Can My Website Compete With The Big Boys?

As the owner of a small website, you might think it impossible to carve out your own chunk of the internet, especially in the face of larger sites that are well funded and manage to grab the top spots of search engine results pages. Don’t despair. It is possible to generate quality traffic regardless of the size of your website. But in order to do so, you will need to devote a bit of time and effort. Here is some advice to get you started.

Smart Keywords

The large sites on the internet are in a position to be optimized for many different keywords. After all, since many of them sell a variety of products, they need to tap into various different customer bases. On the other hand, your website is smaller, and probably targets a smaller market. As a result, it may be possible for your website to be more highly optimized for your target keywords.

When choosing keywords, be sure to select descriptive phrases that you think web surfers would use when searching for your product or service. For example, if your website sells a variety of lamps, it might be helpful to choose a keyword other than lamps. Instead, you might choose floor lamps, halogen desk lamps, glass sconces, etc… By choosing specific keywords, you’ll generate highly targeted traffic. in other words, the visitors that come to your website will be looking to buy, or get information about, the products or services that you are selling.

Content Is King

It is very important to have fresh, unique, and useful content. This alone can bring in droves of traffic. Additionally, if your website is useful, you will find that other sites will start to link to you.

But for some websites, such as eCommerce websites, there is not much new content that can be offered. In cases like this, try to see if you can add a blog to your website to offer related content. Or you can promote new products by featuring them on the home page. At minimum, however, make sure that your website is regularly optimized and updated.

High Quality Design

Another advantage that the big boys have is a big budget. This means that their websites are top notch and inspire confidence in their users. As a result, if you want to compete, it is necessary that your website be professional as well.

Whether you do it yourself, or hire a professional, be sure to have your site reviewed by others to verify that it does look like a quality website.

Website Optimization

If your website is not highly optimized, your site will not likely be able to compete with the big boys.

Keywords

Be sure to use your keywords throughout your website’s content in text, headings, alt tags, meta tags, anchor text, and title tags.

Source Code

Verify that your source code is valid, as some search engines may have difficulty indexing websites with invalid markup. Additionally, try to place your content as far towards the top of the page as possible.

Load Time

Optimize your images and delete whitespace to minimize your load time. If visitors have to wait too long, they might go somewhere else.

So it is possible to generate quality traffic from search engines. Of course, the bigger sites will get the larger share of the traffic. But your website - if highly optimized - will generate quality traffic.