From-Tags-To-Riches

The top listing on Google is the “Holy Grail” for any site developer. Not only will it gain you the most visitors, but also prestige and ensure you appear an authority on a particular topic. 

 

Getting to the top cannot be achieved overnight (without paying a fortune) but may take from anything between 3 months to a couple of years depending on the type of site and the amount of time and knowledge you have available.

 

Below are 10 tips that will ensure you have as high a listing as possible.  

1. Don’t deploy an incomplete website.

You may well be tempted to release your website before it is ready. Before you deploy anything look at your site and decide whether it depicts what you want your final site to be. If it is a shop don’t deploy it with no products, for informative sites ensure you have at least 50-75 articles.

 

2. Create internal links.

Ensure you can navigate to every page in your site from any start point. It is well worth spending time choosing different pages and measuring how many links you have to click on to get to different pages. In your articles link to other related articles, or other articles a reader may find of interest. Do not however fill each page with links as Google may interpret this as spam of a “Gateway page”.

 

3. Domain name

Previously sites with keywords in their name were seen as authorities in a particular market, this is no longer the case. Not only is it easier to find a “brandable” domain name, it also makes your site more memorable.

 

4. Keep generating “Fresh” content.

Search engines love active content. Do not build a number of articles and then deploy the site, the site will become stagnant and start slipping down the rankings. Aim to generate 5-10 new articles a week.

 

5. Allow active content.

Sites with forums or the ability for users to add comments are often higher up in Google. Allow this type of content on your site. Ensure users don’t simply use it to add links to their sites and that any links that are  posted are relevant.

 

6. Submit the site to Search Engines and Web Directories.

Obviously Google is the most relevant, many sites offer the service to submit your URL to thousands of web directories, this is worth doing but ensure you submit it to the main ones (Google, Ask, AltaVista, Yahoo etc).

 

7. Analytics.

Use an analytics package (my preferred choice is Google Analytics) to track traffic and to see which pages are viewed the most, which pages are not viewed often, which leads lead to sales etc, this can be extremely useful in boosting traffic to pages.

 

Look out for spiders on the analytics package; check they are able to reach every page on the site. If they seem to be missing certain pages, link these into to pages that are being crawled.

 

8. Use original good quality content.

Search engines often ban sites that plagiarise content or violate copyright. Ensure all content on your site is original. Content must also be well written with correct spelling.

 

9. Ensure your site is well designed.

Build your site to ensure simplicity to read both by users and search engine crawlers. Minimize the use of script and Flash as crawlers have trouble reading these formats. Ensure all content that is likely to be searched for is written in clean html. Validate the html.

 

The content to tags ration of your site is important. Content should outweigh the html tags ideally by at least a ratio of 2-1. Use style sheets to remove the quantity of html formatting tabs.

 

Try to ensure page size is below about 10k, the smaller the better for many search engines but also many surfers around the world are still using 56k modems (a few even less).

 

10. Do not try to con the search engine.

Search engines are constantly trying to improve the way they rank sites based on the keywords searched for. Consequently they are eliminating “unethical” methods some sites use to try to improve their page rank. Ensure any means you use are genuine methods; if unsure ask yourself if what you are doing is going to help someone find the article they want to view.

Follow the above points and in six months see where your site is, if it still is not on that fabled first page

The decision whether to build a bespoke site or use an "off the shelf" package really depends on the functionality of the site as each has its advantages and disadvantages. If the site has custom functionality that cannot easily be purchased in a pre-built package, bespoke is probably the best option. If the site is a Blog or an online shop there are many packages available for little or no cost.

Generic Sites - Generic sites are good to use as they are cheap (often free), provide good documentation and are readily available. You know the solution you are getting is used my thousands of other sites and as long as it is quite a large package, there is usually a lot of support available online. Many open-source sites are now available, these allow the user to build additional controls which is useful if the intended site is a shop or a Blog but has some additional functionality.

Generic sites do however have some disadvantages. As many people use "off-the-shelf" packages, many sites end up looking the same (although there are usually different styles and templates available). These sites may one day become the "IKEA of the Web" with everybody’s site looking identical. It is important to not just use a generic package just to keep the cost down and hack the package to meet your needs, I have tried this and it gets messy, the interfaces between the components often gets out of sync and can result in "dll hell".

