putting up a weekly newsletter, for example, make sure that it’s  loaded with the keywords you want to be found with. Adding regular content also helps search engines realize that you aren’t some fly-by-night organization that has closed up shop with your grandmother’s pension and sailed a bathtub off to the Congo in the middle of the night. Also, by building incoming links with other reputable organizations you let search engines know that you associate yourself with the right people, and it helps drive extra traffic to your site at the same time… a 2-for-1 special.

What’s the best way to build incoming links?

First and foremost, your website address should be on every printed material that you’re handing out to people. Business cards, brochures, letterheads… even putting the address in all of your email signatures will help gain traffic. Every little bit helps, and every little bit is oh so crucial in the beginning.

Another way to build incoming links is to contact various associations that you may be a part of and get them to link to your new website. Perhaps you work or partner with other companies in the same industry. Getting them to refer your website is another great way to get the word out.

Let’s not forget social media as well. Have your staff use Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn or even web forums to talk about the website and refer people to it. You could take it a step further and even set up a company Facebook group.

All of these methods for generating interest and traffic for your website don’t cost anything other than your time. Genuine search engine rankings don’t just sprout up overnight like bamboo on steroids. It takes patience and dedication to constantly feed new content into your website and keep increasing exposure. As your traffic begins to snowball, so will your search engine rankings.

But sometimes, we just need results NOW. Luckily the economy has a place for you… sitting atop of the golden throne of the advertising food chart with pulsating arrows and neon lights reading “Sell to this guy!”. There are plenty of ways to artificially buy your way to the top until your organic search rankings can grow some wings. Next week we’ll look at how you can pay to reserve your spot at the top while you establish your website’s presence.

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Posted in Branding Tips, General News, Tips and Tricks on June 16th, 2010

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