How do I get more traffic to my site????

[kellyp82]

Hi,

Well here is my site:

www.KellysKreationz.com

Can anyone tell me how I can get more traffic to my site
and also, what do you think of it?
Does it help to join the top 100 lists to promote your site?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! I need all the help I
can get!
Thank you,
Kelly

[tasminann]

The first thing regarding getting traffic to your site is to optimize your web pages using meta tags and keywords. I don't know what you use to create the web pages (nice, by the way), but if you are using something like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, you should be able to edit the meta tags.

Once you've optimized your pages, the next step is to submit them to search engines and directories. You can do this manually or you can check out some places that offer to submit to multiple engines/directories for you.

Next -- tell EVERYONE about the site! Hand out business cards, tell your friends and family, etc. Promote your site wherever you can.

You can try using AdWords to promote your site on Google. However, I would wait for that step until you are thoroughly versed in learning how AdWords and AdSense work on Google. No use wasting money.

It's nice that you have a blog -- that provides content for the search engines to "spider" you.

None of this happens overnight. Even after you have submitted to the search engines and directories, it takes a *long* time to end up on the top 30 listings for a competitive area like lampwork or beads.

Regarding the top 100 sites -- I don't know that it helps. While you might get traffic, you likely won't get targeted traffic (i.e. the kind of traffic that has their wallet out and ready to buy lampwork). And targeted traffic is what you really, really want!

Here's an example, to show the difference between targeted and untargeted traffic to a website:

I have a website selling a Key Lime cookbook. I put it in the search engines and get the occasional sale. My husband decided to "buy" me a bunch of traffic to the site. These people weren't necessarily interested in cookbooks, and even though I got thousands of people coming though, I got zero sales.

Then, some wonderful person, who owns a cooking website, decided to put my cookbook link into their newsletter mailing list. In 7 days I made over $1500 in sales from that highly targeted traffic!

[sislonski]

All what Gail said:
You haven't optimized your site at all.
You need to do this and then submit it to the search engines as Gail said.

There are other ways such as link exchange or submitting to the various top 100 lampwork or jewelry sites.

shari

[amyhoust]

I agree that you need to optimize your images. Do you know how to do this? I could probably talk you through it if I knew which image editing software you are using.

My first impression was - I want to see bigger pics of your beads! On my website, I have small images that you can click to enlarge. Your stuff looks like it's awesome but I just can't see the detail well enough (which frustrated me right away cause I can tell it would look great BIGGER). The larger images can be somewhat optimized as well.

As far as traffic goes, I don't know if I have a lot of advice, except what others have said about promoting yourself when and wherever possible. Good luck!

[Cosmo]

The best way to get visitors to your site (and to get your site ranked higher in search engines without paying for it) is to get your URL out there. The more links there are pointing to your site, the higher you get ranked.

Google doesn't use the Meta tags any more, so it won't effect anything there. Yahoo still uses them, though. So they are a good thing to have.

Other than that, like others have said, get your link out there. Put it in your signature of every forum you visit to start with...

[miahawk]

the stuff that worked best for me:
get the right keywords in your title tag.
make sure that each keyword in your title tag is in the text of your page a handful of times.
use H1 for your page's descriptive title and make sure you have the most significant page keywords in there.
get inbound links, like others here are saying... it's the best way to get found and crawled by search engines and found by your market who follows links. forum sigs are a great way to accomplish this, and so are articles you submit to how-to sites. when you contribute articles/photos, ALWAYS require a link to your website in exchange for their use.

[scouncil]

Can we all link to each other's sites? Would that help with the increase in number of links? I think there is a SRA site? Does it have links? I'm on a "Spotted Saddle Horse" ring (have TN Walkers and SSHs). Is there anything like that for lampworkers or other similar jewelry related things? I need help too....

[scouncil]

The site is very nice (I love the Mummy and Frankinstein!!), but I agree with needing bigger pictures. I use frontpage (www.councilcreekfarm.com) and a friend help me set it up and I modify the pages (yeah, pictures need improving and it's not fabulous...). I use the "gallery" function for the items and you can click on the photo and get an enlarged copy of it. You need that, at least. Really cute things!!

[scouncil]

And your prices are very good. I would expect you to charge more....

[Whimsey]

The best way to get visitors to your site (and to get your site ranked higher in search engines without paying for it) is to get your URL out there. The more links there are pointing to your site, the higher you get ranked.

Google doesn't use the Meta tags any more, so it won't effect anything there. Yahoo still uses them, though. So they are a good thing to have.

Other than that, like others have said, get your link out there. Put it in your signature of every forum you visit to start with...

Chad this is very interesting, but I am very dumb when it comes to computers. How do I add my signature ? If you can write it out for me I would greatly appreciate it.

I have other questions but will start a new thread on them.

[Whimsey]

the stuff that worked best for me:
get the right keywords in your title tag.
make sure that each keyword in your title tag is in the text of your page a handful of times.
use H1 for your page's descriptive title and make sure you have the most significant page keywords in there.
get inbound links, like others here are saying... it's the best way to get found and crawled by search engines and found by your market who follows links. forum sigs are a great way to accomplish this, and so are articles you submit to how-to sites. when you contribute articles/photos, ALWAYS require a link to your website in exchange for their use.

