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Traffic: Wordpress or not

by cyperpc
10 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
I am looking for some help!!!! I been running a Wordpress informational website for my wife for the last six months and the traffic is very low. She is an Independent Consultant for a direct sale company. This site does not run any ads or Affiliate Programs and I am limited to many rules this company has but, the site should be doing better then what it has.

Here are some of the questions I have about the traffic to the site:


1.) Is it better to have a landing page and then have wordpress set-up at the next level? Or just kept it as is www (dot) mysite (dot) com with wordpress managing it?


2.) I post part of articles to the main page that are "Display Sticky Posts Only" and only have 5 to 7 post on the main page. Should I change to the full post showing on the main page?


Thank you in advance for your help!


I was NOT sure if I could post the url here so if you PM I could send it.:confused:


Thank
Tim
#wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author TheContentAuthority
    Cyperpc,

    I’m not sure I understand the first question. Are you currently using Wordpress.com and asking if you should do a self-hosted version? If that is the case then yes you should. You will have much more control over marketing and optimizing the site if you host it yourself with a custom domain. Wordpress.com is not a good option for running a business site.

    For you second question, it depends on what you goals are for the site. Wordpress is first and foremost a blogging platform. You can (and many do) modify it to look like a regular website however if it is set up like a blog, it may not matter much if you have multiple preview posts on the front end or single blog posts as content is updated on a regular basis anyway (ideally). So if you want people to see all the content the blog has to offer, use the multiple posts view. If you want them to see one post and only that post first, don’t use that setting.

    Check out this post on wordpress.com vs self hosted,

    WordPress.com vs. Self-Hosted WordPress - What You Need To Know - WPMU.org

    Here are some tips on driving traffic to your website,

    Driving Traffic To A New Website

    Let me know if you have more questions,

    Shawn
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    • Profile picture of the author DCSLCFR6243
      Well, from one point I can tell you, if you are trying to drive traffic by content and post, the content has to be updated regularly and when I say regularly I mean every other day. Think of it, As a News Feed, people watch the News cause its changing, search engines like Google and the rest also respond to relevant regularly updated content....Landing pages are used for actually moving unwanted traffic out as a filter, so I really can't see how that would or would not hurt like the other poster says we really have to examine your goals and view the site to have any idea how to increase the traffic, if that's not outside of your constraints and rules with the company.....

      All in all "Think Inside the Box and then Kick the Edges of the Box and Make the Box into a circle." - will.i.am 2012
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      • Profile picture of the author cyperpc
        Originally Posted by DCSLCFR6243 View Post

        Well, from one point I can tell you, if you are trying to drive traffic by content and post, the content has to be updated regularly and when I say regularly I mean every other day. Think of it, As a News Feed, people watch the News cause its changing, search engines like Google and the rest also respond to relevant regularly updated content....Landing pages are used for actually moving unwanted traffic out as a filter, so I really can't see how that would or would not hurt like the other poster says we really have to examine your goals and view the site to have any idea how to increase the traffic, if that's not outside of your constraints and rules with the company.....

        All in all "Think Inside the Box and then Kick the Edges of the Box and Make the Box into a circle." - will.i.am 2012

        The goal of this site (www (.) simplehomeparty (.) com is to attract local (Bucks County, PA) customers (woman) to have home parties, give information on our fundraiser program and business gifts.
        Thanks

        Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author cyperpc
      @Shawn I am useing wordpress the self-hosted version. I should of asked if search engine rank wordpress the same way as non-cms site? This is why I asked should Input a landing page befoe the blog site? I will read the other links you sent.

      Thanks! Tim
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  • Profile picture of the author DebraHeward
    I think he is wondering if a splash/landing page will help with hits. Am I right?

    Tim, do you have a sitemap set up? There are Wordpress plugins to make one for you automatically. There are also SEO plugins that would help you.
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  • Profile picture of the author MaryWink
    Hi

    For your first question - NO. You want to leave Wordpress installed in the Root Domain of your site. The theme you select to use is very important. I also don' like to put my Blog on the "Home" page that people land on.

    For your second question, that depends on how often you update. When you are first writing posts and don't have that many, it is better to have them all open so that you site looks like it has more content. Once you are in the habit of regularly adding posts, then you want to use the "More" tag so people can skim the Titles and see if they want to click on them to read the entire post. Placing the More Tag in smart places is a skill so that you wet the appetite, then get them to click and read more as you have left them hanging with some info they now really want to read the rest of.

    Now, over all, it sounds like you are having an issue with Traffic to your site. This means you first need to follow some basic concepts of doing SEO to the site. When those are in place, then you can work on building links and citations that will help you get found for your keywords.

    I am assuming here that you know exactly what keywords you want to be found for in the SERP's, that you have researched the search volume of those keywords and are activly generating posts to go after them....

    SEO is a big field and a very important one for anyone that wants to generate traffic to a website....

    Mary Wink
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  • Profile picture of the author stevet563
    To get the most from the search engine traffic. You have to post keyword rich content and post often. Try every day for a month. Google now penalizes you if your surfers only stay on the page for a short time. If you have short articles or not many, they will not stay very long and Google will rank your site lower.

    So, for question number 1. One of the most important things to consider when starting any business is to build a list of subscribers. There are wordpress plug-ins that you can buy that can help you set up some very nice squeeze pages. Where you can give something away for free in exchange for a name ansd email address. make you gift compatible with your business. Then you can send them to the blog and every time you post good content you can email your list and tell them you have made a post.

    2. If I understand you correctly, you should have about 100 words showing and the customer has to click on something like.... click here to read the full article. That way your site is not too cluttered and it's more neat.

    Hope that helps.

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author cyperpc
    WoW thanks all, I have to study this information but thanks for everyone's help.
    @supergrrl - The website is www (dot) simplehomeparty (dot) com

    My keywords are party supplies,Home Part,Tastefully Simple,simple,beer bread,tastefully simple recipes

    Thanks again!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Reminder: discussing SEO, traffic and other non-design issues in this sub-forum... will result in deleted thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author cyperpc
      Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath View Post

      Reminder: discussing SEO, traffic and other non-design issues in this sub-forum... will result in deleted thread.
      I am sorry but don't understand. Is this not the "Website Design" Thread? How can you "Not discuss" SEO and or these thinks you say when you are designing a website. Is not SEO a very important part of "Website Design" or am I missing something here?

      Would you build a house without a floor plan?

      If I am at the wrong thread then point me to the right one, help me not hurt me. Thanks!
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