by Daniel Moxon
We design a new website, code it, and add some
content. Then, we submit it to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and
MSN. We wait anxiously for our websites to be somewhere visible in the
search engines result pages. We may even start swapping links with other websites,
hoping that this will increase our back links and therefore increase our
ranking placement in the search engines. We look again at the search
engines, seeing we're still not ranked all that well. We take a second
glance making sure our website is properly coded and meets coding
standards. We go into our stats log to see just how many visitors we
received from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Not looking all that great -- what
do we do?
The crucial factor that we've overlooked is
simple. We've tried too hard to rank well in search engines during the
early stages of our website. If you haven't heard by now, there is such
as thing called the Google Sandbox which is incorporated into their
search engine algorithm. This sandbox seems to filter out relatively new
websites and usually a site won't come out of the sandbox until about 8
months has passed. And as you probably know, Google is the search engine
that is most highly used and generates the most queries out of all the
search engines. Google alone generates a whopping 46.2% of the searches,
while Yahoo follows far behind at 22.5%, MSN at 12.6%, and the other
search engines taking the remaining percentile.
Article Note: These statistics were taken from
searchenginewatch.com for the month of July 2005.
So what does this mean? As a new website, most
likely you aren't going to generate a lot of traffic from search engines
because of Google's sandbox system filtering out new websites and Google
being the number one search engine. Of course, you can generate traffic
from swapping links and finding affiliate partners to help increase your
traffic. This is fine, but search engines CAN give you a great deal of
traffic in the long run. So what should you do?
Prepare. Start providing quality content and
building up your website as much as possible during these months, even
if you don't receive a lot of visitors. Of course do a few link swaps
here and there and maybe a few submissions to some new directories to
give your self a boost in traffic. But remember, eventually the sandbox
WILL be lifted and if you really do have a quality website, your SERPS
will no doubt increase, generating you a large amount of traffic from
Google.
Let your site build up and make sure your visitors
have a lot to see when they do first visit your website. This will
increase the likelihood that your visitors are going to come back and
keep a mental note of your website. Had you not built up your website
there is no doubt a lot of visitors will come and go without a second
glance -- perhaps losing potential long term visitors who would have
stayed otherwise.
Think of the first eight months of your website as
the most crucial of all. Leave an impression on your visitors for when
the traffic starts rolling in. The more visitors you have, I guarantee
the more hurried and worked you will feel to satisfy them. Work hard to
provide quality content and by the time you do have loads of visitors,
you will have plenty of content to feed your visitors and the weight on
your shoulders will be lifted.
