SEO, Web site tools and Blogs, are they working to drive traffic to my site?

In this week’s article, I will review the effectiveness of the tools that I have been Blogging about for the last 4 weeks. I outlined some of steps that I am following in the prior Blog. My goal is to drive traffic to my web site, www.salesrepusa.net, connect with new prospective clients for my Outsourced Sales Management Company, and grow my company.

I used Microsoft Office Live to set up my web site last year. I selected Microsoft Live based on the low cost of entry and the easy development tools that Microsoft provided. At this time I feel that I need a more complex web site with embedded HTML codes. When I embedded Google’s tracking code into my site last week, Internet Explorer could not open the site and crashed. I am sorry to any readers that had a problem. When I tried to contact Microsoft for support, I found that the toll free phone number was no longer available. I am planning to switch to a different host next month that supports embedded HTML codes for tracking. If anyone has suggestions, please post them in the comment section.

When I set up my site, I filled in the Keyword section with every possible key word I could think of. As I started to monitor my site, I noticed that only a few of the Keyword were driving traffic to my site. Website Grader also recommended that I reduce the quantity of key words. I also set up Google Adwords with an advertisement for “Outsourced Sales Management”, as a test to look at which keywords are effective, and to drive traffic to my site. Based on a very short test I was able to review which Keywords were generating traffic for me. I then went back to my site and modified the Keywords. Following these changes I have noticed an increase in the daily web traffic.

It has been about 4 weeks since I added Google Ads to my Blog at this Blogger site. Google Ads provides me with daily information showing how many people have read my Blog. In the last 4 weeks, over 1200 people have read this Blog. I also look at the Microsoft Office Live Reports. So far in about one week, almost 200 people have read the Blog on the web site.

I mentioned last week www.websitegrader.com . It is a tool to review your web site which recommends improvements to increase your ranking. I have used this tool for a few potential clients who were unhappy with the effectiveness of their web sites. I very quickly was able to suggest modifications to the potential clients which should improve traffic to their sites.

Overall I have found that these simple SEO techniques have been very successful expanding my brand, increasing web traffic on my site, and driving client to my consulting company. I welcome any questions or comments your may have.

Thank you for reading my Blog!

Driving traffic to your web site! Part Two: Pay per Click

Once you have defined the keywords and listed them in the appropriate section of your web site, you can pay to drive more traffic to your site using pay per click. Think of the pay per click technique as a miniature auction going on in the background whenever someone types a term into the Google search box. I have used Google Adwords and set up a small three line advertisement, listing my Sales Team Development services. Google picked up the keywords that I listed on my site, and it allowed me to select the words that I want to link to my ad.

Take a look at this link: www.Adwords.google.com

Now the fun part!

When someone types the keywords I selected, the bidding takes place over the placement of my advertisement. I can control which keyword triggers the display of my ad, and a range of how much I want to bid to get the ad placed on the screen. Since I just turned the pay per click on last week, I am still looking at this as a test to see which keywords get interest, and which drive traffic to my site.

Testing Tools

Google Adwords includes a lot of analytic functions which allows you to view the quantity of hits that each keyword receives. You can then decide which words you want to trigger your advertisement and how much you are willing to bid to place them. I recommend that you start small and then increase your bid based on the number of clicks each of your keywords receives.

The Microsoft Office Live web site development tools offer a report function to track the traffic coming to your site. The tool allows you to look at the volume of traffic, the referring source, and the keywords that drove the person to your site. Wow!

Keep in mind that this is an ongoing active process:

Set up web site
Enter keywords
Set up Google Adwords
Select keywords to trigger your advertisement
Monitor results and web site traffic
Adjust your keywords and pay per click amount
Monitor traffic to see effect of changes made
Add more pages and start all over

By monitoring the web traffic and its sources, you can adjust your keywords and advertisements and maximize the hits on your site, and grow you company.

I hope that this two part blog has helped you gain some insight into the tricks of the Wonderful World Wide Web!