So, You Built a Website, But No One Came There?

Article by Jessica Struzik, Owner, Green Web Design

“If You Build It, They Will Come”

But, will they? Will they really?

Perhaps you feel you’ve done everything correctly, but your website still isn’t performing well in search results. Maybe you haven’t even made your first online sale yet. Let’s talk about it.

I’m sorry to say that even after your website code, layout, and design has been optimized to appeal to both people and search engines, you STILL need to spend additional time and energy promoting your website in order to get traffic. It’s an ongoing effort. If you’re doing it right, you never really stop.

This entire process and everything involved is what we call “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO“. It is also referred to as “Digital Marketing“.

Here are some of the basic questions I would typically ask a new client who is looking to hire me to do Digital Marketing and SEO for them.

Are you currently tracking your website traffic via Google Analytics or other software?
How many visitors do you get each month?
Where do your visitors come from? Links from other websites? Search Engines? Direct Marketing? Something else?
How long do visitors stay on your website before they leave again?
How many pages do they look at before they go?
What keywords and phrases would you, an expert in your industry, use to describe your business and search for it?
Do you know what keywords and phrases customers search for when they search for businesses like yours? (HINT: They’re probably not typing in what you think they are.)

Why Do I Need Search Engine Optimization and Digital Marketing?

You’re going to need to do some Digital Marketing and Advertising in order to attract the visitors that you desire. And you’re going to want to use Analytics to discover more about what tactics are working to bring visitors to your website. This will help you do more of what works for your specific business, and stop wasting time on what does not work.

But before all of that, you’ve got to decide what the keywords and phrases are that you want to target. It may be very different than what you think it should be.

In case you are brand new to the topics of Website Development and Digital Advertising and Marketing, I’m going to begin by giving you an overview of what is minimially required to build a good website that is capable of performing well in search results.

The Basic Building Blocks of a Good Website:

Buy a domain name containing your business name or biggest keywords. Register it for 2 or more years, so that search engines will trust your domain more. Registering for multiple years shows that you are serious and not a spammer.
Purchase web hosting that is fast enough for your needs, so that your users have a good experience and do not become frustrated with the speed and leave.
Use either a free self-signing SSL certificate, or a paid SSL certificate, so that search engines and your visitors will trust you. Going without SSL is not an option anymore.
Create a fast, well built, attractive website which has a lot of good information about your products and services.
Clearly state your business name, location, contact information, and other basic info on your contact page. Never assume they already know it. If you fail to put basic information on your website, it will be nearly impossible to make your website come up for those things in search engines.
Make sure that the website navigation is intuitive and easy to use. It’s better if it sticks to the top of the page when they scroll, so that they don’t have to search for it.

On-Page Search Engine Optimization

You may have thought you were done at this point. But wait, there’s more!

Identify the keywords and phrases that you feel are important for your business.
Enter those keywords and phrases into a tool like the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool.
Study the list of related keywords and phrases and their search volumes.
Choose your top 20 keywords or phrases from the results based on search volume and relevence.
Write unique and well written articles, blog entries and other content around that list of relevant keywords and phrases. Or hire a copy writer like me to do it.
Use a tool like the All In One SEO Pack to help guide you as you optimize these pages, articles, images, and other content for search engines.
Sign up for a Google Analytics account, and install your GA code on the website.
Create a Google Search Console account, and verify your website with Google.
Connect your Google Account to Bing Webmaster Tools, and verify your website with Bing/Yahoo.
Create a sitemap, and submit it to both Google Search Console, and Bing + Yahoo Webmaster Tools.

Increasing Traffic to Your Website

So, if you have already done all of these things, which are absolutely required for having an effective business website, what comes next? Do you know how to get visitors to find your fabulous website? Once they arrive there, how do you intend to get them to engage?

The best way to increase traffic and visitors over time is to continually update your website. Make sure that your hours, contact info, and other important things are kept up to date. If you are an expert in your field, consider writing timely articles on topics that are relevant to your industry.

It’s also important to track your efforts to see what is helping, not helping, or doing nothing at all.

