Many people have asked about how to increase traffic to their website. Obviously a very important question, but one unfortunately that typically gets answered with a lot of hype and distortion. So in this post, I have tried to cut to the chase and discuss the core factors in increasing website traffic. This is not the entire answer to the traffic question, but it does lay out the most important factors for increasing visitors to your site.
Before I answer this, let me review that the Website Marketing game consists of doing well at two distinct tasks:
- getting traffic (visitors) to your website and
- converting those visitors to clients
A site that has excellent conversion capabilities but little traffic will generate few referrals. Similarly, a site with lots of traffic but poor conversion capabilities will also perform poorly in the referral department.
There are two ways to get more visitors to your site. I like to characterize them not by their content but rather by their speed, because many people are very impatient and speed of results is most important. You can increase traffic:
- The S L O W Way, or
- The Fast Way.
It really depends upon which resource(s) you find yourself possessing more of: money, time, and/or patience. Let’s review each Way.
The Slow Way: this method relies primarily on what is traditionally called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Depending on who you talk to, SEO is either a mystical teaching inaccessible to mere mortals or a set of ever-changing principles that only expensive consultants can really understand. Despite these ubiquitous attempts at digital obfuscation, I will summarize the key points of SEO here. The main goal of SEO is to figure out what the wizards of Google want, the elixir de jour if you will [de jour because it's always changing], and to please them. The lament goes something like this: Oh wizards of Google, discover my site and give me a high rating in what’s called Page Rank [a 1-10 scale in which most therapist sites rate 0 - 2]. A high Page Rank ensures admission to the promised land of Page One Search Results, the Holy Grail of SEO. [You're either on page one - or you do not exist in this world]. And so how is this accomplished?
- Each page of the website is optimized for top keywords in the internal meta tags. There are tools to help you discover top keywords [Examples of top keywords might be depression, anxiety, marriage counseling and your city and state. They are consider "top" keywords because they are words that are frequently searched for by web searchers seeking therapy, on top search engines such as Google and Yahoo].
- These same keywords are repeated in important parts of the page: in headlines which have bold type or a larger font; and several times on each page [especially in the first 3 paragraphs of the page]. The more pages of valuable content that are created – each containing these top keywords – the better the chances of the search engines rating your site highly.
- In addition, the SEO perspective encourages you to get as many other websites to link to your site as a resource or reference. The guys who started Google, after all, were in a PhD program at Stanford when they starting this fun little project on the side, and they were very influenced by the fact the references in dissertations were deemed to be more valuable the more they were cited. So the more other sites recognize your site’s existence, the more valuable Google thinks your site is. You even want to make as many links within your site to other pages on your site, because you get points for each link.
- Some SEO experts still emphasize submitting your site to search engines, though this has become an area of disagreement among SEO gurus. [However, no one says it hurts your chances of reaching the Holy Grail to do so, it just may not help].
- Lastly, it’s a great idea to submit your site to some other online directories, such as Google Local; Yahoo Local; DMOZ; Infousa; Zoominfo; and LocalEze. Many of these directories serve as seed directories for other online lists, so they can really improve your chances of being found on a search.
There! You have it! It’s not rocket science or witches’ brew after all. Everything a high-priced consultant will tell you falls into one of the above items. INTERMISSION: And for getting this far, here’s a funny story to tell at your next party: Way back in the Dark Ages of the Internet, oh say 1999, some people – who thought they were VERY clever – used to engage in what was called ‘Keyword Bombing’ – they would sneak in 30 or more instances of a top keyword on each page by making the text the same color as the background of the page – so the words were invisible to the viewer but the search engines saw every one. Unfortunately, this oh-so-clever scheme ended in disaster when Google got wind of it and banished all purveyors of this craft from their database for all eternity].
So SEO sounds pretty cool. But not so fast. All is not wonderful in SEO world for the following reasons:
- Even if you do all of the above, there’s no guarantee that it will work! [That's right, the search engines change the rules regularly, so the cat and mouse game between search engines and SEO consultants results in consultants always being at least one step behind.] No one can predict search engine results with exact certainly! Anyone who says they can is lying to you! If anyone tells you this, hold onto your money and run the other way as fast as you can!
- There is strong evidence that Google puts all new sites on a sort of probation called the Google Sandbox for at least six months, even if you do all this SEO stuff perfectly! [see my article on the Google Sandox]
- The SEO approach tends to work better and better the longer you do it. Plus, if you have lots of time and patience [and plan to be in practice more than five years], you can do most of this stuff yourself for very little cost. Hence the S L O W approach can also be the less expensive approach. The basic principles are solid, and they tend to work over time…but they offer precious little doses of the Instant Gratification that we all crave.
Ok, so what about…
The Fast Way: there IS a way to appear on the first page of Google, in one day. That’s the good news. The bad news? You have to pay to get there. The Fast Way is Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, which truly is the most unique form of advertising to emerge in the Internet Age. With PPC Advertising, you create small 3 line text ads that show up on the right column of the search results pages. The ads look like this:
Depressed? Sad?
Stop whining already.
I can help. Free consult.
www.drstrangelove.com
You choose keywords that you think people who are depressed will search for, and whenever someone uses those keywords, your ad shows up on the right column of the search engine results page. Even then you don’t pay any money. If someone sees your ad on the page and clicks on it, you pay for that one click – at a an amount that you choose. The trick is the more you are willing to pay, the higher you show up on the search results page. Once the viewer clicks on your ad, they are transported to a page on your website. Then it’s up to that page to convert them to a new client of yours.
So you’re totally in charge of the expenses for this service: you decide how much you’ll pay each time someone clicks on your ad, and how much you’re willing to pay per day for the service. Sound confusing? It is.
Google’s version, AdWords, is the 600 pound gorilla in the field. It’s how Google makes most of its billions. But buyer beware: simply stated, AdWords is NOT for the faint of heart. If you try to implement AdWords on your own, prepare for a steep learning curve. Expect to feel foolish. Prepare to waste some money. That’s no reflection of your intelligence – it’s just what countless therapists who have tackled AdWords on their own have experienced.
BUT there is a silver lining to this steep learning curve: once you figure it out, AdWords will reward you handsomely for a long time, with very little effort. It is the closest thing to automatic pilot I’ve ever found for referrals to your practice. I have been keeping track of therapists using AdWords for over three years now, and here’s my findings:
- Most people who stick with AdWords and are willing to test it out, revise their campaigns and try different ads and keywords, end up getting 1 new referral for about every 70 clicks on average.
- Average click costs about $2 – 3, give or take $0.50, depending on your location and geographic location.
- Average ROI (Return on Investment) on AdWords (after you learn how to use it wisely) is 900%. That’s right, 900, not 100. Not everyone does this well, and some do much better than that. For most people the first session or two pays for the ad, and the rest is pure profit.
With AdWords, you literally control the amount of visitors to your site based on how much you’re willing to pay and how well your ads are performing. Google rewards better ads with higher position on the page and lower cost per click. And if you have a need for Instant Gratification, it’s satisfied very quickly.
And you can also create simlar ads on Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, to further diversify your advertising.
So there you have it. The Truth about Website Traffic. Which Way is best for you? It’s your choice. And it’s not an either-or decision: I have been doing both the Slow and Fast Ways for several years. My philosophy has always been: The more clicks, the more clients. I’ll take ‘em any way I can get ‘em.
Post your reactions on the comments below.
Joe
