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Fishbone Diagram Case Study – How to Increase Website Traffic
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In this article I will explain in detail on how to draw a Fishbone diagram using a Case study. The Case Study is on ―How to Increase website traffic?‖ I Have also created a 15 slide presentation for you using Microsoft office 2007, which you can use it as a
template to solve different problems and share it with audience.
The Cause & Effect, or fishbone diagram, was first used by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa of the University of Tokyo in 1943 - hence it is also called as "Ishikawa Diagram". This diagram is used to identify all of the contributing root causes likely to be causing a problem. This methodology can be used on any type of problem, and can be tailored by the user to fit the circumstances. I have used this diagram to identify the root cause on " How to increase website traffic"
Some of the advantages of using fishbone diagram are
It is simple and easy to learn.
It is a visual tool.
It can be used to solve any problem.
Preparation of the fishbone diagram helps to educate the whole team and related stakeholders.
Evolves discussion to stay focused on the current challenges.
Enables "Organized Thinking".
Fishbone Diagram Case Study – How To Increase Website Traffic
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Fishbone Diagram Case study – How to increase website traffic?
Problem statement:
The website is a quality blog using a good wordpress template.
The site has approximately 10 articles and few interesting free downloads.
The site is 3 months old.
The site is attracting approximately 20 new visitors per day.
The web traffic has to be increased to approximately 100 Visitors per day, in next 3 months.
Options and challenges available:
First activity was to surf the net and see what Google search has to offer. Following are few of many many documents I got from Google, it was very confusing on where and how to start. (See the image below, the same is also available in my presentation).
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I have decided to use Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa’s method to analyze the problem. So, I spent few days to build a fishbone diagram. Following are the step by step approach.
Step 1 Define the Problem statement
Use a white board, or a flip chart to get started. I have used paste it stickers in my presentation. You can download my presentation from here.
Write the problem to be solved (the EFFECT) as descriptively as possible on one side of the work space and then draw the "backbone of the fish", as shown
below. The example we have chosen to illustrate is "Not getting Traffic to web site‖ or ―How to increase the Traffic?‖
Fishbone Diagram Case Study – How To Increase Website Traffic
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Step 2: Categorize the Cause
The next step is to decide how to categorize the causes. There are two basic methods:
By function, or
By process sequence.
The most frequent approach is to categorize by function. In this case also there can be many functions, but I have selected following 5 bones of the fish for our case study.
Quality content
Advertise your web site
Track and monitor website
Ensure search engine traffic
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Step 3: Brainstorm and Identify Sub categories for each bone
You can see that this is not enough detail to identify the specific root causes. There are usually many contributors to a problem, so an effective fishbone diagram will have many potential causes listed in categories and sub-categories. The detailed sub-categories can be generated from many sources. Few are listed below: Brainstorming by group/team members based on prior experiences.
Data collected from different source.
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Step 3a: Bones of “how to build quality content”
a) Build your own Content for your Niche
Once you identify your niche, it is very important you build your own content. The theme can be simply about the product or activities the site is expected to
demonstrate.
b) Create free downloadable tutorials
Always free content attracts traffic, ensure you create good quality articles on the theme of the website. The articles can be tutorials with ―how to do‖.
Example: If your site is expected to sell Photoshop web templates, then write a tutorial on how to create Photoshop templates.
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The key words get indexed by Google and other search engines. Try and Build Content based on keyword.
Example: if your site is to attract freelance workers on Oracle products, then write content on different products of Oracle for example, Oracle 10G database, Oracle Siebel etc. The keyword like Oracle and Oracle products will get indexed.
d) Write free downloadable articles
Articles are different from ―how to‖ tutorials. Articles can be info about products, or simple question answers, or even about frequently asked questions.
Example: If you are building a site with presentation as theme, then create a presentation about SWOT analysis.
e) Outsource development of content
Content for a website is like ―King‖ for a country. Writing content is not going to be easy. Define the specification or framework and outsource content development. There are experts who can build content for you even at $5 per content.
f) Write Review comparing Products on the theme
Writing review about the theme of related products can be another way of writing good content. You can also write about the different affiliate products you are planning to partner with.
Step 3b: Bones of “Advertise”
Any web site you are trying to build must be advertised. The Internet has millions and millions of web site, unless you tell about your web site, how people will know such a good website exists? Let us go into detail of each bone of advertise and understand how to advertise for your web site.
