Location, Location, Location
Web Traffic & Gobsmacked Entrepreneurs
by Stephen Moran, PLS, MBA
http://www.moransurveying.com/
http://pbc62.blogspot.com/
Location, location, location is an often used phrase in business. Unless you're opening a Starbuck's, MacDonald's or Wal-Mart you have very limited say in where to locate your business. If you're entrepreneur like me you care very much about your business location but are limited because you used a lot of your capital to acquire the tools needed to compete in your industry. Fortunately, I am able to set up my office in a small building located on the same piece of property as my home. The rent is affordable but the location is not highly visible given that I live off "the beaten path". The opposite is true for an Architect friend of mine, Bill. His office is located on a busy main street of America's hometown, Plymouth, MA. Literally hundreds of thousands of people pass by it every year. So, how do I get the same sort of visibility yet keep my rent at the status quo? A snappy web site! Thousands of electronic visitors will view my business through the median of the World Wide Web.Web Traffic & Gobsmacked Entrepreneurs
by Stephen Moran, PLS, MBA
http://www.moransurveying.com/
http://pbc62.blogspot.com/
Sadly, this has yet to be the case. Gobsmacked by the lack of hits and determined to learn the reasons why I did extensive research into the matter. I learned that there are a number of reasons for the scarcity of visitors to my site. The first thing I learned was that keywords are crucial to your websites language. Despite the professionalism, creativity, promptness of service and affordability of Web Whizards, creators and maintainers of Moran Surveying, they are limited in the design my site, to the wording and attachments I provided. During my sites conception I was not aware that certain keywords particular to the surveying industry receive more hits than others. The following chart is a list of terms particular to the surveying industry:
Land | surveying | global monthly hits: 49,500 | |||
Residential | surveys | global monthly hits: 480 | |||
commercial | surveys | global monthly hits: 590 | |||
plot | plans | global monthly hits: 5,400 | |||
property | lines | global monthly hits: 22,200 | |||
property | corners | global monthly hits: 480 | |||
fences | global monthly hits: 3,350,000 | ||||
property | monuments | global monthly hits: 0 | |||
abutters | global monthly hits: 720 | ||||
neighbors | global monthly hits: 673,000 | ||||
Surveying | global monthly hits: 368,000 | ||||
Surveyors | global monthly hits: 301,000 | ||||
(Global monthly hits obtained utilizing Goggles keyword tool)
Had I been savvier at the time I would have used fence, neighbors and Surveying more often on the main page of my Web Site. By simply inserting the following language into my website I increase the probability of hits during a goggle search.
"Moran Land Surveying (368,000) is often asked to determine the location of a common property lines (22,200) to insure that the placement of fences (3,350,000), pools, sheds and additions to homes do not encroach on a neighbors (673,000) property."
Keywords should also be utilized with any pictures that accompany your site. Consider the following picture of an instrument operator employed by Moran Surveying. This picture would be useful in a portfolio of past and present jobs. The caption incorporates the highly searched keywords, fence and neighbor.
A concrete monument (orange stake) set alongside the neighbors' fence is indicative of a break in the property line
Some might be tempted to Goggle the most searched worlds on the web and use them over and over in their web sites. Be careful, relevancy is the key, irrelevant terms may do more harm than good. I'll illustrate what I mean.
According to the web site, Most Popular Internet Search Words (Stewart, n.d.), the following words are among the most commonly searched:
# Monthly Hits | # Monthly Hits | # Monthly Hits | |||
Google | 506,000,000 | Games | 277,000,000 | Lyrics | 277,000,000 |
Yahoo | 506,000,000 | eBay | 185,000,000 | Mapquest | 24,900,000 |
(#Monthly hits obtained using Google's keyword search tool)
Although the following description incorporates the most searched words on the web it screams unprofessional.
"The Jack Casey survey company specializes in determining the proper location for your proposed fence. Our firm will ensure you stay on good terms with your neighbor even if they are not the founders of Goggle. If you were to encroach on the Google founder's property they might scream Yahoo and denigrate you by picturing your home in some new game."
