10 Ways to Make your Website More Popular
Everybody who owns a website wants it to be more popular. From the web design team at the New York Times right down to the small retailer trying to expand into ecommerce, popularity is the key to success. Reading and working with popular websites every day can sometimes feel like living in a bubble where everybody has good search engine rankings and sites are all beautiful so it’s nice sometimes to look at how “normal” websites can improve their popularity.
Invest in a good design – while people like Ling might think design isn’t everything it is one of the key aspects a site can use to build their visitors trust so you need to get it right.
Learn about usabilty – having the best designed website in the world is useless if normal people can’t use it. Sit behind some of your non internet savvy relatives and friends and watch them navigate your site and make purchases from your store. If they struggle with things you need to improve your usabilty.
Create a useful website – I know this might sound simple but having a website isn’t just a way to tell people about your company. If you really want to become popular make sure your website is actually going to be helpful to the people who arrive there. If every visitor who was pleased by your site gave you a link or told one of their friends your traffic would increase to Facebook levels in months.
Keep it up to date – if your company can’t be bothered to keep your website updated at least once a year then I probably won’t want to use it. Broken links, outdated news and copyright notices from 2003 are not going to turn me on.
Be topical – just because you are a retailer it doesn’t mean you can ignore the latest news in your niche. Having a company blog might be a bit beyond most businesses but you should at least have a news section to publish company information and responses to popular stories.
Manage your reputation – responding to your readers/customers comments is key to establishing your company as one that cares about what people say about you. You could also use the criticism to make your website better.
Learn about the internet – this might sound simple to some people but trying to explain to a middle aged company directory why they need to worry about buzz marketing is hard enough without them asking questions about what links are and what blogs do. Knowing how ideas spread through forums and blogs is essential for webmasters to understand online marketing.
Be controversial – having a boring corporate site isn’t always the best way to become popular. Sometimes you need to upset 95% of the world just to get the attention of the other 5%. After all, having 5% of the population loving your site isn’t a bad goal to have.
Be interesting – sometimes a website can break every rule in the book and still succeed. The one characteristic these sites have is they are interesting. So much content on the web is boring and repeated that having an interesting site is probably the best way to get noticed.
Learn about Google – ever wondered why some websites rank highly on Google while some languish on page 4? It’s because one of the owners understands how Google works. Spend a few days reading the official guidelines and making sure your site follows all the normal optimisation rules and you might be surprised how much of a difference it can make.
A comprehensive guideline in fact! Thumbs up! Getting off topic also works, BTW, but only sometimes of course.
Comment by BlogOxide — November 11, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
A good list - and remember your website has to provide something different from everything else.
Comment by TV — January 17, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
I know an another good way: money, money, money
Unfortunetly money have the FMCG and big companies.
Comment by Alex — January 21, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
I there any way to work directly with other related websites.I would like to know how do you react when someone offers you , for example a guest post, some sort of business deal to work together?
Comment by Attique — January 22, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more. I would, however, add the following:
1) keyword research and relevant keywords to the niche and content
2) content-rich site to begin with and which is refreshed, updated, as you have already suggested
3) Attention-grabbing heading and sub-headings (using chosen keywords)
4) Relevant description (meta tags) which includes your chosen keywords
5) Site Map
Comment by Magda — January 26, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
Nice checklist; sure inspires me to check out my website to make sure I follow most of these!
Comment by Pete — January 26, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
exactly, i must agree to that…
Comment by Teamcreatives — February 1, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
Excellents points. Everyone who is creating a web site needs this information.
Comment by Searchtroop — February 14, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
Let’s be real here as well. You can work hours upon hours making your site the most relevant, exacting content, ya da ya da ya da.
But, don’t give out false hopes that a non-advertising website will ever show up higher on a google search then a paying advertising client of google. You could work you fingers to the bone and still be trumped by a paying google advertiser with just a 5 cent bid and a single keyword match.
If you think search engines are optimized for the user to retreave relevant data over making a profit. Try searching the internet for a search engines customer phone support telephone number. How can a multi billion dollar search engine company not deliver “relevant” results when someone searchs for their support telephone number. I alone pay $2k a month and have to wait for a response via email which takes forever if at all.
How come a search engine can find the phone number to a gas station out in the middle of no where but, it can’t seem to produce a phone number for advertising paying clients to get live 24hr support?
Comment by anonymous — February 26, 2008 @ 3:49 am
well and said., very helpful information for everybody to uplift their websites.,
Comment by fatalti — March 3, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
Thank for the point no 10, I never consider that and it will become my attention to maximize my ranking level on search engine.
