Boost Traffic with a Second Site

An Information Website Funnels Traffic to Your Business Site

You want to boost traffic, but your existing site has limited potential

I go on a lot about what a site that's built for traffic looks like. But what if you already have a site...and it wasn't built for traffic?

I have a solution. But first, let's determine whether your existing site just needs fixing.

3 signs of a site with limited traffic potential

• Domain name says who you are, not what you do.
  (FlicksByDave.com rather than MiamiHomeTheater.com)
• Site is effectively "locked down."
  (Wasn't built to be grown or altered, or to do so would be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming.)
• You, the owner, aren't equipped to make additions to it.

Maggot, that's like buying a car that you can't put new gas in! What were you thinking?

In other words, you're either at the mercy of high-priced professionals or you're stuck with a lousy domain name. (Which the high-priced web professionals failed to warn you against!)

Is this you???

Well, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let's keep the existing site (which may have lots of expensive functionality), and let's boost website traffic by building a second website to drive tons of new traffic to the first one!

Your second website will have the perfect domain name

All things being equal, the search engines send traffic to sites with more descriptive domain names. (Ever notice how parts of the url are bolded when you do a search and part of your search term is part of the url? That's the sign of a good domain name.)

A site with a bad domain name is at a huge disadvantage.

Kind of like when your mother named you Maggot Q. Twinklebutt!

And that ill-chosen domain name is probably reflective of the fact that your site wasn't built with the goal of being an information website.

Let's say you're a local bricks and mortar business (and you named your site to match). There are two kinds of traffic you can attract. The first is people who know of you and are looking for you.

They'll find you. The search engines will point them toward you no matter how flawed your site is.

But folks who know you are a small pool of people. If you're hoping to boost traffic, it needs to come from people who don't know you, or who have forgotten your name, or who don't know whether you're any good.

Those people are shoppers. They aren't looking for you by name; they're looking for what you do. They're looking for the local lowdown on businesses in your niche. They want information, and if your website doesn't offer some solid 411...

You're sh*t out of luck, Sluggo!

Look at your site critically. Does it offer information that a decision-maker would want? Does it offer criteria that a decision-maker could use to decide between you and a competitor?

If the search engines don't think highly of your information, they aren't going to rank you highly enough for searchers to find you.

Good luck trying to boost traffic under those circumstances!

Boosting traffic to the max

Here's what a real home theater information site looks like.

Is it gorgeous? Not particularly. It looks template-driven. But look at all the information. The site has 381 pages as of Sept, 2009, and I'll bet it's still growing, because it's rather obvious that the owner wants to boost traffic to the max!

When I Google home theater guide he comes in #1...and #2.

Boost traffic with more buckets

381 pages. Why would anyone need 381 pages? I'll tell you...

Think of each of your webpages as a bucket. Searchers are falling like rain from the sky! You're trying to catch them...and dump them onto your site.

Put down the bucket, sh*t-for-brains. It's a metaphor.

More buckets (i.e. pages filled with information) = more visitors. It's really that simple. But with this caveat...

Each page should have a different focus. It should be aimed at a different keyword in your niche that you hope to boost traffic for.

Check it out: The home theater site I showed you is currently on Google page one for such popular (and lucrative) searches as

• wireless speakers
• cheap plasma tv
• plasma tv review
• rear projection tv, and...
• too many others for me to list

When the owner wants to boost traffic for a juicy keyword, he simply writes a new page!

That's something even you could do, Maggot...if you had the crayons!

Your second website will be information focused

1. It should be built on a platform that allows content (written information!) to be added easily and at any time.

The home theater guy and I both use a platform offering a simple interface that allows the owner to add new pages easily and without knowing computer code.

2. It should be used in conjunction with a research tool that allows you to identify the most valuable keywords (search terms!) in your niche.

The outfit I use has the best such tool in existence. (Click and then page down to "Brainstorm It.")

3. You should be able to monetize (make money!) in more than one way.

Check out Mr. Home Theater again. He has an online store, he sells advertising, and if he wanted to push traffic to another site he could!

No rule limits you to one site!

I see so many business owners who are unhappy with their websites.

They expected much more traffic than they're getting, but their site wasn't built for traffic.

Well, owning a website isn't like being unhappily married! There's another option besides getting divorced and "staying in it for the kids."

Build a second website. An information website. And build this one right.

Increase Our Traffic home.