Search Engine Optimization: Three Tips to Improve Search Traffic

Traffic from Google to your Web site for a given keyword will triple the first month your site appears on the first search results page, according to a recent study by search marketing firm Oneupweb. To help get your site on Google’s first search results page, here are some tips shared by search industry experts at Search Engine Marketing Day held last month at eTail 2006 in Palm Desert, Calif.

* Build a sitemap. Even if it’s not accessible by visitors to your online store, a sitemap always should be included on your Web site, said Stephan Spencer, founder and president of Madison, Wis.-based Web design and consulting company Netconcepts. The site map will add priority to site pages that you’ve specified. It’s likely you’ll want Google’s search engine spiders to frequently crawl the pages you most often update, he said.

* Change internal links to meaningful keywords. Links that lead deeper into your site should never say “click here” or “next,” Spencer said. Change these links to product names, category names or any keywords research indicated you choose. Creating links using relevant keywords will improve search engine results for those particular search terms.

* Look at your top 10 keywords. Brian Elliot, chief operating officer at Emeryville, Calif.-based Alibris, a merchant of hard-to-find and out-of-print books, noted that looking at averages doesn’t allow you to gauge your search engine efforts’ health. “Your average conversion from keyword searches may look great, but you’ll have to drill down deeper to see which keywords in particular are converting,” he said. Specifically, he suggested that merchants look at their top 10 and bottom 10 keywords to get a better idea of how well these keywords are performing, and how they might better optimize those words for campaigns.