Why are Keywords and Phrases So Important in SEO?

The reason for all of this focus on keywords and content is simple. Your website will never come up in search results for something that is not represented.

Do you want your website to show up in search results for what your users are searching for? Yes, you do. There’s no other way for your website to rank for a wide variety of search terms. Those words and phrases need to be used throughout your website.

Furthermore, if your website contains unique, high quality content, it will be seen as a unique, high quality website worth showing to search users. This, along with other search signals like the length of domain name registration, and the speed of the web hosting, figure in to your Page Rank. This is all part of what we call “White Hat SEO“.

How Can I Get Backlinks?

Once your website is full of content, you need to get traffic to the content. There are many ways to promote your website on external websites for free if you wish to. You can submit your website to free directories, free online classifieds sites, and more. This is a good way to get a wide variety of backlinks from different domains.

It is also helpful to identify other websites related to your specific industry, and trade links with them, if they are willing. By getting links from other websites in the same category or industry, it increases your “page rank” or industry clout in search engines.

Another important piece in the online marketing puzzle, is social media. Check out this article I wrote about why your business should have a social media presence as part of a well balanced digital marketing plan.

Organic Search Engine Results

All of these things and more will help to bring you closer to your goal: for the search engine robots to index your website frequently. You want search engines to take your website seriously, to see you as a legitimate business with high quality content that changes frequently. If so, they will send their robots to index your pages and files more often. Your website content will show up in search results more frequently, with better placement.

Subsequently, when people search for words and phrases that apply to your business, your content will be more likely to come up higher in the search results. This is what we call “organic search results”.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Conversely, you may choose to purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) or Pay Per Impression ads from websites like Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising, Instagram Advertising, and many other platforms.

Instead of paying per click for higher placement in search results, which must be done every day or it disappears, it is far more beneficial to build up your website and brand to rank organically.

Search Engines & Search Engine Optimization

There are many search engines that your visitors might be using to find your business. Some of them are very specialized, such as DuckDuckGo, a search engine which values user privacy. Or, you can try Ecosia, a green search engine that plants trees. Still, Google remains the clear leader, controlling over 70% of the market share.

Top 10 search engines in 2021.

So, where should you focus your efforts then?

Assuming you are based in the USA, always start with Google. It is the clear leader, with the biggest reach, and provides a wide variety of free and paid tools help your website rank better organically. They are superior in every way, and will bring you the most sales and traffic.

Next, I always go to Bing + Yahoo Webmaster Tools. Yahoo gets most of its search results from Google and Bing, so creating a Bing Webmaster Tools account has a double impact for your website in Yahoo.

Do I Need to Submit My Site to Every Search Engine?

Because I and all of my clients are USA based businesses, and we mostly do business in the USA, and Baidu is the dominant Chinese search engine, I don’t typically create an account there.

Similarly, Yandex is the dominant search engine in Russia, and I do zero business in Russia, so I do not keep an account there or make any effort to show up in their results.

However my websites do often show up in Baidu and Yandex anyways, probably as a result of all of the great SEO work that I put into building each and every website I make.

Most of these other search engines will automatically pick your website and show it in their search results as long as you are already indexed by Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

However submitting your website to Archive.org the first time by hand is a must. After that, it will come back occasionally on its own. Archive.org’s Wayback Machine is a great resource. It takes snapshots of websites several times per year. To illustrate this point, you can go back 20 years and see 955 old versions of Green Web Design using their archive!

Here’s what my website looked like on September 14, 2000.

I know that this all sounds like a lot of work, and it is. Search Engine Optimization and Digital Marketing is an ongoing and never ending process. You must work hard to get the results you want. Nevertheless, it is worth it.

I strongly believe that “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right”. It wastes time and energy to only do something halfway, or worse yet, to do it WRONG the first time.

A high quality website which incorporates all of the points of good design is a valuable asset that will only appreciate in value as the years go by.

If you don’t feel confident that you have the time, knowledge, expertise, or desire to do it alone, then why not contact Green Web Design for a free quote? Let the experts help!