Well I have been in business for myself now for approximately 8 months. My first site was built and hosted through High Power Sites. I didn't have a lot of start up cash and really needed a site that I could design myself and not have to hire someone. Well you get what you pay for! I must say $19.99 per month and no sign up or design fees did seem like a really good deal and I would recommend them to anyone who needs an all-in-one deal with no more in their budget than $20 bucks.
The drawbacks....They didn't play very nice with Google, and if there's one thing I've learned in the last 8 months it's that Google is Golden. I would check my StatCounter daily and I was getting no love from any search engines, and when I did it was because someone actually Googled my site's name. I tried creating a Google Site Map through my web provider and it just wouldn't work properly, technical support would just tell me it was an issue they were working on.
So long story short, I have a new site that is professionally designed. Keywords, MetaTags, SiteMaps and all and I saw a great improvement in the amount of visitors to my site. But by far, the most improvement on my search engine referrals has come after I built up my sites content. I improved my Frequently Asked Questions page and actually pasted all my information rather than just linking to it. I also added a page where I talked about the different brands I carry and I posted the content from the Newspaper Article that had been written about me. After these few boosts to my sites content, I began to see hits on my site from tons of search querys. Queries that didn't always apply to me or my business but either way you look at it, showing up on the first page of a Google search is a great accomplishment for me.
So, my advice is that you go to your site now and type, type, type. Create detailed informational descriptions of your products or services, frequently asked questions, how-to guides, policies, post tips and articles, treat it like a blog if you have to. The more content you have, the more keyword combinations you'll have for showing up on Google searches.
Good Luck!
A resourceful Blog created to help inspire, motivate, and support work-at-home-mom's, bloggers, and small business owners.
1 comment:
So true Julie and great advice!! I have BTDT in both situations with initial site design and then time dedicated to content. Regarding rank and traffic, nothing compares to time spent writing and working on your content. :o)
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