Want More Traffic to Your Site? Invite Google Over.

Have you been looking at your site and thinking where has all of the traffic gone?  Or perhaps you are thinking about all of the great things you could do if you were able to increase your traffic by 20-30%.  Stop wishing for this type of jump and start making it happen by leveraging the power of Google and some basic  SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques.

While the concept of SEO may be confusing if not scary to some out there, the truth is that SEO is all about doing the things that you are probably pretty good at anyways.  It is about creating content that addresses what people are searching for and keeping that content fresh. But here is an SEO twist that you need to be aware of.  Make sure you know how prospects are searching for information in your industry or market.  The information is free and easy to find, simply go to Google (www.googleadsense.com) to identify the popularity of specific search terms.  And remember, one word can make a huge difference.   For example did you know that more than 5 times as many people are seeking “job opportunities” over “career opportunities?”  That 5 times translates to another 23,000,000 searches.  Make sure that you are not missing a similar opportunity with your site.

Now that you are a pro at understanding how people are looking for information, jump in and start addressing the market on a regular basis.  Perhaps one of the best ways of keeping content fresh – from both a user and Search Engine perspective is to provide a regular blog (have you notice that the MediaSolve team does this on a regular basis?  There is a good reason for that.).  Blogs not only provide a fresh perspective on an issue, but they also allow you to link your site to other thought leaders and when others link to you, you are provided with a big SEO boost.  Consider seeking out and joining conversations on social media sites like StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com) and Digg (www.digg.com) to make sure you are building exposure for your site and its content.

For maximum SEO exposure you will also want to consider the tagging techniques that you use on your site.  This is a science in and of itself, and it may pay to bring in an expert.  Here it will suffice to say that you do not have to worry too much about meta tagging, but should consider using the meta description tag (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tags#Meta_element_used_in_search_engine_optimization) which is often shown in Google results to those searching a specific term.

While so much of Google’s secret site ranking formula is hidden from view, it is important to know that advertising with Google does not impact your search results.  So if you are looking to get more traffic to your site, you are going to have to do it by demonstrating your content expertise and making sure that Google is invited into your site with open arms.  MediaSolve applies SEO best practices on all of our programs and we believe the extra effort is well worth the additional traffic payoff.

-Dan Hirsh, Partner, MediaSolve