Amp it Up!
Many websites just sit there, waiting for someone to discover them. They whisper their message & no one hears.
That doesn’t have to be your site!
You really can amplify your internet presence & be heard.
Building a website that’s is effective in getting your message out and bringing the “right” visitors to your site is crucial to your success.
You may have a website now. Or maybe you’re thinking about starting one. Either way, I’ll show you how to amp up your site and greatly increase your chances of getting the visitors you want.
How do I get noticed in a sea of competition?
Perhaps you’re a poet. You did a Google search for “poetry” and found 295,000,000 results. How on earth can your website ever distinguish itself & attract visitors? That task seems rather daunting, doesn’t it?
But it’s a better situation than it first appears:
- Those sites don’t offer exactly what you do. You and your work are specific & unique.
- Few people search for generic terms like “poetry.” Instead, they’re looking for something specific.
- A good chunk of you competition doesn’t pay attention to optimizing, promoting, or updating their websites.
If you do those things, you’ll have the advantage.
Getting well-ranked, and easily found, for the search terms most important to you is very achievable.
And, by doing that, you’ll get more of the right kind of visitors – the ones who were searching for just what you have to offer.
Now, I’ll tell you how to do it.
Four steps to success on the web
I’ve written a series of articles detailing the steps needed to get the search engines to rank your site well, and to bring the right visitors to your site. Here’s a summary.
If you follow these steps, it is very likely your website will begin to attract the “right” visitors – those who will best appreciate what you have to offer. These are the people most likely to buy your merchandise, return to your website, and spread the word about you; they are your target audience.
Links to articles with more detailed information are included at each step.
1. Figure out your niche: Keywords
What makes you unique? What do you offer; which words & phrases. are important to your site? What might someone looking for a website like yours be searching for?
You’re not just a “band.” You’re a jam band, an Oregon bluegrass band, an indie folk-rock trio, a Southern California rockabilly band, or a contemporary jazz quartet.
Identification of your niche, keywords & keyphrases, and using that information to get visitors to your site, is the foundation of a successful website. Everything else grows from it.
Read “Identify Your Internet Niche & Keywords” to learn how to do it.
2. Build an effective website: SEO
After you’ve identified your site’s focus, you’ll want to build a website that effectively gets that message across to the your potential visitors, and to the search engines.
Doing so will make it much more likely that your site will be found, and well-ranked, by Google, and consequently, by those searching for what you’re offering.
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” and is the process of creating a site that runs efficiently & is friendly to search engines and humans alike.
If you’re building a new website, you’ll want to incorporate SEO strategies right from the outset. (We build all our websites this way.) But an existing site can optimized at any time. It’s never too late.
For the most effective (and simplest!) methods for giving your site a tune-up, read “Optimize Your Website for Success In the Search Engines”.
And don’t forget your content! Be sure to read our tips for “Writing Effectively for the Web”.
3. Get quality links to your site: Directories & more
Links are critical to your success for 2 reasons.
- People will click on them & discover your website.
- Search engines consider the quantity and quality of links to your site a primary indicator of its importance.
You can get links from a variety of places -other websites in your field, friends, and from your site’s visitors.
Here’s some more info on how to get links to your site.
4. Be persistent!
Never stop promoting, updating & adding to your site. Keep it fresh, and stay enthused.
Add new content at least every month. For example, an article, review, or mp3 download, a few photos, or some news. Maybe give something away. Announce events (gigs, gallery shows, readings, workshops…) online as soon as you schedule them.
If your site’s updated often, visitors & search engines alike will be much more likely to return to see what’s new or changed. People are more likely to bookmark your site. Remind folks about your site by sending out a newsletter once a month that entices them to return.
And, when the search engines see that you update your site regularly, they’ll give you more attention too.
For some ideas on how to keep your promotion efforts going strong, check out the article, “Further Promotion Strategies”.
Does your webmaster know?
If you’re considering starting a new website, it’s very important that you hire a website designer who not only can build a great-looking website (and your site should indeed be attractive), but also understands website promotion and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
The reason is that it’s easier, faster, wiser – and much less expensive! – to build an optimized website from the beginning, rather than wait until it’s finished and go back through making a lot of changes to the text, coding and possibly the internal structure.
A reliable webdesigner who has a strong design aesthetic, and builds optimized websites is a rare bird. But taking the time to find one will make your life so much easier, both now and down the road.
Questions?
Good luck with your site! Please let me know if you’d like to use my services, or if you have questions about websites or internet promotion. I’m always glad to help & would be delighted to hear from you.
best regards,
Denise
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