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Are There Really Secrets to Building Website Traffic?

Knowing your visitors

Do you track visitors carefully using Bigshot Google Analytics or another similar extension? Paying close attention to where your visitors are coming from and how they find you is one of the most important aspects of driving more traffic to your website as well as targeting your audience more directly. The better you know your visitors and their needs, such as screen resolution and browsers used, the better you can tailor what you offer them and make them active participants or even customers. You can also discover whether or not you really need to build a mobile version of your site based on how many hits you get from mobile devices. We explain how to do this in detail in our Joomla Developer series.

Being visible in Google

Do you build better URLs for great SEO results using an extension like sh404SEF, AceSEF or even just the Joomla Core SEF features? Many of you know that Google regularly changes its methods of how websites show up in search results. This leads to a lot of confusion and frustration, and this confusion often leads to website administrators either giving up and trying nothing or constantly changing everything. The fact is that aside from high quality content on your website, your domain name and your page URLs probably play the biggest part in being found and ranked well in search results. Just because we are running dynamic websites doesn't mean that we can't have friendly URLs that rank well. How are you doing it?

Connecting Socially

Social media is one of the best ways to drive new visitors to your site, and also one of the best ways to engage existing members. Common on many Joomla websites are the Facebook like box, the Twitter feed and embedded YouTube videos. Our YouTube channel, located here, has really helped drive some good traffic and has recently started to pick up steam very nicely. (We'd love it if you subscribed to our channel by the way.)

But social media is only as good as you make it. It can also become one of those modules that you install and forget about, only leaving it to take up valuable real estate on your pages. How are you actually using the social media to drive traffic or improve your users' experience? And again, are you using specific extensions or just sticking to the Joomla core for these features?

Go ahead and leave your comments ... answer one of these questions or answer them all. Looking forward to reading your thoughts and tips.

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Comments 8

Kevin Morrison on Friday, 23 March 2012 12:26

I don’t know if it is a secret as much as it has been a hand shake where you have just had to know where to look or who to ask how it works. My cornerstone tools that I use are first if the template does not offer a way to add the Google tracking code I use BigShot to get it on the site. I use Piwik by default though to work with my analytics as I have found Google Analytics to be convoluted and in many ways to restricting for me to use. Piwik offers real time tracking and that is something that is fantastic and works a lot like the heat map tools. Speaking of that I wish there was a good heat map tool for Joomla that worked the way I want it to. As far as being visible in Google I have found it a waste of time to go out of my way setting up any advanced tools such as sh404SEF and all the search engines have come a long way in being able to work with Joomla or any CMS and how they display links. I tend to pay more attention to making my links human user friendly since that is my target (not a search engine spider). I have found iJoomla SEO to be a very valuable tool and I use it on every site where my client finds the value in it enough to purchase it.

For me good analytics includes connecting to social sites, local directories and obtaining link relationships with websites that are helpful in getting the site known and compliment the content on both sites where possible (not link farms!!). Since Google started with targeted search it has become more advantageous to target specific regions rather than a global market. If the target is a global market then hitting those areas that will convert best are the ones I work on. This also includes testing and split testing to find out what markets and users will convert better. This is such a broad topic and I am learning new things about it every day and the sad thing is it is hard to know if the information you are getting is accurate or if it is someone’s educated or uneducated opinion? Then there are the SEO wanna-bees that can’t even get their own sites ranked and bringing in traffic but claim they can do it for me. I have found most of them haunt LinkedIn SEO groups…;)

0
I don’t know if it is a secret as much as it has been a hand shake where you have just had to know where to look or who to ask how it works. My cornerstone tools that I use are first if the template does not offer a way to add the Google tracking code I use BigShot to get it on the site. I use Piwik by default though to work with my analytics as I have found Google Analytics to be convoluted and in many ways to restricting for me to use. Piwik offers real time tracking and that is something that is fantastic and works a lot like the heat map tools. Speaking of that I wish there was a good heat map tool for Joomla that worked the way I want it to. As far as being visible in Google I have found it a waste of time to go out of my way setting up any advanced tools such as sh404SEF and all the search engines have come a long way in being able to work with Joomla or any CMS and how they display links. I tend to pay more attention to making my links human user friendly since that is my target (not a search engine spider). I have found iJoomla SEO to be a very valuable tool and I use it on every site where my client finds the value in it enough to purchase it. For me good analytics includes connecting to social sites, local directories and obtaining link relationships with websites that are helpful in getting the site known and compliment the content on both sites where possible (not link farms!!). Since Google started with targeted search it has become more advantageous to target specific regions rather than a global market. If the target is a global market then hitting those areas that will convert best are the ones I work on. This also includes testing and split testing to find out what markets and users will convert better. This is such a broad topic and I am learning new things about it every day and the sad thing is it is hard to know if the information you are getting is accurate or if it is someone’s educated or uneducated opinion? Then there are the SEO wanna-bees that can’t even get their own sites ranked and bringing in traffic but claim they can do it for me. I have found most of them haunt LinkedIn SEO groups…;)
Robert Wilson on Friday, 23 March 2012 14:15

Thanks for that great, detailed response. I think you hit it on the head when you say that your audience is human users and not search engine spiders. When you're creating content and links for humans, you have better chance of avoiding problems when Google decides to change their algorithm again.

What social sites do you find work best for you?

