Read through the hundreds of forums and bulletin boards on the internet and you will find dozens of threads centre on the lack of web site traffic. All the other remaining threads bemoan the difficulty of getting visitors to return long enough to buy something. Then there are the threads about the complexity of getting listed and ranked well in important search engines.

All of these dilemmas have the same cure - CONTENT. Content that is pertinent to the subject of a website and updated regularly makes a site “sticky.” Sticky sites drive and keep occupied all the visitors you could possibly handle. Search engines drink from the fountain of fresh and interesting content provided by savvy webmasters who enjoy increased rankings and sales.

You too can enjoy these benefits with just a little effort and a small budget if you create or find content appropriate to your topic. Add some or all of the following types of content to your site and your traffic will increase and visitors will return often.

Articles - There is no doubt that free reprint articles are the best way to populate websites. You can maximize the benefits of articles by writing them yourself or by offering a small fee to writers for customized versions of their popular articles.

Quotes - An interesting set of quotes on topic will help motivate and inspire visitors. Add and delete quotes regularly to keep your site fresh. Find quotes at Annabelle.net and BrainyQuote.com.

Puzzles - People love games and puzzles. Appeal to the child that exists inside all of your visitors and they will reward you with their time and attention. One place to get a new monthly puzzle is http://tinyurl.com/6spgk. Consider investing a small sum to have a custom crossword puzzle developed for your site.

Forums - Follow in the footsteps of successful websites by adding free forums to your site. Look over the forum software at YabbForum.com and PHPbb.com. Ask loyal visitors to serve as moderators for specific topic threads.

Feedback/Guestbook - Allow visitors to ask questions or comment on an issue raised by your site or your blog. Make this information public (so long as it is in good taste) and searchable by visitors.

Reviews - Unbiased reviews are universally popular. Add reviews of books, software, hardware, scripts, movies, television shows, schools or spas to your site and visitors will return again and again.

Case Studies/Success Stories - Everyone loves a success story. Interview your best customers and add their stories to your website to bolster your credibility and satisfy your content needs. Be careful to make the success story interesting and motivational rather than commercial.

Jokes - A sense of humour is often lacking on the internet. Imagine how impressed you would be by an attorney who has such a good sense of humour that he keeps all the best attorney jokes on his website. Follow in the footsteps of that attorney and visitors will look forward to visiting your site.

Newsfeeds - Does your site cover a topic that frequently generates breaking news? Add current news to your site via feeds available at such websites as News4Sites.com and enjoy a higher rate of return visits from your readers.

Resource Directories - Instead of the usual reciprocal link campaign consider adding a resource directory to your site that actually points your visitors to valuable sites that compliment your own. List only the sites you choose and do not incur search engine wrath by insisting upon reciprocal links. All links in the directory should open to a new browser window.

Newsletter & Archives - You don’t have to recreate the wheel and attempt to create a huge list for your newsletter. Offer regular updates by e-mail or blog to current and potential clients and include links to pertinent articles or resources. Keep archives publicly accessible and search engines will visit often.

Blogs - Why should you jump on the current trend of blogging? Search engines adore blogs and visit them often because they tend to be updated frequently. You can use a blog to replace your e-mail newsletter and to feature your product or service reviews and other bits of pertinent information that do not merit a special e-mail to your customers.

Job Listings - Consider adding fresh job listings to your site that fit your topic. For instance, you could feature telecommuting jobs if your site topic is “work at home.” Make sure you have the permission of the employer prior to posting their openings on your site.

Testimonials - Request testimonials from current and past clients and sprinkle them throughout your website. Remove outdated testimonials and add fresh ones on a regular basis. Give your clients live links (opening in a new browser window) to their website within the testimonial.

Please remember that you need permission to use content created by someone else and at all times follow the rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. You can read the full text of this law at Thomas.loc.gov.

The internet was conceived as a method of sharing information with people around the world. If we all return to these roots by filling our websites with topic appropriate content then we will be rewarded by search engines. Forums complaining about the lack of website traffic will disappear and be replaced by recommendations of interesting websites to visit.

By Bonnie Jo Davis

If you own or manage a website, you are probably already aware of the importance of your log files or site statistics. Such data can give you insights about your site’s usability, errors in your HTML code, the popularity of your site pages and the type of visitors your site attracts. But did you know it can also highlight the success or failure of your search engine optimization campaign?

