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

---

How to Build a Website that Get Free Traffic

How to get FREE traffic and vistors to your website... Read More

7 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Website

If you sell products or services, chances are you have... Read More

Using a Link Stategy to Promote Your Website

One of the most important steps you can take in... Read More

7 Steps To A Powerful, Useful Reciprocal Links Directory

The ProblemNo matter how good your product or service is,... Read More

Inter-Linking Articles Strategy ? What You Need to Know

Webmasters have so much information available to them on the... Read More

Use Free Articles To Create High Quality Backlinks Part II

The first part has dealt with introductory elements which could... Read More

Ethical Link Exchange, You be the Judge

Webmasters understand that quality and relevant inbound links can increase... 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

Get More Visitors to your Website using Free Traffic Exchanges

Trying to get traffic to your new website or to... Read More

Traffic vs. Quality Traffic and Hit Conversion

Webmasters often worry about traffic, they think that if they... Read More

A Million Visitors

Recently I came across a web site with the heading... Read More

The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice... Read More

Three Way Links, The Silver Bullet of Inbound links

I am not going to bore you by loading this... Read More

How to Increase Backlinks and PageRank of Your Website? Bring Buyers Traffic on Your Website!

Search Engines Optimization:Your website must be good optimized by various... Read More

Keyword Articles: Use Magical Keywords in Your Articles and Get Lots of Traffic

You get a flash of inspiration and an interesting topic... Read More

If You Dont Like The Weather...Just Wait For 10 Minutes

This old saying which addresses the variability of the weather... Read More

How To Increase Your Website Traffic With Zero Cost

How to increase your website traffic with zero cost'. It's... Read More

10 Ways To Have People Keep On Coming Back To Your Site

1: Original and Fresh Content Present your visitors content they... Read More

Combine Links with Quality Resources and Youre on a Winner

There are 1001 ways to drive traffic to your websites.I... Read More

Top Ten Ways to Promote Your Website When the Traffic Dries Up

Even the best websites with the best marketing plans can... Read More

5 Tips For Increased Website Traffic

There are lots of ways to get traffic to your... Read More

Why Traffic Touts and List Pushers Are Bad For Your Business

In this Article we look at the second competitive advantage... Read More

Jump-start Your Link Building (without Getting Sandboxed)

Link popularity has been written about ad nauseum, but most... Read More

Use Free Articles To Create High Quality Backlinks Part I

Nowadays, we have created numerous methods so as to bring... Read More

How To Turning Your Online Visitors Traffic Into Buyers/Customers Traffic?

Overview:Many leading search engines and b2b web sites offering online... Read More

How to Get More Traffic Than You Can Use

Traffic-generation is a hot topic for marketers. In particular, "free... Read More

How to Approach Potential Link Exchange Partners

Exchanging links can be a great way to build relations... Read More

Linking to the Best

Be picky about who will link to you; shoot and... Read More

Free Traffic Course - Day 9

Though each web site is different, it is possible to... Read More

Link Exchange Program: Get Started Building Your Link Popularity!

Every website needs a link exchange program. Every week, set... Read More

Quick, Easy & FREE Ways to Kickstart Your Website Traffic in 4 Simple Steps

Just launched your website? Now what?You are finally ready with... Read More

If you need More Targeted Visitors to Your Site this Will get the Free Traffic Flowing

If you don't know by now one the best ways... Read More

10 Tips on How to Increase Your Website Traffic

Not so long ago I had read an article about... Read More