The Most Common Small Business Web Site Traffic Killers

A prospective client asked me to view his web site and give him some advice on how to make the site better. Unfortunately, his site was such a mess it became the inspiration for this article.

One of the primary reasons to have a web site is to attract and educate visitors. However, this obvious concept seems to be lost on many web designers. The way your site is designed, what's there and what's not there, including what's in the unseen HTML code, can have a great impact on how much traffic your site will generate.

Here's my list of the most common web site design sins and traffic killers. Use this list as you design your own site or show it to your web designer. If your web designer doesn't understand these points or dismisses them as unimportant. . .move on!

One word of warning, we are going to look under that hood of that shiny web page and see some of what makes it run from the search engine view. ? This is not always for the squeamish.

No title tag or meaningless title tags. ? Title tags are part of the HTML structure of every web page. Think of them as the informal name of the page. See for yourself. Go to http://www.ducttapemarketing.com. Look up there at the top of browser window and you will see the words - Small Business Marketing Ideas and Strategies ? that's the title of that page. Now right click your mouse in the page and hit "view source or view page source." When you do this, you are looking at the HTML code for this page. Now, see that [title]Small Business Marketing Ideas and Strategies[/title] Every page has got them and they are one of the most important aspects of your web site. . .yet most people don't even use them. NOTE: While you are looking at this source code realize that this is what the search engines see. No matter what your page looks like it won't be found if this code doesn't help you get found. More on that.

Your title tags can be a great tool for getting you search engine traffic if they are combined with good page content. Notice that my title tag is not Duct Tape Marketing or the often used Welcome to My Site. My tag is Small Business Marketing Ideas and Strategies. Now, think about this for a minute. Not too many people search for Duct Tape Marketing and nobody searches for Welcome to My Site, but small business marketing, now that's another story. Most small business owners waste the effectiveness of their title tags with something like: The name of their business or our products. Use title tags and make them part of your site content. Think about what people search for in your industry and name your pages based on that.

Flash Intro pages ? Don't get me started on this one. You know those pages that do all this really cool animated motion graphics and then present you with an entry or splash screen. I'll admit, these are works of art and I couldn't design one if I had to, but visit http://www.superclubs.com/home.asp and do that "View Source" trick again and tell me if you think a search engine could tell what that page was about. Remember, search engine spiders can't see pictures or hear sounds!

Cleverness ? There are lots of little things that designers like to do because they can. The question is what's it costing your site. One of my favorites is that date thing. You've likely been to a site that publishes today's date. Perhaps there is a good reason for that but go on back to view source on one these pages and you will see the price of that little trick. This date trick adds 300-400 lines of JavaScript code at the beginning of your page. All of this makes it hard for those search engines to find your real content. Think long and hard about adding stuff that gets in the way.

No Anchor Text Hyperlinks ? Web site designs like to make little buttons and badges for navigation links. Now, this can be okay but this is also a place where less is more. Text with a hyperlink is easily understood by search engines. Remember, they can't see images. Help them understand what your page is all about. Even if you have images navigation, put text links at the bottom of your page with all of your navigation.

Referral Marketing - This is a text link

Contact info hidden ? There are some web site owners out there that don't want to be easy to contact but I'm guessing that's not you. Put your address and contact information on every page and make them text. More and more people are turning to their web browser like a phone book. Lots of local address and content links can make it easier to find you in your own town.

Most important content out of order ? Search engines read your source code in the order they come on it. Some engines only read a small portion so you should make sure that your most important content is early on your page. Left side navigation columns, commonly found on web sites, appear at the top of the source code and could be hindering your site from receiving proper credit for the content it contains.

No use of Heading tags ? HTML uses a series of H or heading tags to help structure a page like an outline. H1 for the most important headings h2 for subheads and so on. Each of your pages will do well to contain a keyword rich headline, much like an ad for the page, and h1,/h1 mark-up in the code to let the search engines know that this is a really important part of the page. Then, do the same with sub sections with h2,/h2 tags. I know that most designers understand these tags when it comes to styling a page but few get the important role they play in the search engine game.

