Building Web Traffic for Your DPH Showroom

1. Better search engine optimization (SEO) means more traffic to your site. Most blog platforms like Wordpress, Blogger and Posterous are, by default, well optimized. As long as you place relevant keywords into the title and body of the post and then tag correctly, you will actually end up with better search results on your blog than you do on your Web site.
   
2. Fresh content means better search results for your site. Provided you post something new and interesting on a regular basis, Google gives you lots of credit for fresh content. You’re unlikely to post new products to your actual Web site on a daily basis, so this is a great alternative to satisfy Google’s insatiable appetite for new fodder.
   
3. Entertainment value means more repeat visits to your site. You’ve gone through all of the trouble of building your blog platform, so why not actually write interesting articles that relate to your industry or design in general? Take the opportunity to be creative! People who come to you for kitchen and bath design ideas or products are likely interested in most other design-related topics as well. So why not give them something new: Talk about fashion, interior design, trade shows, food or anything else that creates interest in your site and makes people want to come back for more.
   
4. Yay! Now you have something else to tweet about – and that means yet more traffic. Twitter is a traffic- and community-building tool, and it is incredibly valuable if used correctly. So no, you’re really not meant to tell people what you had for breakfast, unless of course it was a sublime eggs florentine in a luxury resort, in which case, you want to write a blog about it first. But you should use Twitter to share your new blog posts with your followers. This brings people back to your site on a regular basis, helps you establish relationships and draws attention to your branding efforts.

In theory, that all sounds great, I know, but who’s going to do it? You’re in the business of selling products and/or services, not design writing. You can, of course, copy content from other blogs, buy content from a content farm or create your own blogger outreach program that is designed to nurture a relationship between your company and a few select bloggers of your choice. If it’s a good match, you will benefit from content that suits your brand and both your and the bloggers’ efforts to market new posts via your respective social media channels.

But where do you find some of these bloggers?

You can meet many of them on Twitter, where just about all of them share new blog posts and interact with designers and manufacturers on a daily basis. You can also attend – or sponsor – a blogger event like Blogfest2011 in New York or any number of TweetUps that are happening at trade shows and even at local design events.

Or you can contact the authors of the blogs you enjoy reading. You do read blogs, don’t you?

If you’d like a list of my favorite design bloggers or would like to know more about Modenus and the Modenus Blog, feel free to get in touch with me at 407-376-4192 or veronika@modenus.com or follow us on Twitter.