I have used and am using Pappa Shoppe for my web site. Where do I put the meta links so that they will show when someone uses a search engine?

[Ro]

wow your work is great! definitely i would do thumbnails so the images could open, cant find a way to buy anything from the site other than ebay, so i cant comment on pricing. i like the layout and easy to read pages, blog is short and sweet so far thats good, i keep putting off doing something like that. your website has a happy feel, it itself and your work so that ties in nicely.
good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if google isnt using metatags what do they use? ive been dabbling in fixing and adding my tags to all pages rather than just home page, seems like my google ranking slipped, maybe because the tags are not yet on all the pages and were crawled that way this month.
i use my computer.com for monthly submissions for both my websites, my mural site: www.suromuralmagic.com and my glass site www.rosglassworld.com
I have gotten many customers from searches that led them to my galleries on forums so being here is good too!
i always carry and give out my cards, if anyone likes something im wearing i made i say oh thank you and give a card.
gifts i have made for people that others see are a good advertisement too, the more people that have your art in their homes and on themselves the more advertising your doing, word of mouth is big!
good luck and thanks for the info from everyone this is an important thread.
ro

[tasminann]

You can pretty much expect your website rankings to fluctuate somewhat. Every so often Google and the other major search engines change their algorthims (called "doing a dance") and rankings get shifted around. Then a few months later another dance happens and rankings change again. It does take time

Links in do help BUT they need to be relevant links. In other words, links from other glass/jewelry sites are relevant, but a link from a (for an example) real estate site doesn't count as a relevant link.

You can also try Wikipedia and see if you can add some good, relevant information to something glass/jewelry/fashion related, and make a link back to your site.

If anyone wants some more (free) information on making a website that ranks, pm me. I have a link, but since it has an affiliate code on it, I don't want to break any rules in this forum by posting it.

[Lampworking-Supply]

Another good thing you could try to get your site more traffic is get it listed through the OPEN Directory Project

http://dmoz.org

It is editor driven and hard at times to get your listing but if you can, it will work wonders for you.


Mike
http://www.lampworking-supply.com

PS
If you'd like, I will ad your link to my site as well, to help you network your art.

http://www.lampworking-supply.com/featured-artists
http://www.lookaheadshop.com/handblownglass

[Janice]

About getting visitors to your site: I'm not a lampworker, I'm a jewellery designer...I almost always visit people's sites if they put them in their signature here at LE :)

ETA. I generally don't put the effort into visiting people's sites via their user profiles

J.

[miahawk]

I have used and am using Pappa Shoppe for my web site. Where do I put the meta links so that they will show when someone uses a search engine?
I don't know where papashop puts the meta keyword controls, but I'm guessing they'll be in your admin somewhere.

to get stronger keyword placement in your site, you'd need to do some direct modification of the pappashop template. your title tag is name of your shop, with no other keywords, and your page titles aren't headlines. you may not be able to control that without changing it in your template, unless your admin area has switches to turn such things on and off. pappashop should give you access to your template, but a good web designer might be needed to make real SEO (search engine optimization) happen.

[jaychantell]

You don't need to directly modify a template in order to get stronger keyword placement for your site when using PappaShop software. The software has a default place for keywords, meta title and meta description. Also for each page, category and product you add, you can insert all necessary keywords. No need to mess with the html in the template at all. However, if you so desire, you do have total access over any and all templates from within the admin area.

A good web designer is a good web designer but that doesn't make he/she an SEO expert. Just like someone who can make cool graphics in Adobe doesn't make them a web designer. Most SEO's mislead you off rather than actually help you so be VERY certain you want to hand over money to someone who claims to be able to guarantee you top search engine ranking.

[miahawk]

I'd actually amend that to NEVER give money to someone who guarantees top search engine ranking because anyone who makes such promises is a charlatan.

most of the web designers I've worked with are aware of the basics, like using h1 tags for headlines instead of just bolded p's, and using divs to get relevant content nearer the top of the page instead of leaving repetitive menus at the top of your generated source code. those are the ones I consider "good" when they're working on their own. if a designer can't do the basics, they need to work on a team with a programmer and SEO expert who can take their pretty pictures and use them to actually design a working web site.

anything beyond the basics certainly would require an expert who can analyze keyword results and advise you how to move content around on the page, but that can be costly and I feel like natural ranking achieved through relevant inlinking and using basic SEO keyword strategy is the better way to go. when anyone goes to a one-person web design shop or picks up a template online, it's really a case of buyer beware, and if you're running your own show you'll have to either be able to afford the help, or do some study so you can do the SEO work yourself. the basics aren't difficult to achieve.

as far as the pappashop template goes, one of the html modifications I was referring to in the pappashop template was replacing the page "headline" with real h1 tags, which would give more headline keyword weight in some search engines.

[cheeky monkey]

Should keywords for a web site be different for all the pages or can you just use the same keywords on all of them? i have seen people do both ways

[Jamn!]

Does anyone use a newsletter to promote their site. I am wondering if there is a provider for a newsletter that is fairly easy to use. that can attach pics.

[Holly'sFolly]

Jamn... MailChimp!

[leifnelson]

Participating on social networking sites, group participation, advertising your website on other websites of same niche but with good traffic and rankings can be helpful for improving traffic for your website.