Increasing Traffic On Your Web Site

1

Increasing Traffic On Your Web Site
2
Why the Internet is important

• 100 Million Americans Are Online
• ages 55 to 64 (16 million)
• ages 35 to 49 (40 million)
• ages 25 to 34 (21 million)
• other ages (23 million) 

3
Health news on the Internet

• Nearly 2 in 3 Internet users are looking for
  health information
• On any given day, more people looking online than
  visiting health professionals
• JAMA study 70 say treatment decisions
  influenced

4
(No Transcript)
5
Facts about NORDs Web site

• 150,000 visits per month
• Traffic has doubled in past three years
• Between 10 and 20 of visitors are from outside
  the U.S.
• Subscriptions licensing agreements extend our
  reach

6
Free or low-cost things you can do to increase
your web traffic

• Update frequently (search engine spiders watch
  for this)
• Use keywords effectively (in the URL, Meta tags,
  and content)
• Exchange links with related sites
• Start an email newsletter
• Syndicate your site with a news feed to other
  sites

7
Things that can hurt your search engine ranking

• Links to unrelated sites
• Content that is not similar to your keywords
• Code errors and dead links
• Failure to keep your site updated

8
You can submit your site to the search engines

• No guarantee that it will help your ranking, but
  it may
• Some companies will offer to do this for you at
  significant cost Probably not worth it
• Some examples of online sites where you can
  submit your information

9
Things to keep in mind when designing your site

• Dont use frames (search engines have trouble
  reading their content)
• Put most important articles at the top (spiders
  go from top to bottom)
• Put descriptive keywords near start of article
• Use low-resolution images that older browsers can
  handle
• Put ALT tags on images

10
Your URL is important

• Make it as descriptive as possible
• Try to avoid long, confusing ones (like sometimes
  occur with free services such as Geocities)
• You can buy a domain name and have it forward to
  a free service

11
Theres no substitute for good content

• A Fog Index is a way of analyzing what grade
  level is required to read your content
• Two writing samples
• Handout showing how to do a Fog index

12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)