Obviously this goes a bit over the top, but you get the idea. Matthew MacDonald points out another pitfall of using irrelevant terms in his book Attract Visitors to Your Site, "search engines learn about these tricks almost as fast as Web developers invent them. If a search engine catches you using these tricks it may ban you completely relegating you to the dustbin of the Web (MacDonald, 2010, p. 13)." Furthermore, you also run the risk of being labeled a spammer by some vindictive web searcher with a large Twitter or Facebook following.
Now that you have determined the relevant wording the next challenge is to get your site ranked high with the major search engines. This is a bit trickier but still doable. There are a few techniques that will help you in this regard. Some are free others are not.
Like location, location, location one of the keys to higher site ranking is linking, linking, linking. Links are part of the ranking algorithm search engines use when preparing the final ordered list of relevant web sites. There are a number of mechanisms you can use to increase the number of and quality of links to your site.
Word of mouth is one way. Ask your friends, associates and clients to add your link to their site. Take my architect friend Bill mentioned above. He might consider linking me to his site if I reciprocate and link him to mine. However, this reciprocal linking can be bit tricky. Most professionals prefer to stick to advising clients on matters relating to their given field. They would rather not get caught up in tenuous negotiations between their clients and other professions associated with one of their projects. Don't become despondent over this fact you can link via social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Another option is for you to make a list of the sites that relate directly to your industry. I'll use Moran Surveying again as an example. The following links are absolutely essential for my firm to accomplish an accurate survey of a parcel of land in and around the Boston, MA area. This list is by no means exhaustive.
MA. Board of Professional registration - Navigate to this site enter Land Surveyor into the top box and 41611 into the bottom box. The result will be verification of my professional license in the state of MA.
Yet, another way to increase your web sites links is to start a blog or a community. This has a number of advantages. Adam Singer lists a few of these advantages on his Top Rank blog. They include, becoming the go to subject matter expert and consolidating your professional presence (Singer, 2007). Building your community can be as simple as adding a page to your web site.
The above mentioned techniques are all relatively inexpensive or free depending on your present web presence. However, if your marketing budget will permit it, for a fee, search engines like Goggle and private Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies will maximize your sites presence for you. They way Google enhances your web sites visibility is by advertising it in the margins once the keywords are detected in their search engine. They also scan the subject lines in their e-mail server and when one of your key words is discovered they again will post your website in the margins of the web mail page. SEO's use some of these techniques as well. The advantage of an SEO is that it is not particularly loyal to a specific search engine as Goggle obviously is.
To conclude, the location and hence the visibility of your web site is very important in generating leads for your new business. Realize that you can have the most attractive website on the World Wide Web but if it is not visible to the public it does you no good. Also realize this can be only a temporary situation and you have the power to rectify it. The first rectifying procedure should be the determination of the correct key words. Then spread the word about your site, tell all of your friends utilizing all available means like social networks and e-mailing. Add a page to your web site dedicated to blogging or community discussions. Lastly, if your budget allows seek a dedicated professional. You had the gumption to start your own firm, now it's time to grow it.
SFM
References:
Goldford, J. (2011, May 11). 4 Things You Wish You Knew About Google. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/4-things-you-wish-you-knew-about-google-2011-5
HSE. (n.d.). Health and Safety at Work. Retrieved May 24, 2011, from http://www.hse.gov.uk/aboutyou/webcom.htm
MacDonald, M. (2010). Attract Visitors to Your Site, the mini missing manual. North Sebastopol, CA 95472: O'Reilly Media.
Marckini, F. (2001). Search Engine Positioning . Wordware Publishing.
Singer, A. (2007, July). Web Community Building: Making It Thrive. Retrieved May 25, 2011, from Top Rank: http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/07/web-community-building
Stewart, D. (n.d.). Most Popular Internet Search Words. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from Most Popular Internet Search Words: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellaneous/most_popular.htm
Top ranked Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Web Sites:
enettech
A note about these TOP RANKED sites. I use the term to mean sites that show up in the margines of an individuals Google search. These adds may or may not appear as time goes on. Their appearance on the fringe of the web search is extremely dependent on the fee they pay Google. This ranking was done in May 2011.
A note about these TOP RANKED sites. I use the term to mean sites that show up in the margines of an individuals Google search. These adds may or may not appear as time goes on. Their appearance on the fringe of the web search is extremely dependent on the fee they pay Google. This ranking was done in May 2011.
