After coming home from a stand-up comedy show, I decided to feed my ego and check the stats on my website. Did any of the persons who have seen me lately go online and check it out? Well, my ego was dealt a crushing blow, since it appeared that they had not. What I discovered, however, was that lots of people were looking at my website- and in many cases not to find me, but to find other people’s websites. It shows that people found me when looking for fellow comedians (and friends) Joey Medina, Dante, Jeffrey Steele, Dan Rosenberg, Jimmy JJ Walker, and Josh Nasar- even keywords such as, “comedy central white edgy”, “hey hey hey rerun”, and “latino comics in los angeles”. How am I getting hits for “latino comics in los angeles” when I just may be the whitest man in America? How am I getting hits for “comedy central” when I’ve never been on their channel performing stand-up? I mention each of these things in a running commentary on my site, as well as link to many websites that do fit that search criteria.
It all comes down to knowing how to get your site ranked well by search engines. Most websites are either not optimized at all to encourage search traffic, or are optimized using outdated techniques. Many misconceptions are still commonplace- persons fret over “Meta tags” and “search engine submission” techniques that quite honestly in most cases are a waste of time and money. There are many site owners who spend money on firms that offer to submit their site to hundreds of search engines, when 98% of all traffic goes through a very small number of search engines, rendering most of that effort worthless! So what can you do?
Many websites still operate under the “Great and Powerful Oz” theory when it comes to search engines- they know very little about how they work, and they just leave it to the man behind the curtain to determine where their site deserves to come up. But with a little coaxing, you can get him to give you some courage, a heart, a brain, or even send you back to Kansas if that’s what you want. More importantly, you can get him to include your website in the search results for specific terms.
Here are some techniques that WILL help you with search traffic. These are all things that a site owner can do themselves, and these are all FREE! There are other techniques you can employ that involve very targeted paid advertising which are not discussed in this article. Please note also that search technology changes constantly- when this is being written (April of 2004) these are considered good practices. In the future, different techniques may be recommended. Now that the warnings are out of the way, let’s get to it!
1) Optimize your site content for keywords
Make sure that the content on your site (especially on the homepage) mentions the things for which you want people to search and find you. On my site, the homepage reads: “Welcome to the web home of stand-up comedian and talk show host Matt Walker. Inside you’ll find links to essential comedy resources, Matt’s schedule, video clips, and much, much more! Be sure to tune in every Sunday at 7 AM to The Small Business Hour on KLSX, 97.1 FM in Los Angeles, just before Breakfast with the Beatles. Check out the schedule to find where you can see Matt Walker doing stand-up.” Notice that I mention “Matt Walker” repeatedly, I mention “stand-up comedian” and “comedy”. I mention “KLSX”, our radio station. These are all things that people may want to type into a search engine when looking for my site. Also note that I use these terms in a way that makes readable sense- just listing a bunch of keywords will often be ignored by search engines.
2) Get listed in DMOZ
“DMOZ? What’s that?” That’s what most people are probably thinking.http://www.dmoz.org is probably the most important directory on the Internet these days, yet it is still a well kept secret. It is a directory that sites may apply for listings with for free. No regular person will ever go to this directory to search for anything, however. So why bother? DMOZ is the seed directory for the Google search engine and a few others. That means that if you are listed in DMOZ, you are much more likely to appear in Google than if you simply submit your site to Google to ask to be listed. Getting entered into DMOZ is a time consuming process- it is managed by humans, not computers, so the time between submission and listing is often 2-3 months. Also, make sure to submit your site in the category that is most appropriate for your site to ensure the best chance of getting listed.
3) Make frequent text updates
Have you ever seen a site that was listed very high in a search engine (perhaps you paid someone to get your site ranked high) and watched it slowly slip down the rankings into the oblivion that is the Internet? This is likely due to having stale web pages. Search engines love fresh content. If you are updating your site constantly, search engines will come back more frequently to grab the contents of your site. More frequent indexing usually leads to better rankings. So set up a “Blog“, change your home page often, and find a way to add newsletters, articles, or other informative content to your site frequently.
4) Get rid of the flash
Flash animation sure can look great- The only problem with it is that you can’t print it out, right? Wrong! The biggest problem with flash is that search engines can’t index what goes on in the flash file. You may have a killer presentation on your latest products in a flash animation on your site. Everyone who sees it loves it- but when Google crawls your site, it is ignored. Make sure that if you have Flash on your website that you duplicate the content as regular text and pictures elsewhere. Otherwise, you are hiding content from search engines, meaning it’s harder for people to find the Flash animation in the first place!
5) Inbound Links
A major part of search engine rakings these days is based on inbound links. Get relevant sites to link to you, and you will automatically be considered more “important” in the eyes of search engines, and will thus get better rankings. When other sites link to you, it is best if they use a short line of descriptive text as part of the link- for my site, I ask people to use the phrase “Los Angeles comedian and talk show host Matt Walker”. This means that when sites link to me they are using some of the very same keywords that I am trying to improve my rankings with.
The web is undergoing constant change. These tips will not guarantee you a top ranking by themselves. You must stay on top of the latest trends in the industry if you want to stay on top of the rankings. I don’t have the time to do so personally, which is why we at the SBA Network are lucky to have a great search consultant with whom we work. Cayley Vos with Netpaths web design is who taught me all that I know about search engines, and he stays in touch with other webmasters and search professionals. I encourage you to find a search consultant with whom you can work- for more information about Cayley and his services, e-mail Mark Deo atmdeo@sbanetwork.org. We’ll be happy to facilitate an introduction.
In conclusion, getting search traffic can be a lot of work. These tips WILL help with your rankings, but they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to driving large amounts of traffic to your website. The Internet is a great resource to businesses and individuals alike- use it!
P.S. If you’re interested in seeing my comedy site, go to: http://www.funnymatt.com. Please be advised that the content on that site may be considered offensive by some viewers, so it’s not for everyone.
This Business Update was written by SBA Network Sales Technology Specialist Matthew Walker- for more information, please contact him at 310-320-8190 or mwalker@sbanetwork.org.
I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.com
Mark Deo