So you’ve designed and programmed a website, and you want to know how to get people to visit.  This is a common request from clients: “I want to be #1 on Google”.  These days, that is easier said than done.  SEO is definitely more work than creating the actual website.  This article will by no means be exhaustive, it is just a recap of what I have done for this site and what I plan to do in the future.  Hopefully it will give some of you some ideas.  Please share some of your ideas in the comments section.

• Create a blog for your site. This is a big one.  Think about the sites that you generally visit daily/weekly.  The only reason you frequently return is because the content is changing.  A blog is a great way to keep the content fresh.  If you’re a designer, it is likely that you are not completing a project every single day, but it could be interesting to hear about what you’re learning or what projects are coming up in the future.
• Create an RSS feed for your blog. The RSS feed doesn’t necessarily have to accompany a blog; it is actually helpful to have a feed for any of your updates.  More and more people are using RSS readers.  They may be interested in what you have to offer, but they may not want to check the site every day for updates.  With an RSS feed, your readers can be alerted to updates, and in many cases, you might be able to attract a few readers that you may have otherwise lost.
• Digg and Stumble your articles. It is hard to attract visitors to your site. You only have so many friends and acquaintances that you can get to read your blog posts, especially when they are about a specific topic, like web technologies and design.  Sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are great sites to get your updates out to people. I have found that a great number of hits to my site are coming from StumbleUpon.  Traffic increased greatly when I started posting my own blog posts.
• Join and comment in forums and message boards. If you come up with a solution to a problem that you are pretty psyched about, share it.  I just did that last week.  I came across an error message and Googled for the solution.  There was no solution; so I figured it out and posted my solution to my blog and linked to my blog post from several forums that reported the same problem.  I have been getting traffic to my site from these sites ever since.
• On the same note as above - Inbound links are huge for your search engine rankings. If you’re a designer, make sure a link to your site is on all of the client sites that you produce.  Get your peers to link to your site.  Get yourself out into web directories. Get as many people/sites linking to your site as possible.
• Track your improvements to figure out how you can improve even more. There are several tools out there that will help you increase traffic to your site.  A great one that I recently found is http://www.websitegrader.com.  This will generate a free report for you and give your site a grade for its marketing effectiveness.  Right now I am at a 61 and rising relatively quickly (likely because my inbound links are increasing!).  Another tool that I like is http://www.statcounter.com/.  Just pop a small piece of Javascript into your front page code and this site will help you keep track of how visitors are getting to your site, from where geographically, and how many times.

That should get you started on your way to search engine and web domination.  I’ll write a part II to this sometime in the future.  Like I said, please feel free to leave some tips of your own in the comments section.