Bespoke (Custom Made) Sites - Bespoke sites main advantage is that you can get exactly what you want. You find a company, give them your specifications and they design and construct the site for you. This can result in exactly what you need for little effort. In my experience it doesn’t always work like this, as the picture below shows, the finished product is not exactly what was requested.

Bespoke sites are often quite expensive; if you plan on getting a site built I would advise you to follow the advice below.

1) Request the site is priced for the whole job and not on a "time and materials" basis. There are inevitably problems building sites, costs can spiral resulting in you paying much more than initially intended (Trust me I have been there!).

2) Ensure you have designed the site as well as possible, make sure you have listed ever single requirement. I have heard horror stories of companies charging a fortune for functionality that "wasn't in the spec". It is worthwhile researching basic software engineering techniques (especially requirements elicitation and analysis) to ensure you have covered all bases.

3) Make sure you will own the site after it is developed.

4) If required agree a support agreement with the site developer.

5) Use a smaller local company, the costs will be lower and the service should be more personal (and you can go check up on them if you do not feel much is being accomplished!).

6) Build it yourself, it may seem daunting, but web development really isn't that difficult, there are numerous resources for support. Learning web development really can help increase the revenue from your site. You never know you may forge out a new career path from it.

There is no right or wrong answer to the question whether to use custom or generic, the decision is the site owner’s decision based on the type of site in question. It is worth investigating the options thoroughly as the wrong decision can be a costly mistake.

Traffic is a key factor in monetizing any web content. Many of the same principles apply to making a profit from a website as to a high street shop. 

Obviously the volume of people in your "shop" is important, but perhaps more important is the quality of traffic. It is imperative the traffic into your site is from people who actually want to buy (whether it is goods, services or information), and not just passers buy. It is however, useful to make your site appealing to these "passers by", as in the future they may require the services your site is offering and if they remember your site providing a good level of service, they are likely to return. Below are a few methods of generating traffic to your website. 

1. Search engine optimization. If a site is even partially optimized for search engines the site will have a higher ranking. Page names, link names, correct use of HTML tags and even page titles can have a dramatic impact on the ranking. Most users will only click on a link on the first 2 or 3 pages on Google, after that they tend to refine their search. 

2. Generate links. Sites that are linked to by other sites are seen by search engines to be a greater authority in a particular field. The quantity of links is important, but also the quality of the site that links to you. Google calls this PageRank.  

3. Online forums. If people have a question about something and cannot find the answer, they post the question in a forum, if you can provide an answer to the question by providing a link to a page on your site, the link will not only be followed by the person who asked the question, but also by anyone else searching the internet for the same question. 

4. Social networking sites. There are over a billion subscriptions to social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace etc. Setting up groups and links on your profile for your site will generate traffic.  

5. Web directories. Before the Google era, websites were categorised and searchable via web directories. Do not waste too much time on small directories as they will not generate much traffic; use the bigger directories or those targeted to the genre of your site. 

6. Email advertising. Gone are the days when you could send emails to millions of email accounts, with the development of more sophisticated mail filters and anti-spam software, less and less spam is filtering through to our email accounts. People are also becoming more aware what spam is and choosing to ignore it. It is better to pay for space on newsletters and e-shots that people subscribe to. 

7. Become a Blogger. If you do not currently have a blog, start one. Blogging has become increasingly more popular. I read 4/5 blogs daily on a variety of topics. A lot of the information I find while Googling is from other blogs. I always try to comment where I have found an entry interesting or useful.

8. iGoogle. Provide a gadget on iGoogle. Allow this gadget to provide daily information, or special offers, ensure it links back to your site. 

Do not forget the real world, believe it or no, there are still some people who do not automatically turn to the internet for information. 

1. Advertise in local/national press. This is a great source of potential custom. I have listed many of my eCommerce sites in papers to reasonable degree of success. I discovered the key is to use a special offer to get potential customers to visit your site. In my experience, business driven from press usually is repeat business. The costs of press advertising can be quite reasonable if bough last minute. 

