To increase site traffic you need to employ two corresponding, yet very different methods to help your site land top rankings in the major search engines: optimization and advertising. Optimization makes your site search engine friendly using design, coding and content. Advertising lets you buy your way to the top.

Tactic #1

Keywords, META Tags and Page Titles are important. Search engines rank sites based on the relevancy of the content on the site’s pages. You need to research your keywords (related to your product or service) because using the wrong set of terms will cause a site to rank poorly and attract browsers instead of qualified prospects.

It is vital that in the of your HTML code you include a META page title, description and keywords tags in each page you want to be ranked. Of these, the page title and description are what are often included in search results.

Tip: Look at the source code of your competition and industry associations to determine what keywords they are using.

Tactic #2

Develop keyword-rich site content. Populate your site with content that isn’t just a sales pitch but also a useful resource that will boost your rankings on the search engines. Search engines use “bots” to “spider” through each of your pages. If they see page titles and keywords that include marketing, advertising and public relations, yet your copy doesn’t mention these words, then the search engine assumes your site is not “relevant” and will rank it lower.

Writing smart, compelling copy for the Web isn’t easy—and copying and pasting print brochure copy on your site won’t work. If you can’t do it internally, hire a pro. It will be money well spent.

Tactic #3

Run away from too-good-to-be-true offers. Don’t fall prey to unscrupulous SEO firms who promise you put your site at the top of the all the major search engine ranks. Often these firms use tactics like stuffing hundreds of keywords in META tags, hiding keywords in the code, using tiny text in the same color of the background so the visitor can’t see them and redirects, among other things. The major search engines are smart and will notice you are trying to “trick” them and not rank your site.

Tip: SEO is not easy. It requires a lot of research, some trial and error and continuous attention to statistics and reports. Many of the tactics listed above were first promoted by sex and gambling sites. You don’t want your firm to be associated with those types of companies by trying to “trick” search engines.

Tactic #4

Buy your way to the top. Don’t have the time or patience to wait for a natural listing? Well then, just buy your way to the top. Pay-Per-Click programs (like Google AdWords) allow companies to open an account and bid on commonly searched for keywords. The more you are willing to commit to spend each time a potential visitor sees your ad listing based on your chosen keyword, the higher you rise in the ranking and the more potential visitors will see your ad. You might see how this could get expensive in a hurry—and for some keywords that is certainly true.

A couple of key points to remember is that your account is only debited when a consumer clicks on your listing after using a keyword you bid on—and these programs allow you to put a cap on how much you spend a month so it is easy to manage your budget. You want to bid on the right keywords—the ones that drive buyers not browsers to your site and base your bid price on the ROI of that keyword.

Tip: Both Google and Yahoo! have free tools that let you see how many people, per month, are searching for specific keywords and phrases. Take the time to check them out. You might find you can come in at the #1 ranked spot (or at least on the first page of the search engine results) for under $1.00. Bidding typically requires at least a $.10 per click starting amount for any keyword.

Here’s an example: You might want to use Google AdWords and bid on the keyword “CPA.” Today a bid of about $1.60 per click would rank you in about the #5 spot, which would place you in the middle of the first page in most search engine results (#1 would be closer to $4.00 per click). Remember most people only view the first page results and sometimes the second. If your listing shows up further down the list than #20, the person searching is either very determined to find a the perfect company or they have a lot of time on their hands. Based on today’s traffic, if your listing is on that first page for any search on the term “CPA,” it will be seen about 5,000 times per month.

How often your listing is clicked on however depends on the title and ad copy you write for that listing. Realistically your click-through will probably average less than 10% and probably less than 1%. But even at 1%, if you can convert every click-through into a sale, the $4.00 rate is a steal. Imagine, $4.00 times 50 clicks = $200 in advertising. Only $200 for 50 new accounts! Sounds wonderful, but is the landing page compelling enough to guarantee a sale? How many sales must you make to get a profitable return on your $200? Perhaps this example demonstrates that buying your way to the top isn’t quite as easy as it seems. It also takes a well thought out, well written and engaging web site.

Tactic #5

Monitor and track your site’s performance with statistical and reporting tools. If you have taken the time to do all of the above, then you should monitor:

• How many visitors your site receives per day, week and month.
• How many hits your site gets.
• Which pages are most popular.
• Which pages visitors are directed to from your various links the most often.
• How long visitors stay.
• Which keywords visitors used to reach your site.

By using these tips and tracking the results it is easy to show return-on-investment. And having a site appear on the major search engines (Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo) will help you expand your business.