Generate Business From Your Website

 

Generate Business From Your Website
(Or How To Get People To Find Your Website)

So you have a website, but it doesn't get significant traffic to generate new business. The only people who know about your website are your current customers.

Perhaps you have a plain looking website and think that people come to it and leave. Maybe that's part of the reason. However, the most likely explanation is that nobody is able to find your website.

"Your goal then is to make your website as easy to find as possible on popular search engines."

So you realize the importance of having a website for your business. Perhaps you even see the value of having a great website design and it's impact on your company's image and brand. You've even gotten yourself a website and have made sure that it looks really great. However, now you find that it's not having any impact on leads or sales. Basically, nobody's coming to your website, and the reason is, no one can find your website in the great expanse of the Internet.

Unless people already know your business and can go directly to your website URL, the two main ways people will find your website is through search results on a major search engine or through a link from another website. Your goal then is to make your website as easy to find as possible on popular search engines. You want your website to be indexed by search engines as soon as possible. Here's a short list of things that will help ensure that your web pages get indexed and appear in the search engine results page.

  • Make sure your website is not all in Flash.

    Flash is a great tool for creating a wonderful user experience for your site visitors. It can be used to create a really engaging website with unique interaction. However, Flash content doesn't lend itself to be easily indexed by search engines. Search engines don't speak the same 'language' as Flash. Your keyword rich content in your Flash website is not visible to search engines and thus not indexed.

    "Your keyword rich content in your Flash website is not visible to search engines and thus not indexed."

    If you feel that your business cannot do without the Flash experience, you should consider either having an HTML version of your website as well or combinging Flash and HTML by embedding or repurposing your Flash content into an HTML website. This way you get the best of both worlds. You still have your engaging user experience and your website gets indexed by search engines.

    Here's a real life example. A small business colleague admits to me that his site has generated 0 business for him, and he's had his website for a while now. His site is on search engines if you search for his firm name. But no one who doesn't already know him would search for his name. I take one look at his site and see that it's all in Flash. I told him he should reconsider getting a HTML version.

  • Make sure the text of your website are not images.

    If your content is all in the form of images including the text, your website content is most likely not being indexed by major search engines. This is because search engines cannot extract the text from your images. An easy way to check this is to try to highlight the text on your web page. If you can highlight that text then it's safe to say you are on the right path. However, if you find that you can not highlight, cut or copy the text on your website because it's really an image of text, then you have a problem.

    If you are seeing that the content of your website is composed of images, you need to get a new web designer. Most likely you are dealing with either a graphic designer or an inexperienced web designer. A pure graphic designer will simply not have the knowledge or the skills to have optimized your website content for search engines. Truth be told, they probably just don't care. A graphic designer's role is to create great designs. An inexperienced web designer probably gave you a great deal on the website. However, what you didn't realize was that all you were going to get was just a website design. A real website is more than just a design. It's made up of underlying code and content optimized for search engines so your site can work for you.

  • Submit Your Website to Popular Search Engines

    Once you have all your content in order in a search engine friendly format, you should submit your website to the major search engines, so they know about your website. Keep in mind that this is not an instantaneous process. It might a few weeks before you start seeing results.

Fun Tree Frog Fact

During the day, the red eyed tree frogs remain motionless, cover their blue sides with their back legs, tuck their bright feet under their belly, and shut their red eyes, comletely blending in their green environment.


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