Many people who are working on search engine optimization complain that it is difficult to acquire links from other
websites. One solution is to add a search box on your site, as this can help generate links and increase targeted
traffic to your site.
Once a website is search-enabled it is common to discover that people are searching for existing content that they
are unable to locate, which means it's time to re-evaluate your website navigation. A quick redesign is often all
that is needed. You'll know you've done it right when the terms no longer appear in your search reports, and your
visitors stay on the site longer and view more pages per visit.
But the biggest benefit of search-enabled websites is the ability to pinpoint content that may be missing from the
website. When you rank well for a very generic keyword -- like "clothes" -- you'll attract a lot of untargeted
traffic with a wide spectrum of interests and goals. With a search-enabled website you'll be able to discover
precisely what these visitors were hoping to find on your pages by reviewing the search terms they used on your
site.
These site search reports were particularly helpful for a resource site for sushi lovers (sushilinks.com) where we
discovered that many visitors were looking for information about sushi and pregnancy. Because of this we created a
page with links to online articles on the subject. Within a few weeks it was one of the most popular pages on the
site, and traffic started appearing from people who were linking on their own.
Asking for links is very time-consuming, has a low success rate, and often lands you on a page crammed with links
to websites that will be very similar to your own. Unsolicited links always carry more weight, and building resource
pages is the easiest and most efficient way to generate them.
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The site search reports also revealed that many people visiting SushiLinks were looking for "sushi posters" which
were not being offered. We suggested to the client that sushi posters be made available through the website to meet
this demand. The client agreed, and once the page was ready a Wordtracker report on the term indicated that an even
higher number of people on the Web were searching for the phrases "sushi pictures" and "pictures of
sushi." We took this into consideration and named the page "Sushi Poster - Pictures with Sushi Fish."
Soon we started showing up for both targeted phrases, and when someone clicked they would land on the poster page.
The conversion rate on the page has been high. Again, this started with reading the website search reports
carefully.
Finding new phrases is a continual process. On a resource site it is important to offer new and updated material,
and to pay attention to your site search reports. Just keep adding new pages and content to provide the material for
which people are looking and a much wider net will be cast - increasing the number of keywords used to find your
website. Currently the traffic from the major search engines to the sushi site includes over 3,000 different
sushi-related phrases.
On another project, a resource site for Photoshop users (photoshopsupport.com), we studied the site search terms
to see what the website might be "missing." One thing we discovered was that many visitors were looking for
"free video tutorials." We contacted a company that sold video tutorials for Photoshop and they agreed to
work with us on a page that would offer sample videos of their products. Now we had a page with free video tutorials,
and as soon as it went online it became one of the most visited pages on the site. Once again we started getting
traffic from search engines for a whole new group of keywords, but even better was that other sites soon started
linking.
All in all this is a relatively easy way to increase the traffic of targeted visitors to your site. Continue to
keep mining the data and building relevant pages, and others will see that you are a growing resource site and
link to you.
There are many scripts available on the Internet that will allow you to incorporate search capability on a website.
My favorite is a free service (for websites of 500 or fewer pages) by Atomz. It
is easy to install and there is a template editor - which makes it a snap to create a results page that looks exactly
like the rest of your site. And Atomz offers reports that let you view the top searched words and terms for the day,
week, and month.
Use this incredibly powerful tool - this crystal ball that reveals your visitors' innermost goals - and you'll
reap the rewards almost instantly.
Editorial Note: This article first appeared in the High
Rankings Advisor.
About The Author
Eric Martin is the director of Futura Studios a full-service Website
development company based in Montreal, Canada. They specialize in Website design/redesign, search engine optimization
and content development and writing.
