Building Your Website – Traffic, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Optimization

13. Traffic
The goal of every website has to be getting people to visit their website (Traffic). Why have a website that no one visits? So the main object is to have traffic, good traffic, visit your site! But, how do you do this? Good question! Frankly, it starts right from the beginning! Actually the process begins before you start your web construction. You have to decide why you want a website and what you want it to offer visitors. Once you have a very clear picture in your mind of that, you have to figure the best way of getting there. The first questions to ask yourself is who do you want to come to your website and how are you going to get them there. This, in essence, is the whole process of constructing a website! “Determining who you want to come and how to get them there.” From there it’s just a matter of following tried and true web building steps. I have outlined most of these steps in previous Blog articles, plus there are tons of article that can be found on the Internet. Building a great website, right from the start, will make all your “Web” dreams come true!

14. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is used to help websites increase their visibility. There are several methods of doing this. The best and least expensive is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is also the slowest method of SEM. I have discussed SEO in previous articles, but, to explain is simply, it is a method that builds your website in such a way that Search Engines will find the website, investigate it (crawl) and rank it. The better you optimize, the higher your ranking will become (given time). Other SEM tactics include “paid placement” and “paid inclusion”. The following is a brief explanation of each.Paid Placement – This is a definition provided by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click) “Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites, such as blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an advertisement to visit the advertisers' website. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. When a user types a keyword query matching an advertiser's keyword list, or views a webpage with relevant content, the advertisements may be displayed. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to or above the "natural" or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster or blogger chooses on a content page. Content websites commonly charge a fixed price for a click rather than use a bidding mechanism.”
Paid Inclusion - This is a definition provided by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_inclusion) “Paid inclusion is a search engine marketing product where the search engine company charges fees related to inclusion of websites in their search index. Paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies, the most notable exception being Google.
The fee structure is both a filter against superfluous submissions and a revenue generator. Typically, the fee covers an annual subscription for one webpage, which will automatically be catalogued on a regular basis. A per-click fee may also apply. Each search engine is different. Some sites allow only paid inclusion, although these have had little success. More frequently, many search engines, like Yahoo!, mix paid inclusion (per-page and per-click fee) with results from web crawling. Others, like Google (and as of 2006, Ask.com, do not let webmasters pay to be in their search engine listing (advertisements are shown separately and labeled as such)."
These methods will cost you money, but with them, you are able to control or limit your costs. It is a quicker way to have your website seen by targeted visitors, but not a way to guarantee search engine rankings. If you use the paid SEM method prudently, with an eye to Search Engine Optimization, it can be win win situation for you and your website!

15. Social Media Optimization (SMO)
Although I haven’t mentioned Social Media Optimization previously, it is an area that seems to be gaining more and more importance. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media) explains Social Media as follows: “Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences." Social Media with regards to the Internet includes Blogs (this article is a blog), Microblogs (Twitter, Pownce and Jailu), Social Networking (Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn and My Space), Photo Sharing (Flickr, Zooomr and Photobucket), Social News Sites (Digg, Mixx and Reddit), Video Sharing (YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler) and Livecasting (Ustream, Justin,tv and Mogulus). All of these and more can be used to increase your website’s popularity and ranking. These have to be used carefully and I would suggest that you study its use before embarking on Social Media Optimization. Check it out on the Internet, there are many articles on the subject. Remember, "Knowledge is Power"!