Look, there is plenty more to learn about this subject and certain aspects will change from week to week but now that you have a better understanding of how search engines view your site you can go out there and make pages that get found.

Copyright 2005 John Jantsch

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of "Duct Tape Marketing" a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php

---

Its Not The Opt-In List That Brings Success, Its Peoples Desire For Your Product

Let me ask you a question. What is the most... Read More

Using Traffic Exchange Programs Part 3

(Continued from Using Traffic Exchange Programs Part 2)Hello again!In the... Read More

The Nuts And Bolts Of Traffic Exchanges

Traffic Exchanges. What are they? How do they work? What... Read More

Using Traffic Exchange Programs Part 2

(Continued from Using Traffic Exchange Programs Part 1)Hello again!In this... Read More

Create Top Sites To Increase Your Traffic

You have a website, beautiful in design and unique in... Read More

Top 10 Traffic Building Mistakes To Avoid

When people look to submit their sites to the major... Read More

How To Generate Targeted Traffic...and Cash In On It.

We all know that generating traffic to your site is... Read More

Expand your Website to Improve Traffic

One problem with websites is that they often go neglected... Read More

Link Exchange: Good for Ranking and Internet Presence

To improve our website ranking and internet presence we need... Read More

How to Draw Traffic to Your Website - More Steps

Web site traffic refers to the number of times your... Read More

Reciprocal Linking Techniques

Building a successful web site is a process that works... Read More

Drive HUGE Amounts of Traffic to Your Website for FREE

Would you like to get in on one the Internet's... Read More

How To Get Links Without Asking

Sending out link requests is a time-consuming business. So wouldn't... Read More

Vote for Your Own Website - Nobody Will Mind

OK boys and girls. Today we're having a pop quiz.I... Read More

Getting Unlimited Traffic From Search Engines

Search engines have become so intimidating lately - most people... Read More

Publicity Tips to Get More Traffic to Your Web Site

Web sites are on my mind, since I just updated... Read More

Zero Cost Quality Traffic For Your Home Business

Do you know that you can promote your home business... Read More

How to Increase Web Site Traffic in Three Steps

To increase web site traffic, you first need determination, a... Read More

Linking Strategies That Bring Results

Website link popularity is used to indicate how many other... Read More

A Simple Guide to Analyzing All Those Web Traffic Ideas - Part 4

Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this topic outlined some... Read More

Getting Popular Sites To Link To You

Links are important to you because of two main reasons:Google's... Read More

TARGET PRACTICE - Generating The Website Traffic That Matters

But a mere increase in the volume of website traffic... Read More

Turn Content Into Traffic

As the saying goes in the business world "The Customer... Read More

What Your Competition Knows About Traffic

Need more traffic? There's a lot you can learn from... Read More

What is all the Buzz about LinkedIn and Does It Work?

Have you received invitations to join an online networking website?... Read More

Satellite TV, Google, and a Stamp

Unless you're building a baseball diamond in the middle of... Read More

Importance of Keywords - Wrong Keywords Means No Traffic!

If your new to the internet marketing world, you might... Read More

Reciprocal Linking

Ideally you don't want to be in the position of... Read More

How to Keep Your Listings From Dropping Out of Sight

As a home business, one of the ways you probably... Read More

Triple Your Website Traffic Every 90 Days!

Proper Use Of Meta tags For A High Google RankingGoogle... Read More

Traffic Exchange Primer

Traffic exchanges are everywhere. A traffic exchange is a clever... Read More

Your Traffic Building Checklist: 15 Ways to Get More Visitors Who Are Ready to Buy (Part 2)

>When many of my clients first come to me for... Read More

How To Build Trust and Sell More Products!

If the headline is what gets them there, then it's... Read More