You probably spent a lot of money to have your local business website built. Want to make it worth the expense? Then you MUST pay attention to the 2 most important factors for online success: Traffic and Conversion.

Internet Traffic

We need to discuss traffic first because without traffic (people searching the Internet who end up at your website) you have absolutely no chance of succeeding online.

There are several ways to get traffic, as follows:

1. You can optimize your website with SEO/Link Building strategies (discussed below) so that the search engines reward you with high rankings for the search phrases (keywords) people in your target audience are likely to use in order to find the type of services you offer.
2. You can pay for traffic (often referred to as pay per click advertising) where you bid on those same keywords and pay only when someone clicks your link and is then taken to your website.
3. You can use any number of the various social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., to funnel people from these channels to your website.

Of course, each of these methods work very well if done correctly, and each of these methods can be a complete waste of time, and a ton of wasted money if done incorrectly.

We’re going to get back to traffic and discuss SEO in a bit, but first I want to address the topic of “Conversions”.

Website Conversion Strategies

The term “Conversion Strategies” refers to all of the efforts used to get your website visitors to “do something” before they eventually leave your website.

The “something” that you want them to do can be any number of things, including:

• buy something that you have for sale on your site;
• fill out a form (opt in) in order to get a free giveaway that you’ve made available in exchange for contact information;
• pick up the phone and call you;
• like, share, comment, etc., on a piece of content on your site.

Of course, you can have more than one conversion goal on your site. The point is that without some type of conversions happening, you will not make money from your efforts to get traffic to your site.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Unlike the philosophical argument about what came first, the chicken or the egg, there is no issue about what comes first in Internet marketing – the traffic! So let’s take a look at what I can do in order to get your website(s) the traffic you’ll need in order to grow your local business online.

Search Engine Optimization

Commonly referred to as SEO, search engine optimization is all about giving the search engines what they want so that they will reward you with high rankings for your target keywords.

So, what do the search engines, like Google, want?

Essentially, they want 2 things:

1. A well designed and properly optimized website and web pages, and
2. Relavancy and authority

The Design and Optimization of Your Website(s)

Answer these questions…

1. Is your site structured and developed in a such a way that Google and the other search engines can easily navigate through it,
2. Does your site contain certain “necessary” pages (privacy policy, terms of use, sitemap, about page, contact page). These pages tell the search engines that your site is part of a real business and not some fly-by-night spam site.
3. Does your site contain pages that have properly descriptive meta tags (title tags, descriptions, H1 tags, H2 tags, images with proper alternate decriptions, etc.)

The answers you give are important because the search engines truly analyze the pages on your site and make a judgement about whether yours is the kind of site they will feel good about including in their index and giving high rankings to.

On-site Optimization

As part of my SEO service I will make sure you website is properly optimized. I will analyze your overall site and I will make sure everything is set up correctly. I will go into each page and make sure you have the best meta tags given the keywords you’re trying to rank for, etc.

This is called “on-site” SEO. The bulk of the work done to optimize a site is accomplished in the first month of my service…after that I simply maintain the site and make sure any new content that is added is properly optimized.

Relevancy and Authority

The main job of Google and the other search engines is to return the most relevant results for the keyword that is searched.  The more relevant the results, the happier the searcher. And the happier the searcher, then the more likely it is that this searcher will use that search engine again and again every time they need to search for something.

Of course, you want the search engines to consider your site very relevant for search terms relating to your business and the types of products and services you offer to the public. The better you are at establishing your site’s relevancy for your target keywords (compared to your competitors) the higher you will rank in the search engines.

Here’s How I Help You Get Higher Search Engine Rankings…

1. I make sure the pages on your site are well optimized for your target keywords, and
2. I put together a smart, multi-tiered backlinking campaign

Backlinks…

The search engines consider a backlink as a “vote” that the page it is linking to is relavant to the phrase. Generally speaking, the more votes you have compared to your online competitors, the higher you will rank.

However, it’s actually not as simple as merely getting MORE links than all of your online competitors. Backlinks must be generated with a lot of thought as to several factors, including:

• Backlink variety (getting links from a lot of different sources);
• Anchor text variety (you can’t have the same anchor text in every link – you need to mix it up with many variations);
• Backlink velocity (how quickly you’re adding links is critical – too much, too soon will kill you);
• The quality of the sites that link to you;
• The distribution of links throughout your site (you need to spread the links throughout the pages of your site;
• Etc.

As part of my SEO services I put together, execute and maintain your site’s backlinking campaign. I make sure you are getting links from a wide variety of sources, at the right velocity, to the right distribution of pages on your site, with the proper variation in anchor text.

In addition, I analyze the data in Google Analytics (or other analytics programs) to make sure we are moving in the right direction and I make adjustments as needed.

This is more of an art than a science and the terrain is always subject to change as Google and the other search engines (but especially Google) change the rules (their algorithm) quite frequently.

For more information about my linkbuilding strategies and SEO services and to discuss your site and how to get it to rank higher and convert more traffic to new business give me a call at (516) 448-9911 for a FREE and confidential consultation.