Traffic Trends for the New Year

There have been quite a few articles and blog posts lately attempting to predict trends for 2011 related to building website links and what it means for online businesses. As with most things internet and technology related, just when you think you understand how it all works it changes! After sorting through a stack of reading on this topic, one article stood out to me above the rest as a succinct overview of the current speculations and what exactly they mean to those of us non-tech savvy individuals trying to build our business presence on the World Wide Web. Below is a brief recap of the points discussed by Kristi Hines, but I suggest you also can also check out the full article by clicking here.

Consideration #1 – Less keywords, more brand names

Due to recent adjustments in how sites are searched such as the Mayday changes the trend appears to be moving from keyword anchor text in favor of targeting brand and/or business names. One possible “pro” of this adjustment is that it could make management of your online business reputation easier.

Wondering what “Mayday Changes”  means? Click here to read more…

Consideration #2 – Quality over quantity

Following the social trends, searches appear to be moving to a quality preference rather than quantity. Think of it in Facebook terms – it’s not about who has 1000 friends, its about who has the highest quality of actively engaged friends. If the links to your site are low in number, but highly relevant you may still see better results than those sites with high numbers and less relevance. Choose your links wisely, my friends!

Consideration #3 – Authority over Rank

Ok. This one required me to do some terminology research, so let me see if I can recap in non-tech terms. The general rule of thumb has been to aim for a high PageRank to ensure that in a search your site comes up as close to the top of the list as possible. Various methods have been developed to achieve this and you could go through numerous cups of coffee trying to sort through all of them. The good news is that you don’t have to consume mass quantities of coffee understanding PageRank theories as the trends are moving toward page and domain authority to establish ranking. How is this different? Remember back in high school when your parents were concerned with the kind of kids you were hanging out with? Apply this parental concern to your website and the links attached to it. If the spammy crowd has adopted your site as its newest member, you will want to work on ditching them in favor of the class president type of links to establish your domain and page authority.

Wondering what “PageRank”  means? Click here to read more…

Wondering what “Authority”  means? Click here to read more…

Consideration #4 – Go beyond the home page

Whether you are sending traffic to your site from PPC or other sources, consider carefully where you are sending them. Your home page is a great place to start, but as we mentioned above the trends are moving toward quality over quantity and this applies to all scenarios. Getting customers to your site is a key objective. Putting them on a page full of relevant and useful product content is better! Investigate where your traffic is landing and see if you can tweak it to put them in more engaging area of your site based on what triggered their click interest in the first place.

Consideration #5 – Rank is cool, but conversions are better

For those of us still learning the ways of internet advertising and analytics, think of this as a sort of AP Course. Having high rankings for your site is great as it means more exposure to potential customers engaging in a shopping search. However, just being seen is not going to fill your bank account. Paying closer attention to the analytics details available from your traffic helps hone your efforts to convert a search into a sale. When you are placing your bids for keywords to boost your ability to be seen, keep in mind what terms customers are actually using in their searches. If you and the customer are calling the same product by different names, you are wasting your time, energy and money.

Consideration #6 – The relevance of Social Media

As mentioned earlier, things change quickly in the online world and social media now holds importance on many levels. There are the marketing bonuses of reaching and interacting with customers in a forum comfortable to them. Advertising options now exist in these media entities to reach new potential customers, as well. Adding to the bonus of these connections and advertising options, an active business presence in social media also counts as a positive sentiment for your company and/or brand. If you have not already investigated the use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter for your business, now might be the time to do so.

Of course, my usual disclaimer applies. This is information to consider and you should always take into account your business goals and needs before making major changes.