I saw my uncle during Christmas and he was all excited about his new website. He enthusiastically asked me to take a look at his site and give him my thoughts. My first thought was, “Why didn’t you have me design it?”…I didn’t share that one. 
Well, I am going to do one-step further…Last week I was talking to a group of business owners about Internet marketing and I realized that none of them could tell if their site was amazing or sucked. The result? They hired some guy or gal to design a website for them that received ZERO traffic from Google or anywhere else.
So, I am going to use my uncle’s new site to show you how you can analyze your website and the website of the company that you are planning on hiring.
TIP OF THE DAY: If a webdesign company cannot optimize their site, they will not optimize yours. There is no need on spending money on a website if it gets you zero traffic.
Choosing a Good Domain Name
The site name is popejohnpauliischarities.com. Now what is good about this domain name is that the domain name has the keyword that he is trying to optimize for which is “Pope John Paul II”. The negative part about the domain name is that it needs to be something easy to remember. This is long and doesn’t roll off the tongue well, does it?
Also, when you are purchasing a domain name make sure that you purchase the name for at least 5 years and make sure that it ends in .com or if you are a church .org will work. But, don’t worry about the .biz, .info garbage.
Now, my uncle paid around $1,000 for this site, which isn’t bad, and really the site looks pretty nice. However, you can have a site that looks more picture perfect than the setting sun in the Arizona sky but if no one can find the site then it doesn’t matter, right? (please nod your head)
Know What You are Buying
This is where most website designers fall short…way freakin short. When you are getting a website built for your business or organization realize that you are dealing with 2 completely different skill sets. The first one is website design. The second skill set is website marketing.
It’s important that you get both a professional looking website but also a website that gets traffic. That’s what I do. That is what the Marketing Model is all about. Combining the 2 skills sets to give you professional websites that get traffic.
So my uncle even though he shelled out $1,000 for a website that looks professional, no one knows that it exists…until now of course. And if he didn’t have a nephew who owns a marketing firm, specializing in Internet marketing strategies then he would have had to spend more money to get his site to the point of generating some traffic.
How to Find Out if Your Website is Indexed by Google
But, the important question is how do I know that no one knows popejohnpauliischarities.com exists? Here is a real quick test to find out. Go to Alexa.com, type in your domain name and if your website ranks comes back as N/A this means that you more than likely do not have a sitemap. Which means that Google doesn’t know if you are talking about porn or Christianity. Therefore, Google doesn’t send any traffic to your site unless someone types in your exact domain name.
How Many Pages Do You Have in Google?
Now, another way that you can test the effectiveness of your website is to go to Google and type site://popejohnpauliischarities.com (insert your domain name) to find out how many pages that you have in Google. Now the number is important but not nearly as important as the pages that are in Google.
The most common pages that are in Google in association to a website are the About Us page, Contact Us page and pages dealing with staff. One problem with that…NO ONE CARES! People are NOT searching Google to find out more about your staff. They are searching Google to find answers to the questions that you company provides.
Update Your Website Weekly
Which leads me to the other thing about my uncle’s site that I do not like. There is no way to readily update the site with new information. Realize this…people are not going online to look for your product or your website. People are going online to look for answers to their questions. If you website answers those questions then they will gladly come to your website again and again…regardless of who you are.
For Popejohnpauliischarities.com people especially are not going to go there daily because people do not spend all day searching the Internet for ways to donate money. But, what my uncle can do and what he is going to do (with our help) is attach a blog to his website that will enable him to talk about the past, current and future popes.
Talk About What Interests Your Demographic
He will be able to cover where they are in the world, their personal histories, and what difference they are making to our current politics. Why would he give away free information on the Pope? Because individuals whom are catholic, and who follow the Pope would be interested in giving money to a charity that was created in honor of Pope John Paul II. Right?
He will be talking about the issues that interest his ideal demographic.
The same is true with your business. Find the questions that people ask most concerning your product or organization and then answer those questions online. When you do you will attract the people who will become clients of yours or who will help spread the word about your organization.
If you need more help in analyzing your site shoot me an email: steven@stevenroddy.com.
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I enjoyed your blog, come check out mine sometime.
Your blog looks nice. You should look to include a sitemap so that Google can identify the content on your site. It will help with your traffic.
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thank you for your post. Thats what im looking for.
You are welcome!