Website owners want to do everything they can to generate more business from their website. The important thing to remember with a website is that if nobody can find your website then nobody can buy anything from your online shop or pickup the phone and call to inquire about what they have read about your services on your website.
Research Your Target Market
In order to drive potential customers to your website you need to first identify your typical customers and work out typical phrases they may key into search engines when looking for your products/services. For example, if you were a Liverpool based catering company your potential customers may search for phrases like "Liverpool caterers" or "liverpool catering".
On-Page Optimization
You should place these keywords in your page title and heading tags but be sure not to go over the top. Make sure each page title is different as search engines do not like duplicate content on a site. Keywords should also be placed in links where possible. The more keyword-rich links you have to a page the more you increase its relevancy for that search term.
Building Back-links
Links are very important but should not just be limited to internal links on your website. You should try to get back links from other websites with your keywords in the anchor text. Blogs, forums and article directories are the most popular sources for generating back links as they allow users to add their own content and therefore their own back links. You can also exchange links with other website owners but be cautious who you link build with as back links from websites that distrusted by search engines can affect your rankings.
Search Engines Are Clever
Some people think that they are smart enough to fool the search engines and there have been a number of techniques that people have used over the years to manipulate search engines to gain a higher ranking in search engine results pages. These techniques are often referred to as "black-hat" SEO. Some examples have been "stuffing" a page full of keywords and create a vast of array of internal keyword-rich links that are invisible to the human eye (e.g. black links on a black background).
Pay-Per-Click Campaigns
You can also use sponsored ads such as Google Adwords to help drive traffic to your site. Sponsored ads appear at the top and right-hand side of search engine result pages and are an excellent way of generating traffic quickly. You are charged on a pay-per-click basis and costs per click vary depending on the competitiveness of the keyword. You should use the keywords you have already identified and you can closely monitor your campaign based on daily budget and time of day you wish your ads to display. Be sure to include lots of keywords in your ads to improve it's relevancy when a user searches for that particular phrase.
Generating relevant web traffic is one of the most important aspects of web design. Your website can have all the bells and whistles in the world but if potential customers cant find it then you are dead in the water.
Advice provided by Nick Hatton of Empire Solutions providing expert Web Design Liverpool and IT support.