0
Thanks for that great, detailed response. I think you hit it on the head when you say that your audience is human users and not search engine spiders. When you're creating content and links for humans, you have better chance of avoiding problems when Google decides to change their algorithm again. What social sites do you find work best for you?
Kevin Morrison on Friday, 23 March 2012 14:57

I find that to many times the webmaster is looking to impress Google when they should be impressing those that are the reason they want to get found. When you design for your audience the analytics just fall into place and you will find your content being rich and unique and ultimately gets better results in a search index and will stand the test of staying there.

Honestly I have found the best social site is Facebook. I would not have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes but it truly does drive the site higher in the search results. I contribute the idea of designing for the human as a big part of that success too. This way creating relevant links is a no brainer for the client and they do it without even thinking about it. Ultimately though it depends on the site and the target audience and I have several clients that are doing well on community sites that offer a JomSocial style website or forum. One client is a crafter and she is getting fantastic results using her community sites that are no name communities.

I really think if we would step back from the sites we build and look at the project for what it is and do our best to design with great content we won’t have to worry about our SEO and I think that it is that attitude that the search engines want us to have. Spending thousands of dollars on the risk that we get good page rank and positioned only to continue paying that high price to stay there is the wrong mentality. My policy when it comes to SEO is keep it honest, keep it interesting and keep it on target and you will do just fine with all the search engines! Good SEO is good copy, not good knowledge of how a search engine works that don’t want us to know in the first place!

0
I find that to many times the webmaster is looking to impress Google when they should be impressing those that are the reason they want to get found. When you design for your audience the analytics just fall into place and you will find your content being rich and unique and ultimately gets better results in a search index and will stand the test of staying there. Honestly I have found the best social site is Facebook. I would not have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes but it truly does drive the site higher in the search results. I contribute the idea of designing for the human as a big part of that success too. This way creating relevant links is a no brainer for the client and they do it without even thinking about it. Ultimately though it depends on the site and the target audience and I have several clients that are doing well on community sites that offer a JomSocial style website or forum. One client is a crafter and she is getting fantastic results using her community sites that are no name communities. I really think if we would step back from the sites we build and look at the project for what it is and do our best to design with great content we won’t have to worry about our SEO and I think that it is that attitude that the search engines want us to have. Spending thousands of dollars on the risk that we get good page rank and positioned only to continue paying that high price to stay there is the wrong mentality. My policy when it comes to SEO is keep it honest, keep it interesting and keep it on target and you will do just fine with all the search engines! Good SEO is good copy, not good knowledge of how a search engine works that don’t want us to know in the first place!
Best Blog On Joomla on Saturday, 24 March 2012 16:40

I agree with all three points you've mentioned. First, you should know which category of people is your target audience. Then it is equally important to show effective presence on the web. Last but not the least, one needs to necessarily learn to use social networking sites promote their business. Amazing content Wilson!!!

0
I agree with all three points you've mentioned. First, you should know which category of people is your target audience. Then it is equally important to show effective presence on the web. Last but not the least, one needs to necessarily learn to use social networking sites promote their business. Amazing content Wilson!!!
Guest - escobar on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 05:10

Good post

0
Good post
Codero on Tuesday, 03 April 2012 00:01

There are many websites which offer free blogging platforms or website platforms. However, these websites are just for personal purposes and have small potential for earnings because usually your activities as a webmaster or administrator are still limited. It is still better to purchase a website for the purpose of sharing your knowledge and experiences while earning money. Building a website seems easy to do but it actually complicated because you have to know the basics of website codes such as HTML and CSS. In making money using your website or blog, SEO should be the best thing to learn first. Thank you for sharing this great and excellently written content.

0
There are many websites which offer free blogging platforms or website platforms. However, these websites are just for personal purposes and have small potential for earnings because usually your activities as a webmaster or administrator are still limited. It is still better to purchase a website for the purpose of sharing your knowledge and experiences while earning money. Building a website seems easy to do but it actually complicated because you have to know the basics of website codes such as HTML and CSS. In making money using your website or blog, SEO should be the best thing to learn first. Thank you for sharing this great and excellently written content.
Guest - julia on Tuesday, 27 November 2012 20:14

Your post is so interesting and informative. I got a lot of useful and significant information. Thank you so much.

0
Your post is so interesting and informative. I got a lot of useful and significant information. Thank you so much.
abhi on Thursday, 12 February 2015 15:58

When we launched our site we found out that our bounce rate was quite high. We couldn't understand it at first. But when we did a split by channel we found out that our bounce rate on mobile site was skewing the overall bounce rate. As a result we worked hard over next couple of week to fix our mobile site. Ultimately we managed to bring down our overall bounce rate.

It is also worth noting that sometimes it may not be under your control to manage you bounce rate. Because if google starts sending you traffic on queries for which your content is not optimized, it is very likely that people will bounce off from your site.

0
When we launched our site we found out that our bounce rate was quite high. We couldn't understand it at first. But when we did a split by channel we found out that our bounce rate on mobile site was skewing the overall bounce rate. As a result we worked hard over next couple of week to fix our mobile site. Ultimately we managed to bring down our overall bounce rate. It is also worth noting that sometimes it may not be under your control to manage you bounce rate. Because if google starts sending you traffic on queries for which your content is not optimized, it is very likely that people will bounce off from your site.

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