How 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 Broken links, outdated news and copyright notices from 2003 are not going to turn me on.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.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
A comprehensive guideline in fact! Thumbs up! Getting off topic also works, BTW, but only sometimes of course.
January 17th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
A good list – and remember your website has to provide something different from everything else.
January 21st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I know an another good way: money, money, money :) Unfortunetly money have the FMCG and big companies.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 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?
January 26th, 2008 at 12:40 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
January 26th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Nice checklist; sure inspires me to check out my website to make sure I follow most of these!
February 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
exactly, i must agree to that…
February 14th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Excellents points. Everyone who is creating a web site needs this information.
February 26th, 2008 at 3:49 am
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?
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:34 pm
well and said., very helpful information for everybody to uplift their websites.,
March 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Thank for the point no 10, I never consider that and it will become my attention to maximize my ranking level on search engine.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:54 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.
March 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
This is something that everybody should practice for websites/blogs.
March 25th, 2008 at 1:01 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.
March 29th, 2008 at 1:19 am
Another tip: Speed. gZip all of your files and applications, and compress your AJAX, CSS, JS, and MDX (if using ASP) files.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
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.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:32 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.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:34 am
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
May 6th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 6:47 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.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I think creating frequent posts and lists also make our blogs popular
May 12th, 2008 at 8:17 am
faboulous post. I really think you website is one of the best, very informative
June 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
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!
June 17th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
You forgot try to establish yourself as a trusted individual not a faceless corporation.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:50 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.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:19 am
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.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:50 am
I’m always try to be controversial, and it’s really work to attract more visitor :D
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:08 am
What a great Article. Good tips keep it up! Controversial always works for me too, people love a buzz!
September 7th, 2008 at 12:17 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.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
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!
September 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am
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.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
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.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:41 am
I always, thought the best was content. Content is king.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Only content is the only way to rise up inot search engines. Cheating doesn’t pay.
October 19th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
With the right content you’ll get lots of visitors!
October 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Great article! People often forget about web design. If your website looks rubbish, people are not going to browse!
October 26th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Thanks Patrick! I followed your instructions and its been uphill ever since.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
very helpful I wondered why canvas art sites like http://www.artbypeople.co.uk use a blogg. Theirs is very useful and witty as well. Whoever writes it has a good style of writing which always helps.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Thank you for the info Patrick. I am big fan of building up back links. Sometimes you find websites on the first page of Google, which are unbelievably built in flash. the only obvious explanation for their success is that they have a load of back links.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Unique content is the key to success in getting top rank in major search engines. For more information please visit our SEO service provider Website http://www.seoprovider.in.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
thanks for the info:)
November 24th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Thanks for sharing them…
November 25th, 2008 at 6:50 am
unique points. I Think Everyone who is creating a web site needs this information.
Thanx for the information.
November 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Good points! One of the most excellent and most popular ways to increase popularity of websites is to building links with other relevant and trustworthy websites. Relevancy and trustworthiness are both important not only to maintain and increase your own website integrity but also with search engine rankings.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
[...] sales 7,933 4 33 Website Success Metrics Instead of Rankings, Google PageRank & Traffic 6,793 5 10 Ways to Make your Website More Popular 4,240 6 50+ Must Read Web Design for ROI, Usability and SEO Articles 4,225 7 30 Ways to Get Links [...]
February 15th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Very Good points!
February 18th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Nice list of ways to become more popular.I need to go have a look at my sites with this list in hand,keep it up! Controversial always works for me too, people love a buzz
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
The best way to get a site listed is by manually submitting your site to web directory and search engines
May 15th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
nice topic. will be following your guidelines
May 16th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
i understand its hard having a website and people who dont think oh its a peice og cake but its not you have to update it make sure every one likes it you give good advice because i am going to keep looking at those tips as i update my website every week so i no my veiwers will like it.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
well actually this is a very help full article. thanks for all the tips
June 27th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Love all the comments surely for the newbies like me have a lots to learn on how
to get my website out in the air. And updating is always time consuming but the results are amazing though its a little percent additional traffic, its better than nothing.
October 5th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Very good list. It is sometimes hard to cvover all basis, so asking others for their opinions is helpful.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
excelent points, i must agree
January 1st, 2010 at 7:06 am
it is good list. thank. i hope it work for me.
April 30th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Extremely good list but I feel SEO should also would have been there in that list somewhere :)
July 18th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I would have been happy to have seen SEO in there too. As much as it may be true that people do buy and buy from people, SEO can enhance the popularity of your website if you remember it can enable your website gets both found and noticed. Still, a good, simple read ideal for anyone without too much SEO experience.