Generating More Traffic

Our traffic has peaked. What's next?

[rhetor]

We got our city visitor site up and running about three months ago. When we did, we signed up with all the ppc search engines and managed, spending about $600 a month, to get the traffic as high as 1600+ a day.

However, since we give away information instead of sell products or services, we couldn't afford $600 and now just maintain the minimimum at overture and findwhat for about $125 a month.

Now our traffic has peaked at around 1000-1200 a day.

At the same time, the number of search terms people use to find us at google has nearly doubled, from about 300 to about 600 a day. (We have a lot of content on the site.)Why, given the increase number of search terms, hasn't our traffic increased?

What can we do to move it up?

[tedster]

How about researching those longer phrases that are already bringing in people?

Look for phrases where you are not particularly high in the rankings, and perhaps do not have the "exact" phrase on the page. Then tweak title, H tags and copy to get that exact phrase in there - or even create a page dedicated to it.

[fathom]

In addition to Tedster comments, notice that although mouse rollovers images have "alt" Tags, link anchor text do not.

add >> title="" in hrefs to reinforce link text.

title="" in table rows <tr> add more weight to page theme.

Check Yahoo's sponsored links if unsure how to use this effectively.

[rhetor]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have read about search engine optimization but have pretty much ignored it. It's so much work and can be so confusing if you try to optimize for different SE. I'll be more diligent and see what difference that makes in my numbers.

[Travoli]

Do you have an e-mail newsletter list signed up? Great way to get people to come back!

[rhetor]

Yes, we just started our Instant Insider Newsletter. It comes out twice a month, and I put several links back to the site in the newsletter.

One problem with a travel site is that people tend to use it until they've visited, then it's no longer of any use.

[TallTroll]

Providing an archive of your newsletter will help build content over the long term.

>> One problem with a travel site is that people tend to use it until they've visited, then it's no longer of any use.

More a problem with a destination specific travel site. General travelogue sites can get "repeat business" because they cover a wide range of destinations, and more general travel information, like what innoculations you need in various parts of the world (not an issue in Vancouver, clearly, but you know what I mean... I hope)

Having plenty of "hooks" on the front page will help draw people into the site. Just little teasers giving a few lines of good copy, to intruige the visitor. Rotate them on a weekly/monthly/whatever basis, so a returnee sees something new

If you can swing deals with local hotels/taxi firms/restaurants, a "special offers" section always goes down well. It can help local businesses smooth out seasonal peaks and troughs too. Those that see a benefit to a relationship with you and your site, will be likely to pay for the exposure, which gives you capital to expand and improve the site