Archive for Web Traffic
St.Catharines Niagara Website Drives New Business!
Posted by: | CommentsThis St.Catharines website is not quite three years old yet it drives customers like it’s been around forever.
This year Ryson’s United Studios of Music is celebrating its 73rd year in business. A well established business within the St.Catharines, Niagara area Ryson’s had become the place for music lessons, musical instruments and musical instrument repairs.
In July of 2008 Rysons Music entered the online world with their new website, www.RysonsMusic.com.
Don and Anne, the owners since 1981, wanted not only to display their products and services online but they wanted to begin to interact with their current customers and future ones online.
Web Traffic Solutions was hired to create this new St.Catharines web design and we began with the most important part of a website, the keyword research. Through discussions with Don and Anne we began to get a feel for their business and to understand what terms might be important. Then we researched the terms to determine which ones people actually used in Google, and which of those we would have a chance to rank for in both a short period and the long term.
We then constructed the website around the keyword research paying attention to the important Search Engine Optimization, “on-page” factors, and built the content of each page around the terms we wanted to target.
We attempted to make the site visually appealing to Ryson’s customers but it was even more important to try to present the casual and homey feeling that you get when you enter their music store and studio. To accomplish this we used lots of images and video. Then we engaged in an online promotional campaign that included video marketing, email marketing, and article marketing. The results are staggering.
Over the past three years www.RysonsMusic.com has become a necessity to the St.Catharines music store’s business. It has been responsible for a continuous amount of new business as a result of being found in Google for several important search terms related to their business. The website can boast prominent Google rankings for literally hundreds of important search terms that are driving targeted website traffic, and ultimately new customers to their store.
The most important part of the website has become Anne’s Blog. Ryson’s customers and music students love this part of the website and many of them are featured in the several blog posts that Anne has published.
www.RysonsMusic.com is likely one of the best website designs in the St.Catharines, Niagara area in terms of actually producing new business.
This was one of the most gratifying Niagara web design projets I’ve been involved in. Don and Anne are long time friends of mine and last year Don passed on. I’m so grateful that I was able to contribute in some way to his business and watch him actually get excited about watching the web analytics on his website.
I’d like to thank Anne for allowing Web Traffic Solutions to continue to work with Ryson’s on their online presence. We’re very proud of this particular Niagara website and wish Anne many happy years of business to come.
Murray.
Niagara Advertising: Niagara Local Search Marketing.
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is local search? Simply put it’s when a person is searching for information about a local business in Niagara on the internet. When that searcher types in the product or service they’re looking for into Google, if your business is listed on the first page of the search results it’s very similar to being in the highest visibility area on the busiest street in town.
Today it’s not enough to have your business listed in the Yellow Pages. You see people in Niagara are using the internet to search for products and services more than they are the phone book. Google and the other search engines are giving businesses in Niagara an opportunity to include their business listing in their local search directory.
Because it is the goal of Google and the others to provide the most relevant results to a given search, it’s very likely that your business will show up for your product or service in Niagara if you’ve taken the steps to get listed.
Many online searches are done on mobile phones these days. That’s even better news for Niagara business, and more reason for them to get listed in the directories. You see, smart phones provide local search results with clickable links which make it easy to call the Niagara business in question. But you need to be listed to make this work for you.
You can also help your potential customers get to know you before they visit your business in Niagara by adding video to your local search listing. Or how about offering electronic savings coupons to entice the searcher to visit your business. Hey Niagara business…this is all FREE!
It takes a little effort and time to learn how to get listed, but it’s not rocket science. This is probably the most powerful advertising you can do at NO COST! If you’re not comfortable trying this yourself you can hire someone to do it for you…probably less than $400.00 bucks.
Using internet marketing in Niagara and being listed in the local search directories is a sure fire way to generate more sales and new customers. So what are you waiting for Niagara?
Need help with this? Give me a call!
Murray.
Web Traffic: How Do I Know if My Site Gets Web Traffic?
Posted by: | CommentsHow do I know if my website is getting traffic?
Here’s a scenario;
You are a real estate agent. You have wisely invested in your own website with the intent of driving customers directly to you, versus the agency you work with.
(By the way, this works for any business. Real Estate Agent is only used as an example).
The problem is that you have never received any phone calls, emails, or walk in customers responding to your website. At this point you can decide one of two things. You could bury your head in the sand and convince yourself that the web won’t work for your business. (Hey maybe the internet is just a fad!)
Or, you could investigate to see if your website is even getting any web traffic!
Personally, I would choose the latter.
There are many online services that you can take advantage of to measure your daily, weekly, etc. web visitors. Google Analytics is free, and will provide lots of information not only about how many visitors have come to your site, but what they did, and how long they stayed. This service is free from Google and is vital to anyone who has a website. Check out, Google Analytics.
If your site isn’t currently reporting to an analytical tool such as Google, here are some simple tests you can do yourself which will give you a preliminary, (not complete), view of how you’re doing online.
1. Do a search in Google for a product or service in your location. So in the case of the real estate agent, search; Niagara real estate agent (or whatever your market area is). For a term like real estate agent
you will undoubtedly find MLS and agency sites as the top listings. But dig deeper. Who is the first
listing on Google that is an independent agent? Is it you? Are you anywhere to be found?
If you’re near the top, you’re doing pretty well. If not, it may indicate that people aren’t finding your
site when they’re searching for a real estate agent in Niagara. If they can’t find your site, you won’t
get leads from it. Try a few different terms, i.e. homes for sale, etc.
2. Check your traffic ranking in Alexa.com. Alexa is a respected site which ranks all websites. The Alexa ranking begins with Yahoo.com ranked at #1. Followed by Google.com, ranked at # 2. on the Global listing. The higher the number assigned to your website, the lower traffic ranking you have. Check this ranking against your local competitors in the real estate buisness. This is very easy. Just go to Alexa.com and type in a domain name, or web address; i.e. http://www.joerealestateniagara.ca.
If your Alexa ranking number is high by comparison to your competitors, and you can’t be found on Google, (exept when you type in your own name), then it’s likely that you don’t have any volume of web traffic.
If you want to get web traffic, there are lots of online and off-line resources, where you can learn about SEO, (Search Engine Optimization). Be forewarned, this isn’t something you’re going to learn overnight. But if you have the time, and are dedicated to learn, it’s not rocket science. If you don’t have the time or interest in learning, there are alternatives,… are you ready?…. you know where I’m going with this… don’t you? Of course you do…
Yes…that’s right…give me a call at WebTrafficSolutions.ca
Here’s an interesting article on Alexa.com that you might be interested in.
- Alexa Introduces New Ranking System Beyond the Toolbar – For more or less 8 years (well 10 for one of them) there have been only two across the board methods of measuring the importance and popularity of a website : Alexa Ranking and Google PageRank. Sure, others have entered the fold, with Yahoo Backlinks, Compete. com and even SEOmoz PageStrength entering the fold (although PageStrength is dependent upon the others); but even given their weaknesses, no other web metrics have added up to the authority given to Alexa and Google (Toolbar) PageRank.
