Webiste Starter Kit Part 3: Generate Web Traffic & Social Media

If you have been following along, your website should now have its own domain name, web host, dynamic content, and professional look. Now you need to focus on how to generate web traffic, integrate social media, and track results.

Generating Traffic
One of the best ways to increase visitors is to get listed in the most popular search engines. Submit your web address to the following Search Engine’s Webmaster Tools (Look to Resource Section for all website addresses):
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Yahoo Site Explorer
- Bing’s Webmaster Tools

Not only will submitting your URL to these tools help your pages appear faster in the top search engines, but they also provide useful statistics and information about where your site appears in their rankings. Google’s tools have the best information on number of pages indexed and page load times. They also make it easy to find 404 errors (pages not found) and have great keyword analysis. Yahoo’s Site Explorer has more in-depth and accurate back-link tracking (sites that link to you) and updates at a faster rate than Google. Bing has some great features as well. For example, they are the only provider who ranks your inbound and outbound links. It can be very helpful to know the search engine authority and popularity of your link partners.

Social Media Integration
Even if you only have a little time each week to work on your website, you can still take advantage of social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. The best way to keep these pages up-to-date without too much hassle is through automation. In Part 2 of this series, we explained how RSS feeds can be utilized to import content from other relevant sites. Conversely, you can use RSS to push your content to other sites. Every Content Management System (CMS) recommended previously has this capability. By submitting your website to one of the many free tools like TwitterFeed, you can have your Facebook Fan pages and Twitter accounts automatically publish any new articles and posts made to your site.

Analyzing results with Google Analytics
Now that your page is complete, it is imperative that you track your stats from the very beginning. Not only can it be great motivation to see increases in traffic, but tracking also provides invaluable information about your site’s audience. Even if you only scratch the surface with this tool, you can track your daily visitor count and then get
comparisons to the previous month. Some other questions that can be answered are:
-Who are my top referrers?
-What percent of my daily users are visiting for the first time?
- How am I doing compared to sites similar to mine?
- What’s my most viewed content?

It is important to remember that you do not need to be a computer expert to build a successful website. Also, you do not need to spend thousands of dollars on doing so. What is important is using the technology available to build your presence online, which is critical to increasing your exposure and making you more successful. Use this series of articles as a reference to provide you with all the tools you need to get started.

Social Media Integration Tools
twitter - twitter Feed: http://twitterfeed.com/
Facebook - RSS Graffiti: http://apps.facebook.com/rssgraffiti/

Analytics/Statistic Tools
Google’s analytics - Web stats: http://www.google.com/analytics
Feedburner - RSS analysis: http://www.feedburner.com

Website Graders
Hubspot: http://www.websitegrader.com
Woorank: http://wwww.woorank.com

Traffic Ranks
Compete: http://www.compete.com
alexa: http://www.alexa.com