Five More Goals To Improve Your Web Site

When you are trying to get your web site found in the search engines, it is critical that you keep working towards building your links. In a previous post, Five Goals to Improve Your Web Site, we talked about the importance of links and images working properly, spell checking, alt tags, keyword metatags, and linking to other web sites. In this post, we'll talk about five more things you can do to make your web site work for you. Feel free to add your own comments.

Submit two articles per month.
Article submission works for you in two ways. First, it is a way of getting links back to your web site. You get this by placing your link to your own web site within the article. The article can be anything that you want to write about, but it should be something that people will want to pick up and use in their own blogs and on their own sites.

The second reason that submitting articles will do for you is by setting you up as an authority in whatever you are writing about. This adds credibility to you and your business and people will come to know you as a resource for their own questions. By placing a goal of twenty-four articles for a year, you will be considered an expert in your field.

Change your home page.
Unlike most people, search engines love change. They want to see changes on your pages and when your home page changes they feel the need to do something about it. It is called “re-indexing” your site, which means they will re-examine your web site. You can change your site as often as once a week or once a month, but I would at least recommend at least two or three times a year. Just having the spiders re-indexing your site will make it worth the effort.
Add your web site address to all of your printed literature.
What many people forget to do is the hidden benefits of adding their web address to all of their printed literature. Business cards, flyers, invoices, and catalogs are all viable resources that should have your web site address printed on them so that people can find you on the web.

Add printed literature to all web orders.
If you are selling products on the web, be it through a traditional online store or through an auction site, such as eBay, you should prepare a flyer or letter with other items that you have for sale and a way to order them. Add this printed flyer in with each and every order. You can cross-sell items this way and you will find that your online sales increase with repeat customers. Remember, the customer that has already had a successful transaction with you is more likely to buy from you again.

Even if you do no accept credit cards or have a merchant account, you can do business online. PayPal is available to use and is a terrific way of doing commerce online. Look into adding this as an additional means of buying from you online, as well. PayPal is quickly becoming one of the largest online transaction companies.
Contact those who have shopped at your online store.
Once you have made some sales online (or have gathered clients through your web site), you should contact them from time to time to remind them that you are still open for business. As stated above, people that have shopped through you before and have walked away happy, are more likely to buy from you again and recommend you to others. Just drop them an email about once a month to let them know you see them as a valuable customer.

Please note that this is different than “spamming” since these people have already made purchases from you. A good business practice is to allow them the option to not receive any more messages from you. This is called, “opting out”. You can do this on your own or go through an email mailing service.

Make these five ideas part of your web strategy. You will find that they will help your web site and increase your business.