There is specific data about your web site that you should be looking at in your log files on a regular basis. Several variables should be examined monthly or even weekly to ensure your site design and page optimization is on the right track:

1. Entry Paths
Most sites can be developed and analysed around the concept of visitor pathways. If, for example, your site is a Business to Business (B2B) site and you service small, medium and large businesses, there should be pathways through your site designed for each class of visitor. An extremely simplified example would be:

Clients coming to the site through an optimized home page:

home page —> small business page —> order page —> order confirmation page

home page —> medium business page —> order page —> order confirmation page

home page —> large business page —> order page —> order confirmation page

The site entry pages for these pathways are often optimized home pages or optimized content pages. The final page of this route is often the action that you want clients to take on your site (e.g., sign up for your newsletter, buy your products online or contact you for further information). You can easily determine how effective your pathways are by tracking the entry paths on a regular basis via your site stats.

You should have some idea of the main pathways that clients take through your site, both for monitoring the effectiveness of your page optimization and conversions, and for the purpose of subsequent site redesign(s). A good starting point to track the pathways through your site is via the graph or chart called “Entry Paths” in your log files / site statistics.

2. Top Exit Pages
These are pages from which most visitors click away from your site. Why is it useful to track these? Because exit pages can tell you:

a. If there is a technical problem with the page that is causing visitors to leave your site. For example, if there are broken links or the form on the page is not working properly etc.

b. If your site design is breaking the strategic pathway, for example, you may have links to external sites that are inducing clients to click away before buying your product or signing up for your newsletter.

c. If there is something on these pages that is encouraging visitors to leave your site. For example, an unprofessional design or confusing layout.

In your log files / site statistics, the graph or chart called “Top Exit Pages” is the place to learn why visitors are leaving your site.

3. Single Access Pages
These are entry pages that are viewed once before the visitor clicks away from your site. Similar to Top Exit Pages, Single Access Pages can tell you a lot about why people are not staying on your site for long.

Have a close look at the search terms used to find your site. Single Access Pages can often indicate that your target search terms are too broad. For example, you may be getting a lot of traffic by targeting “printer cartridges” but if you only carry a particular brand of cartridge, then people seeking other brands are not going to find what they truly seek when they arrive at your site so they will leave immediately. This can be resolved by narrowing down your search terms to be more targeted and focused on your niche products and services, for example, by changing “printer cartridges” to “HP printer cartridges” and so on.

To see what pages of your site are viewed once, look for the graph or chart called “Single Access Pages” in your log files / site statistics.

4. Most Requested Page(s) and Top Entry Pages.
Tracking these pages is key to measuring the success of your SEO campaign. If your optimization is effective, the Top Entry Pages and Most Requested Pages should be those that you have optimized for target keywords. The Top Entry Pages are particularly relevant as you consider the pathways through your site. Do the most popular entry pages have any relationship to the start pages for your plotted visitor pathways? Or are visitors entering and navigating your site via ways you didn’t intend? You can use this information to continually tweak your page optimization to guide visitors to the right pathways.

To see your most requested pages, look for the graph or chart titled “Most Requested Pages” in your log files / site statistics. Also look for “Top Entry Pages”.

5. Page Refreshes
Why are visitors refreshing pages on your site? Are the pages not loading properly? The “Page Refreshes” variable is another one to monitor on a monthly basis via your site stats to ensure that there are not site usability issues for visitors.

6. Referring Domains and Referring URLs
Where are your visitors coming from? Are they coming from sites that are linked to yours? Are blog authors or forum members talking about your site? Referring Domains will tell you what sites are linking to yours, while Referring URLs will list the actual pages where the links are located. These can be little gold mines because you can often find valuable sources of traffic via links to your site that you didn’t even know existed.

In terms of an SEO campaign, these links can all add to your site’s overall link popularity, an important factor in the ranking algorithms of many search engines, particularly Google. Monitoring these metrics can tell you if your site requires a link-building campaign or help you measure the effectiveness of various online and offline advertising campaigns.

In your log files / site statistics, Look for the graph or chart titled “Referring Domains” and “Referring URLs”.

7. Search Engine Referrals
How many of your visitors are coming directly from search engines? What percentage of overall traffic does this represent? This is a good variable to track to help you keep up with how many search engines are listing your site (both free submission and paid submissions), how much traffic they bring and whether to renew your paid submissions. It can also tell you whether you need to increase the number of search engines your site is submitted to in order to build on your link popularity. As a very rough guide, you should be receiving at least 30 percent of your site traffic via search engine referrals.

To see search engine referrals, look for a chart or graph called “Search Engines” within your site statistics.

