I need Visitors Not Spiders (part 2)

You need a Good Overall Marketing Plan

In part one I pointed out the obvious, that getting 100's if not 1,000 of page scans by the search index spiders would be fruitless for a good 97% of the websites on the web. The reasons of course are many, but the most glaring of these is the shear size of the web that the spiders have spun. In spite of all of our best optimization efforts, the spiders have entrapped us and wrapped each one of us into a tight little cocoon that is almost impossible to escape from and stuck us in the corner, never to be heard from. You know the stats, 40 websites out of 10's of millions will make the first page of the big four search engines, The rest of us are just out of luck.

If you have been looking around the web for an SEO expert to help you bail the water out of your leaky dingy I am sure you've noticed the same trends I did. Virtually everyone, not all but close, has taken the Lemming approach to there SEO work, "Follow Google". First its "we need to fill your meta tags with crap" then its "you need a Reciprocal links index" no wait "now you need only one way links" Enough already. That's fine for the big corporations, they have huge advertising budgets and enough bank to finance $10,000 per month, go in every direction optimization projects. That's fine for those SEO firms that currently have these big bucks corporate clients under contract. What about you and me? How do we get our fair share of the visitors and give us a fighting chance to make a living?

The answer is "Forget everything you've read and go back to what you know!"

The reason you got into your business in the first place was because you had a product that you knew a lot about and had good success selling it to the neighborhood. In fact, before you mortgaged your house and spent your kids' first year of college tuition to get involved in the WWW you knew EVERYTHING about that product. You were the Guru, the expert. I've got news for you friend, you still are. No matter what Google says.

Now all we have to do is prove it. I say we because from this point forward we're partners. You're still in charge, you still pay all the bills and spend all the profits, but together we are going to get the word out about your great website.

That's great Michael, but how?

With a great overall marketing plan using today's SEO techniques coupled with the old school marketing that you used for so many years. Add that together with a few new ideas and we will be back on top in a few short months.

First off you need Content! Anyone who has known me for long knows that I believe Content is King. Even if you are a product sales website with 1000's of sku's you still need good solid content to bring your customers in and keep them on your site. Long enough to hear about your products and see your great prices. In fact if you have half that many products the content articles are the most important part of the equation. Content holds the key to breaking free of the cocoon and making the spiders pay attention to your website again. So many good things can be said about content that I hardly know where to start.

Well written product articles, featured reviews, test drives, product comparisons, almost any written content will give you untold opportunities to flood the spiders data bank with keywords and phrases. Not just 10 words or 30 words but hundreds of keywords and phrases. Articles will help educate your customers before they buy saving your customer service reps countless hours. These educated customers will come back and tell their friends about your great site. Other webmasters will hear about your website resulting in links and possible affiliates. The benefits are endless.

Discussion boards used to be the big thing. Now, unless you have a tremendous amount of traffic they aren't worth the time it takes to maintain. Blogs or weblogs on the other hand are reasonably new and easy to maintain and a great way to pass on information to your prospective customers and the search engines love them. In fact if you start one, your product weblog may be the first of its kind, I don't think I have ever seen a blog about widgets?

The point is you have the knowledge to make this work. You don't need someone to do all the work you. Like Santa you just need a good helper. If you are not a good writer then practice or hire someone who is. If you need help getting this project started give me a call.

Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist for Net Performance Group. For more articles by this author please visit: http://www.netperformancegroup.com/Articles/articles.htm