Website Traffic - How to Increase?

[Big Inch]

Socalmoney do you design websites for a living?

[C-2]

Let me know if you have any questions. This is a great start and you just need to massage it a bit.
Wow, thanks SoCal, I really, really appreciate your input – it’s the kind of stuff I’m looking for. I appreciate your willingness to enumerate the various components – that’s what I need, and I will gladly return the favor….I can be very useful at times.
Later tonight I will look at the items you have addressed, and make corrections. Also, to understand the site better, I thought I would give you the concepts behind creating it.
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The site is a generic flash template, which I am wrenching on with Macromedia Dreamweaver suite.
My real goal with the site is to convince an REO industry reader to engage our services. My secondary goal is to make sure the site is sales driven beyond just a “here we are, call us”, online business card approach. Each header or section has a specific purpose and has been thought out, but some might be missing the mark. For example, the animated keys represent the transfer of possession; much the same as you receive keys after you purchase a home. In REO, it represents the final step in the foreclosure process.
As with my investigative services, there is nothing I want anybody to order since each service is different – very similar to a law firm sites which only describe services. In fact in my PI business – I don’t work with the general public. City Attorneys, large corporate law firms, banks and title companies are my clients – so the site is not designed to appeal to any members of the general public, or even my regular clients – only people who immediately work in REO.
The site is also a work in progress, but then again, maybe not. Everything I want a reader to se is already on the site – I am only looking for a phonecall or email since the reality is, I will need to conform to their industry software, and will not process any orders thru my site.
I use the “winning through intimidation” sales approach, wherein you create a sense urgency; make solutions available; have mechanisms to trigger action on part of the readers; and motivation for the reader to act quickly. I adopted the strategy from “The Ultimate Sales Letter” by Dan Kennedy.
I also adopted the unconventional strategy of painfully long descriptions of services. These descriptions also identify problems and solutions, raise and address questions the reader might have (without them asking), and again, are designed to create a sense of urgency, or even panic. The theory behind this strategy is to weed out all the impulsive type people – I don’t want them. I want the analytical person who will take the time to read thru everything.
So if somebody says to me the site is boring and they bailed cuz it was too long, then it has served its purpose! My printed sales material is the same – a longwinded but fact-filled, unconventional and unique letter.
The site is also written in conversational English, as opposed to straight business, legalese or grammatically correct writing. Again, this is done on purpose and meant to stand out as unconventional.
Whew, anyhow, keep your thoughts coming

[C-2]

BTW, is there a way to create a "back" button which is not a script, so I can eliminate the "home" buttons? I too agree, having to weather thru the animation sucks arse. But I thought it was a safer route than using a scripted button which might not fly on all browsers. Or am I missing something? (probably, lol)
Thanks again

[socalmoney]

Typically you would break up your page into frames so your navigation would fallow the user to whatever page they are on. Traditionally when your logo is on every page, most users know to click on it to take them back to the homepage.

[socalmoney]

Socalmoney do you design websites for a living?
I work in web-dev for a major on line retailer.

[C-2]

Hey SoCal, anoither quick question.
If you have a website link, in a siggy, with the font attributes set to white so it's not readily visible - does Google and any of the other spiders/crawlers still index it?
I would think so, but I thought I read you can't do that with meta tags, or a bunch of keywords buried in a site?

[Nord]

Hey SoCal, anoither quick question.
If you have a website link, in a siggy, with the font attributes set to white so it's not readily visible - does Google and any of the other spiders/crawlers still index it?
I would think so, but I thought I read you can't do that with meta tags, or a bunch of keywords buried in a site?
From what I understand, Google and Yahoo spiders no longer like hidden text, but I would like to know as well.

[socalmoney]

This might help. Don't piss off Google, they run this world.
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66353
Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways, including:
* Using white text on a white background
* Including text behind an image
* Using CSS to hide text
* Setting the font size to 0
Hidden links are links that are intended to be crawled by Googlebot, but are unreadable to humans because:
* The link consists of hidden text (for example, the text color and background color are identical).
* CSS has been used to make tiny hyperlinks, as little as one pixel high.
* The link is hidden in a small character - for example, a hyphen in the middle of a paragraph.
If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that's not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors?

[C-2]

This might help. Don't piss off Google, they run this world.
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66353
Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways, including:
* Using white text on a white background
* Including text behind an image
* Using CSS to hide text
* Setting the font size to 0
Hidden links are links that are intended to be crawled by Googlebot, but are unreadable to humans because:
* The link consists of hidden text (for example, the text color and background color are identical).
* CSS has been used to make tiny hyperlinks, as little as one pixel high.
* The link is hidden in a small character - for example, a hyphen in the middle of a paragraph.
If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that's not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors?
I saw that...and wonder if they are full of shiat?

[C-2]

From what I understand, Google and Yahoo spiders no longer like hidden text, but I would like to know as well.
Wow, your page is coming along nicely Nord - I like the photos of your store.