8. Search Phrases
This topic is related to search engine referrals generally, but gives added insight into what terms you were actually found for in the search engines. Do these terms match what your site was optimized for? Are there any surprising terms that you might want to develop site content for? Some log file analysis programs will even break down what specific phrases your site was found for in which particular search engines. The more detailed the data you have, the more closely you can tweak your optimization campaign to your precise market.

To see the search phrases your site was found for, look for “Search Phrases” or “Search Phrases by “Search Engine”.

9. Landing pages for PCC Campaigns, etc.
If you run a pay-per-click campaign or dedicate specific pages to advertising product specials, you may use special landing pages or tracking ids to monitor your traffic and conversions. Your site logs can help you track these by showing you how many visitors they each had and what they did after they visited those pages.

10. Metric values that show a radical change from developing trends
Any site metrics that show a dramatic change from one month to the next could pin-point a problem with your site or with your optimization campaign. For example, if your search engine referrals have dropped dramatically, it could indicate that you have been penalized in a search engine (or more than one). Noticing changing trends early gives you the chance to investigate problem areas and make adjustments if necessary.

Please note that all log file analysis and site statistics programs are different and use slightly different terms to describe the metrics listed above. If you’re confused, ask your site admin or hosting provider to highlight these for you. Remember, your log files are gold mines filled with nuggets of information about your optimized web site. If you keep digging on a regular basis, you’ll eventually strike it rich with success.

By Kalena and Jerry Jordan

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses today have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do. You have finally made the decision that you have to have one. Where do you start?

Steps to Creating an RSS feed

1.) Build a Feed
There are a number of desktop and web applications available that make feed creation easy. I would encourage anyone creating a feed to use one. Though not overly complicated, hand-coding an RSS feed can become a bit confusing and time-consuming. Most desktop software applications for building a feed include a wizard and contact-sensitive help, simplifying the process of creating a feed. Following a few simple steps in a wizard generally will produce an RSS feed in just a few minutes.

Publishers control what information is syndicated in the RSS feed, so ultimately it is the publisher’s decision as to whether to include teaser copy or full articles. Consider what you are trying to accomplish and who your target audience is when building the feed.

2.) Transfer the Feed Onto Your Server
Once you have constructed an RSS feed you will need to transfer the feed to your server. This can be done using a standard FTP client (if it is not built into the feed creation software). The feed is usually placed in the domain’s root directory like this: http://www.mydomain.com/nameoffeed.xml , but as long as you know where it is it doesn’t really matter.

3.) Display the Feed on Your Website Using a Graphic of Some Sort
In order to signal to website visitors that an RSS feed containing content related to the website is available, include a colourful graphic on the website. It has become a standard that nearly all websites that have RSS feeds available use colourful graphics such as flags as indicators that RSS feeds are available for specific content. The flags were initially bright orange rectangles but as the popularity has grown, webmasters have bent the rules a bit. NotePage has made a free online RSS graphic tool available that allows users to quickly customize buttons by selecting the text on the button and the colour scheme of the button. Once the colour and text is entered, a custom graphic is instantly created. Webmasters can easily match the style of the RSS button to a website’s theme. Graphics experience is not required. Simply select alternative colours and insert text to personalize RSS feed graphics. Use the RSS graphics tool or choose ready made graphics from RSS-Specifications.com.

4.) Include Information in the HTML of the Web Page So RSS Readers Auto-Detect Your Feed
After publishing an RSS feed it is important to let visitors know that the feed exists. Aggregators will automatically detect RSS on a website if you add a small bit of code in the header field of an HTML page.

[link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS” href=”http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml” mce_href=http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml]

Be sure to replace http://www.yourdomain.com/rss.xml with the URL to the RSS feed and replace the brackets with “< ” less than and “>” greater than symbols.

5.) Display the Feed’s Content on a Website
Contents contained in an RSS feed can be added to a website, providing site visitors an alternative method for viewing the content. The information will also help increase search engine interest. Displaying the feed as HTML can be accomplished. Providing fresh content on a regular basis will encourage site visitor�s return.

6.) Submit the Feed to RSS Directories and Search Engines
As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools.

In order to increase exposure of an RSS feed it should be submitted to RSS search engines and directories. This can be done manually. Just as you would submit the URL of a website or web page to a search engine you will need to submit the link of the actual feed located on your website to the RSS directories. There is a large list of RSS directories at RSS-Specifications.com. If you prefer to automate the submission process try RSS Submit. An evaluation version is available.

By Sharon Housley