2. TV/Radio advertising. Obviously do not spend a fortune on TV advertising if you don't expect to make it back. TV/radio advertising is another excellent method to get people to visit your site. 

3. Word of Mouth. Shout about your site to anyone who will listen (or even if they wont), ensure as many people as you can know about your site, you will be amazed how many people can find out about your site this way. If you tell 20 people about your site and they tell 5 who tell 3, that is 300 people who know about your site, you will be amazed how  many of these will actually visit your site even just out of curiosity.  

Here are a Few ideas, none revolutionary but may offer some inspiration.

 

Informative website – Build a site using your own knowledge on certain subjects. Depending on the popularity of the chosen subject, the level of competition and the quality of your content, this can return a steady monthly income from affiliate marketing and advertising.

 

Reseller site – Some sites (most notably Amazon) offer potential for third party resellers to make money from selling their products. This can generate an small income if the site has enough traffic.

 

Directory Service – There are many web based directories that have become successful. Due to the amount of competitors you are unlikely to make a fortune from charging people to list, but money can be made for charging companies for higher priority listings.

 

Facebook Applications – Facebook has an API available for developers to build applications. Some applications have millions of users, showing adverts on these applications can generate a substantial income.

 

Once you have the idea for your site, the idea has to be developed; this determines whether the idea is worth pursuing.

 

The first thing to do is to research the market for your idea, use search engines to search for competitors, review their sites, their traffic and the services they offer. If you find you would be entering a market with many sites, each competing for market share it probable isn’t worth pursuing unless you have revolutionary concepts (or a big bank roll!).

 

If you find there is little or manageable competition, research how users would currently perform the tasks your site is offering. You should ensure the user would benefit (either in terms of money or time). If it makes it harder or more expensive to perform a task, it probably isn’t worth pursuing.

 

Conduct a feasibility study to ensure your idea is possible. If you do not have the relevant expertise to perform this, speak to someone who does ensuring you trust them or you have taken sufficient measures to ensure they cannot steal your idea. This is a crucial step, many people have come up with ideas for sites, later to find parts of the functionality is not feasible, consequently they have then stripped functionality from the site causing it to not meet the initial requirements.

Every millionaire’s wealth seeds from an initial idea, Mark Zuckerberg only set up Facebook as a means to interact with other Harvard students, he could never have foreseen the future success of the site.

 

The internet provides a platform for individuals or companies to trade goods or information relatively inexpensively. These reduced overheads result in more competitive prices for consumers which is one of the reasons why consumers are turning their backs on high-street shops for the online arena.

 

The idea is paramount to the success of any successful site, there are many ways in which it can be conjured up.

 

Perhaps you already have the idea – If the you already have an idea you are one step ahead of the majority of people, everyone would like to make a million off the web, not everyone has the initial idea to make this happen.

 

e-ifying current tasks – The most successful web start-ups are those that are electronic versions of current activities, for example social networking is “e-ifying” socialising, eBay is an “e-ified” auction, there is are gambling sites, shopping sites, travel agents, the list is endless. The most successful sites are “e-ified” day to day activities.  To come up with an idea under this category, keep a log of everything you do in x-number of days. Review this log and see  which things cannot currently be done online, see if there is a way of “e-ifying” the task.

 

Saving the user time -   This is closely related to the previous point. “E-ified” sites save the user time. Users are always looking to save time; any chore that can have its duration reduced will be a success. Sites like confused.com retrieve quotes for users, these sites make the majority of their income by the insurance companies paying them commissions for referrals.

 

Providing Information – To some extent use of books for regular retrieval of information has become redundant. Many users now rely on search engines to find information. Users can now use a search engine to search millions of sites rather than look in one book. Money is made from these sites by advertising and affiliate marketing, some sites also use subscriptions but this is slowly reducing. Informative sites can be broadly defined in two categories, static and dynamic. Static sites provide information in plain text; dynamic sites include forums or suchlike where users can ask for assistance. Everybody has their own specialist subjects which someone in the world is looking for.  To determine your specialist subject for an informative site, ask yourself if you were on a game show (e.g. mastermind), what would be your specialist subject. The answer to this question is usually answered by the user’s profession or interests.