Comment by Search engine tips — March 9, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Nice list of ways to become more popular. I have to agree that being controversial does help. I have seen this work for some bloggers even with bad writing skills.
Comment by Squeaky — March 10, 2008 @ 4:54 am
This is something that everybody should practice for websites/blogs.
Comment by viva — March 23, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
A good list. Keeping a website to up to date is very important, a lot of my clients don’t understand or are naive that the fact, you must work on your website to continue to be successful.
A website is like the humna body, it must be looked after, to be healthy and this is the same for a website.
Comment by Web design in Lincolnshire — March 25, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Another tip: Speed. gZip all of your files and applications, and compress your AJAX, CSS, JS, and MDX (if using ASP) files.
Comment by Chris Regan — March 29, 2008 @ 1:19 am
One more simple ones. Your document title tags are way overlooked and should contain your keywords just like the text on your site.
Notice this site puts the title of the blog after the keywords which is good.
Comment by Josh C — April 2, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Great post! Short and simple and to the point. Also .html is king. Anything website that comes from a database is hard to read by Google’s bots. Try to design your website in html.
Comment by Killer Pickle — April 13, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
Awesome write up! I definitely agree with keeping your content up to date. So many times I’ve stumbled upon sites which offered decent products (and actually considered buying from them) only to find that the webmaster hasn’t touched it in literally years…
http://www.i-smarket.com
Comment by Anthony Nuncio — April 30, 2008 @ 7:34 am
These are great tips. SEO is very basic and involves common sense but it’s amazing how people try to look too much into it.
Comment by Lee — May 6, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
…just a quick one in that SEO isn’t a ‘one off’ activity, despite some perception out there by businesses.
Search engine algorithms change periodically, so the approach to SEO requires regular commitment, otherwise you will drop down in your ranking.
Comment by SEO in Leeds — May 9, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
I think creating frequent posts and lists also make our blogs popular
Comment by Anil Gupta — May 10, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
faboulous post. I really think you website is one of the best, very informative
Comment by search engine optimisation — May 12, 2008 @ 8:17 am
Nice list! I need to go have a look at my sites with this list in hand - I’m lacking on a number of these.
Subscribed to your RSS Feed!
Comment by Ali — June 17, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
You forgot try to establish yourself as a trusted individual not a faceless corporation.
Comment by Personal Trainer — June 17, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
Nice information, buti think if you add some SEO point like tag names to images and links, proper defining description, keywords etc….then it will make more famous.
Comment by Dubai Web Design, Development — June 26, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
Good list, i will pass it on. I am a bigger fan of content over images, but sometimes you do need sizzle to sell the steak. As far as SEO points they help but firm believer content is king.
Comment by dhurowitz — July 1, 2008 @ 4:19 am
I’m always try to be controversial, and it’s really work to attract more visitor
Comment by IMFreakz — July 15, 2008 @ 3:50 am
What a great Article. Good tips keep it up! Controversial always works for me too, people love a buzz!
Comment by bbEnthusion — September 3, 2008 @ 8:08 am
What are your opinions on the contents on the landing page? I know it works different for each website but somehow I still have a lot of doubts about it.
Comment by Diego — September 7, 2008 @ 12:17 am
an excellent read. Many valid points, not just in the article itself but also in the comments!
My suggestion doesn’t have anything to do with the design, the reputation or anything of the nature. It is simply to include content on your website that you yourself would enjoy if you were visiting a website. If you don’t like your content yourself, why should others? If you enjoy it however, others with similar interests will have a good chance in liking it too!
Comment by Increase website traffic free — September 7, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
reciprocal links and one way links your website linked to many websites when a user goes to that websites there is a possibility that he will come at your website, In other terms when a spider or a search engine crawler goes to a website where your link exists than the spider will also comes at your website. Google and Yahoo prefers link building. The links can also boost your search engine rankings as well. The theme based link building is very important Link farms and free for all links can harm your website rankings.
Comment by Eric Shan — September 14, 2008 @ 7:44 am
Magda has the correct order. Know your topic then figure the keywords, then write content related to those keywords (not keyword stuffing). Headlines and subheads - plus short paragraphs. Most people are scanners, so make it easy to scan. The best page I ever saw had a great headline then if you only read the subheads you understood the article. Think short phrases that people can follow. The content has to be great, but make sure the sub-heads sell.
Comment by Richard McLaughlin — September 15, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
I always, thought the best was content. Content is king.
Comment by Fast-Free — October 1, 2008 @ 4:41 am
Only content is the only way to rise up inot search engines. Cheating doesn’t pay.
Comment by Steven — October 3, 2008 @ 2:27 pm