Internet: Getting Traffic to Your Website
Everybody's hope is to be placed very high on Google. Then we are all set, just sit and wait for the people to come and spend their hard earned money on your website. The problem is that's not how it works.
By the way, what does “to be placed very high on Google” means? Usually people mean being in the top 5 of the websites displayed. But! The big but, they don't tell you who asked and what was asked.
- Who is the “customer”? Another photographer? A potential customer? Somebody looking for prices? Somebody… You need to do some “market research” and identify the people.
- Wait for Google to come to your website. If you are beginning, have a new website or a new blog… You can wait for a long time, actually not a long time but closer to an eternity. One of the thing that Google looks for is that the website has unique “content”, how many web pages, when was the domain name registered, at least 6 month, how many links… It usually takes at least a year to be “of value” to Google.
Why wait when you can do the job yourself. Remember the first question? Who's your customer? What do they do, what's their interest? Weddings, portraits… You name it, there's a forum for it.
- Do a search on Google for “your topic” and the word “forum” (without the quotes).
Find the top 4 or 5 forums. Explore them. Usually these forums are the more active forums. Spend a few days exploring them. View the various boards on these forums.
- How active is the forum? Dozens of questions per day? Hundreds of questions per day?
- Are the questions always from the same people?
- Who answers the questions? Experts in the field? The girl next door? ...
- Is it only commercial or is there any “real” content? Some forums are much stricter than others are. Some forums allow you to post answers that links back to specific web pages. If they are too strict, don’t bother.
- Check not only the current first page, go back dozens or hundreds of pages back. Has the forum changed for the better, for the worst?
- How do they treat the people?
- Are you interested? Would like these people as friends? Would like these people as customers?
Join the forum and become a member. When registering for your membership, you will be given the opportunity to setup your profile and your signature. You should make a link to your own blog and/or your website.
- Most people just ask a question, even if the same question and the answers were posted just the week before.
- Don’t post, don’t answer, just look and read. It’s called “lurking” in computer geek language. You will see that there are questions that are regularly asked.
- Create a web page or a blog post for each of these often-asked questions.
Now you are ready to participate in the forums. When somebody ask one of these often asked question:
- Give a summary answer. It should be a couple of lines.
- Point to your web page or blog entry for the details.