There are many tools and software available to help you study the performance of your website. But, wouldn’t it be cool to have a visual interpretation of the activity that takes place on your site?

In other words, instead of seeing the data in the form of stats and numbers, wouldn’t it be neat to see a visual representation of the clicks and the hot spots on your site? Being able to study your site in this sense could easily allow you to increase performance. Luckily for you, the technology is available, and it doesn’t cost you a dime to use it.

Checkout CrazyEgg.com. This site allows webmasters and bloggers an easy way to study analytical data in a visual form called a heat map. Simply add a few lines of javascript on your page and instantly you can start tracking data visually. CrazyEgg.com offers this free up to 6,000 visits per month. If you need to track more than 6,000 visits, you can upgrade.

After you install your tracker code CrazyEgg.com will begin creating a heat map of the page being tracked. The more people who click certain links, the brighter in color the area will appear on the map. Even though you can discover this data in analytics, having the data presented to you visually may allow you to see potential improvements. An example would be the “About Me” page on my own blog. This is one of the most popular links on my home page.

I wouldn’t have realized that simply by studying Google Analytics. Even though the data is there, it isn’t something I am looking for. But, having it appear brightly with the heat map, I can instantly see that quite a bit of my daily traffic migrates there. This has lead me to take a closer look at my “About Me” page and see if I can make any improvements to it.

Give CrazyEgg.com a try for yourself. Set up a free account and take advantage of tracking up to 6,000 of your visitors at no charge. If you exceed 6,000 in a month, you can either wait until next month to have your amount reset, or you can upgrade. Regardless of what you do, it’s well worth the time registering for a free account.

Developing a highly visited website, a “traffic worthy site”, is essential for your web site’s success. While developing the site, however, you need to keep in mind that not only is your site going to be seen by the human eye, but also by the nonhuman eye. How is that? Well, search engines along with their spiders and crawlers, will also be viewing your website. Having a sound web design, therefore, is crucial for bringing traffic to your site. How is this done?

First, you need to know what your company’s keywords are. What words come to your mind when describing your business or interest? These may be your keywords. Do online research to find out how popular they are. There are a variety of keyword selector tools that you can use for no charge. Yahoo’s Overture is a good one, another is Word Tracker. Once you have access to these keyword selector tools, simply type in what words are important to you and results will be displayed regarding their popularity. The results can also help you decide which words are most important and will bring the most visitors to your site.

Secondly, you need to know how to optimize your keywords to your advantage. This is known as keyword optimization. Your website must have good keyword optimization if it is to perform to its best advantage and bring you success from it. Keyword optimization is part of search engine optimization (SEO). You want, and need, to know how the search engines will notice your website. Also, each time a person searches for something online (search utilization) they type in the words that are important to them. Hence, they type in their keywords. Sites will pop up containing those keywords and offer the viewer a chance to visit the site which matches their needs. It is important to note that about 85% of humans arrive at websites via search engines. That is a large amount. See the importance of both knowing what your keywords are and how to optimize them to get the most success from the search engines? Search engine optimization is highly important to the success of your website.

The best part of keyword and search engine optimization is the fact that the results will send you targeted potential, prequalified customers. This is due to the fact that the person performing the search is specifically looking for what you offer. They are using your keywords.

Also remember that when developing your website, do not use a word processor. Word processing software is well known for containing a variety of sloppy, hidden codes which are not search engine friendly.

These are just a few things to take into consideration while developing a website that receives a high traffic volume. Use them and you can only benefit.

]]> http://www.seohosting.com/blog/seo-basics/some-things-to-know-about-developing-a-traffic-worthy-site/feed/ 0 http://www.seohosting.com/blog/increasing-traffic-tips/bring-free-traffic-to-your-web-site/ http://www.seohosting.com/blog/increasing-traffic-tips/bring-free-traffic-to-your-web-site/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:43:20 +0000 mbuckner http://www.seohosting.com/blog/?p=27

Every owner of a website is interested in finding ways of getting more people to come visit their website. Many of the steps are the same as getting potential customers to come into your brick front store. There are more avenues with using a website, however. It is all a matter of knowhow.

Here are some proven free methods of increasing traffic to your website:

1. Start a blog. Blogging is the newest Internet “craze”. Well, blogging has been around for a few years, but the phenomenon continues to this day and is expected to grow even more in popularity. To succeed in this field, you simply develop your expertise on your chosen area and write (blog post) about it. At the end of each blog post simply put your website address. Also, many blog software allow blog postings to be posted directly onto your website.

2. Use social networking sites. Social networks (such as Squidoo, Reddit, de.licious, etc.) are very, very popular mediums for a wide variety of Internet users. This is a great way to socialize and become a part of a community. Just be certain you do not use these sites to simply sell something. That will not go over. Offer your expertise in your targeted area.

3. Write articles. By writing articles on your area of expertise, you can post them to numerous sites found on the Web. You establish yourself as an expert, and people will come to visit your website. Be sure to include a short bio on the bottom of each article and include your website address in it.

4. Help Wikipedia. You can write research papers on your area of expertise and include them in Wikipedia’s library. List yourself as a reference, along with your website. Not only will you be seen as an expert in the field, but your website will be viewed by millions.

5. Write optimized press releases. A well written press release will be heavy in targeted keywords and contain quality SEO content. Post these both in print and online publications.

6. Post to targeted blogs. Perform an online search targeting your area of expertise. Search by typing your keyword in quotes and follow with + blog. For instance, if my keyword is widgets, my targeted blog search would be “widgets”+blog. Then, once you enter the blog, post a comment. Include your website in the comment.

7. Post to YouTube. Make a video and post it to this popular site. It is highly responsive and free. And, place a link to your website in the video.

These are but a few of the many ways for you to increase your website’s traffic. They are a good beginning and will keep you busy for awhile. Good luck!