So, You'd Like More Traffic

If you want to play the game of Internet Marketing, you better make a few changes

You cannot underestimate the affect of the Internet on the economy. Consumers have options for everything they do. Like it or not, the Internet is here to stay. To survive you have to play the game - and play it well. This web page explains how use the Internet to your advantage - how to attract customers in today's wired world.

When it comes to attracting customers on the Internet three things are important. Here are the three things you must get right:

Your Domain Name

If you're selling blue widgets, name your site bluewidgets.com. If you can't get bluewidgets.com, get blue-widgets.com. If you can't get that, get bluewidgets.net. The important thing is to get the name of what you're selling in the site name (the keywords). Forget your arbitrary company name. It's a new world now. Naming your site your product is the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to get to the top of Google and attract new customers.

The Filenames of your Web Pages

If you're selling blue widgets, don't name your blue widget product page about_us.html or products.htm. Name the blue widget product page bluewidgets.html. To Google, the filename matters! Google places a lot of importance on the filename of the Web page. Simply renaming the filenames of your Web pages (from product1.html to bluewidgets.html for example) will dramatically increase your exposure. If you want to get noticed, be strategic with naming your filenames.

Your Title Tag

With your site and file names straightened out, the next thing is to have Blue Widgets in your title tag. The title tag isn't the title on the Web page. The title tag is in the head section of the html. It doesn't display on the page at all. That is why many people (designers?) don't pay attention to it. The title tag shows up in the blue bar at the top of the window and when you add the page to your favorites. The title tag is critical! For example, of the top 10 Google listings for blue widgets, nine of them have blue widgets in the title tag!

There you have it. If you're looking for a formula, here it is: domain name, filename, and title tag in that order. Get these three things right and you will gain exposure. It's practically guaranteed.

The reason this is so effective is because these things are seldom done. It goes against Web design methodology. Web designers get paid to design web sites. A Web designer's primary goal is the design. They create a design and duplicate it throughout the site. This creates a consistent look, theme, and navigation - all positive things but this is not what the search engines want to see. Search engines want everything unique, not cloned. Like a mantra, Google tells us over and over they want unique page titles for every page.

This is why search engine optimization is such a critical step. It addresses these overlooked, fundamental, marketing type things. Web design is a mass production process. Web marketing is opposite. It emphasizes uniqueness based on the product.

Look at your products. If you sell blue widgets, green widgets, and red widgets, create a unique page (or an entire site) for each widget. Then go to Google's keyword selector tool (adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and look up how many searches were done last month for your widgets. Find a term with over 5,000 searches last month and buy that domain name! Create a site for each product. Build a matrix of sites around your product line.

Adding to that arsenal, name the Web page blue-widgets.htm. Then put the term in your title tag, preferably near the beginning. Base the entire page (or site) on one product, not in a superficial sense, but in a real sense. Provide real information. Put thought and work into it, and above all, make it unique.

With blue widgets empowered, do it again for green widgets, but don't clone! Google hates duplicate content. Don't take your blue widget page, duplicate it, and make it your green widget page. This is exactly what Google hates. They want unique content - different copy, different images, and different title tags - on every page. If you want to win, play by their rules.

This is a lot of work. But this is what it takes to win. Follow these guidelines and your widget company will dominate the market, ranking highly in all widget categories. The reason is:

1. This is what Google wants
2. Very few people go to this much trouble.

Those that do, succeed. So here's your statement of work:

1. Examine your product line
2. Research your product terms for number of searches per month
3. Create unique Web pages (or web sites) for each product
4. Name the Web page filename (or Web site or both) the product
5. Put the product name in the beginning your title tag
6. Make the content of the page (or site) unique and base it on the product

Do that for every product and you will dominant the category. Do not clone. Everyone clones and it's a trap. Create unique pages or sites for each product based on high traffic search terms and watch the people flow into your matrix.