Like most things in life, once a website has been designed and has been online for a bit, the excitement wanes and it becomes less of a priority. Over time, fewer improvements are implemented, less content is added and search engine optimization is left by the by the wayside. Eventually this makes your website about as effective as that box of brochures sitting in the backroom of your office collecting dust.

Fortunately, the fix is relatively simple because once your website is up and running, investing about an hour or so each week is more than adequate in most industries to climb to the top of the search results for some of the top terms and reap the benefits of that traffic.

1. Blog at least once every week. You should spend time developing original content that your visitors will find useful, and hopefully share with others. Coming up with creative content that is more than just a rehash of what everyone else is saying can be a challenge, but it is definitely worth your time because it will make you stand out from your competitors. If you need help getting your creative juices flowing, stop by ProBlogger.net, which is run by Darren Rowse. He’s quite the genius when it comes to writing and blogging.
2. Consistently work on your search engine optimization campaign. This includes keyword research, content development, website architecture, in-bound link development and a bit more. You can either outsource your SEO to a reputable firm, or you can learn it on your own. If you choose the latter, be prepared to spend many late nights studying and be careful who you take advice from. Without hesitation, I would recommend getting a subscription to Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, which is updated regularly by one of the top minds in the industry.
3. Create profiles on social media websites. This may not send traffic to you right away, and it will probably never send it in droves, but it is still a valuable tool to increase your exposure and traffic. Your profiles should include a little bit of information about your company as well as live links to your website, and as with your main website, should be updated from time to time.
4. Advertise your website online. You can often buy advertising on quality websites for an incredible bargain through companies like Federated Media, but there are even more ways to advertise your website than the typical banner ads. Stumble Upon has an effective advertising program that can deliver an enormous number of highly-targeted visitors to your website and many search engines offer pay-per-click advertising programs. You can also buy advertising space in other people’s newsletters.
5. Advertise your website offline. You probably have other marketing materials, such as business cards, billboards or that box of brochures sitting in the backroom of your office. They should all include your website address. You can also utilize your television and radio advertising as well as your office voicemail.
6. Create an email newsletter. Many people think that they don’t have enough visitors to justify a newsletter. They are wrong. Even if you only receive five visitors per day, it gives you five opportunities to follow up with a visitor that you may otherwise never see again. The sooner that you launch your newsletter, the sooner that your list will grow to the size that you dream of. As with blogging, the key is to develop original content that your visitors will find useful. Constant Contact is a great way to manage and send your newsletters, and they offer a free trial so you can see if their system meets your needs.
7. Promote others. It may seem counter-intuitive, but in reality, helping others encourages them to help you. When another blogger notices that you’ve linked to them in a post, chances are that they will do the same for you. If you do this a few times each week, you’ll start to develop a strong roster of people who will eagerly help you achieve the exposure you’re looking for.

We’ve tried just about every tool out there and I can honestly say that few are as useful as the one Aaron Wall from SEO Book developed. It’s a Firefox rank checker plugin that can import and export data, adjust the query rate and save multiple profiles, plus, it’s free!

You can see a quick overview of the plugin in action in this video:

Some of the more important factors to look at are your bounce rate, keyword phrases and website that are sending you traffic and top entry pages. You should also look at your conversion ratios (the ratio of visitors to customers). Find one or two aspects of your website that need the most work and then focus on improving them first. You’ll need to accurately monitor your results, therefore, you can’t work on several aspects at once or you’ll introduce too many variables to determine which actions caused which results.

One area that a lot of companies are weak in is providing what their visitors are actually looking for. For example, if you run a business consulting firm and you find that most of your website visitors are looking for inexpensive information about setting up a new company, you may find that it’s easier and more profitable to develop an informational product that they can purchase rather than trying to sell them your consulting services. This model will scale as large as you like. Plus, once they buy one product from you, they will be more inclined to buy more products from you because a relationship and trust has been established. This can open the door to your more profitable products or services later. Every company has opportunities like this, it’s just a matter of investing the time to find them.

If you focus on making the most of your exisiting traffic instead of just trying to drive the greatest number of people to your website, you’ll find that your revenue will increase while your workload often decreases. When your website is performing optimally, you can start putting more energy into increasing your traffic, but remember that your website is always under construction.

1. Keep your advertising to a minimum. Visitors are coming to your website for a reason and you can bet it isn’t to look at or click your ads. Besides, if your site is plastered with ads, none of them will stand out and your click-through ratios will suffer.
2. Keep your advertising relevant to your content.
3. Use the right type of advertising. PPC ads are fine for purely informational websites, but not for a company or ecommerce website. Competing PPC ads will detract from your credibility and message while driving traffic to your competitors.

Obviously, it is doing part of the job by letting them know that the page doesn’t exist, but if that’s where it stops, you’re missing a great opportunity to promote your products or services. Rather than just telling your visitors that the page doesn’t exist, you could turn your error page into a sales page for your most profitable products. Even if you’re only reaching 10 visitors a month this way, think of the potential. Especially since most of them will just click the back button if they don’t see something that they’re interested in right away.

People want to know that your company is real, not some fly by night scam. They want to know that even if they don’t intend to stop by your office or call, they still have the option. If you give them that option, something that is lacking on most websites, your credibility and conversions will increase immediately.

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