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The World Wide Web’s cyber strands stretch north, south, east, and west around the world wrapping over, under, and around the earth connecting websites like cobwebs connect abandoned corners of a room. Like its earthbound cousin, The World Wide Web is alive with spiders, word-spiders that are. These talented little arachnids ‘crawl’ the web’s cyber-strands on command every time someone orders a search.
Let’s say that you’ve decided to create a website. There’s never been a better time than now to find out how to put those talented little arachnids to work driving traffic to your site. Let’s find out what makes them crawl and how you can use them to attract internet traffic to your site.
When you first began designing your site for the internet you need lessons on keywords. That’s when you will discover that keywords are the search engine bait a website uses to get notices by websites around the globe. We’ve been hearing about keywords for years, but has anyone actually described what they are, where you can find them, and how they work? That lesson showed how keywords work and how to make them work for your website design clients.
Your number one focus before you begin creating your website, during the creation, even afterwards, will be keywords. They tell search engines what to look for when we surf the web, and let searchers link to your site when they search for your keywords.
Let’s explore keyword usage with a mock website. First decide what your website will be about. Why did you create your site, was it to sell a product or service or maybe create a cyber-mall for one-stop-shopping?
Now assume for the purpose of this discussion that your site will combine a couple of services to create a small cyber-mall in Seattle. Many people will resort to templates or easy-to-use websites that allow you to create your own site. While this may work for some people, the vast majority will need a site that is tailored to fit their needs. But, thanks to those sites you would not need any programming knowledge but that might hinder you as well.
What you need to do, in addition to getting a domain name, is find a web host. Web host provides the support you will need to build your site and every site must be hosted somewhere. The web host will give you email addresses, space for all of your website pages as well as other features. Many people will look to a third party company with help in creating their website design.
You need to create you web pages. If you know HTML or would like to learn HTML you can but if you do not want to deal with the hassle you could find a website design company online. For most people this is the best option. What you don’t want to do in website design is go into it with out a plan of action.
As an example, you decide to build a site to offer your neighbors the convenience of shopping for Seattle’s best personal and home services online. The key to increasing the traffic to your site will be the number of keywords you include as you build your site.
Who will visit your new site? Imagine going online to find the services your new website advertises. Which words would you use? Eldercare? Childcare? Babysitting? Lawn care? Yard Maintenance? Viola! Every one of these is a keyword for your site! Bonus! You’ve got your page titles too!
Say your site has six pages. Use the keywords we found above (Child care, Babysitting, Lawn Care, and Elder Care) in the navigation bar on each page and all of the keywords on your home page. Use all of your keywords on your home page. It’s the first thing your visitors see when your site comes up. Your visitors will use your home page to see what your site is about. Sprinkle your keywords throughout the copy to give search engines more keywords to work with.
Use keywords in the page titles and use the page titles on your navigation bar. Pepper them through the copy on every webpage. Make it easy for the spiders choose your site. That’s how you get on the search results first page and get your information in visitors’ hands in an instant. What a great incentive for visitors to come back to your site the next time they need child or elder care or lawn care services.
In the website we outlined above, you created a home page with links to your childcare and eldercare pages, and yet another to your lawn care page. You’ll also want an About Us page for bios and testimonials, and another (Contact Us) giving all the ways visitors can order your services, ask questions, or heaven forbid, complain.
If your website is six pages, you’ve used five keywords in the titles (5), another five in the navigation bar (multiplied by six since the navigation bar is on all six pages) (30). Now add an average of six keywords per page (36) giving us a total of 71 invitations to search engines to pick up on your site and put you on their first page.
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