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a)
Capture Visitor Email Id
As you keep building quality content, traffic will start to increase for your website, in search of content. Most of these visitors are just surfing for free content, and may not be serious visitors. But there will be few who are interested in your content and would like to come back to your site.We need to include an opt-in form to capture their contact details. For this I would recommend you use PopUp Domination. This is an excellent software that helps you create attractive opt-in forms that will help you capture visitor details as soon as they visit your website.
b)
Use RSS Feeds to publicize your article:
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works, such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video— in a standardized format. A RSS document (which is called a "feed", or "web feed",
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or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and author details. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. Google provide Feed Burner, I have used this mechanisms to publish all my posts.
c) Pay per Click Advertising:
This can be expensive; all three majors provide Pay per click methods.
Google - Google Adwords,
Microsoft - Microsoft Adcenter, and
Yahoo - Yahoo Search Marketing.
d)
Register and become part of Social Network
:Become Part of a Social Media Community. Some of the best online communities for business include Facebook (www.facebook.com), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), and Twitter (www.twitter.com). In addition, you may want to participate in a social bookmarking community in which members share with each other information about websites, articles, or news items that they like. These include Digg (www.digg.com), Delicious (www.delicious.com), StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com), and Google Bookmarks (www.google.com/bookmarks/).
e) Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing can be a good tool to advertise and generate traffic. When the site is new you can become an affiliate and sell other good products in the same niche. As the traffic to the website improves and you have your own good products you can create affiliates to sell your products.
f) Email Marketing:
Email marketing can be an excellent tool to do marketing. Create good email templates and target segment of your niche and do marketing.For your email marketing I recommend you use Aweber. Aweber is an excellent software to manage and automate your email marketing campaigns.
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Step 3C: Bones of “Search Engine Registration”
Registering in search engines is a very important activity and must be done at very early stage as you start adding content to the web site. Let us understand the bones of Search engine registration.
a)
Register in major search engine
.These search engines has Robots/Spiders/Crawler which will crawl into your web site and index your content and web pages. Some of the major robots are
Yahoo Slurp: Yahoo Slurp is a web crawler from Yahoo! that obtains content for the Yahoo! Search engine. Slurp is based on search technology Yahoo
Googlebot: Googlebot is the search bot software used by Google, which collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the Google search engine.
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Microsoft to supply Bing. It collects documents from the web to build a searchable index for the MSN Search engine
Ask: Ask is a search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California
Alexa : Alexa has an interesting difference from all other search engines is Alexa's toolbar; it doesn't just allow searches, it also supplies web site statistics, and list of related web sites.
b)
Register in Internet Web Directories
A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. It is a search tool created by editors or trained researchers who categorize or classify Web sites by subject. A web Directory is a web site (usually about a certain topic) that contains links to other websites or resources. Unlike search engines, web directory listings are reviewed and added by human editors. It is important you register your web site to the directories of your subject.
c) Remove Broken Link
The major search engines and web directories send their robot and spiders to search and index your keywords and content. In this process if they locate any broken links these search engines rate your web site ranking very low. It is very important that your web site should not have any broken links.
d) Register in Attracta, from Cpanel
The top webhosting companies provide a dashboard called Cpanel. The Cpanel has a few free search engine registration tool. As the traffic starts improving register in Attracta which is part of your Cpanel.
e) Create Sitemap for the website
As you build content to your website the navigation in your website can become difficult and complex. Hence it is essential you build site map to your website and
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add it to the menu. Also search engines refer to the sitemap of you website to crawl and index the content and pages.
f) Register your content in tutorial site
There are many tutorial sites on the web. It is essential you register and publish your tutorial in relevant tutorial sites of same subjects.
Example: if you are putting up a website on software certification exam, the tutorial you write on related subject like oracle database, can also be published in oracle tutorial sites.
Step 3d: Bones of “Track and Monitor Site Traffic”
As the time passes by it is extremely critical you track and monitor the type of traffic you are getting to your web site. The reasons can be many
What type of traffic is going to be consistent in the future?
What kind of advertisement and marketing activity is working?
Where to focus your revenue model?
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a) Use cPanel to Track
Most of the web hosting company provides dashboard or Control panel to monitor the traffic. It is very important you use proper web hosting company to provide space for your web site. I suggest you use HostGator. It provides an excellent service and excellent tools. The dashboard provides different kind of statistics to track the web traffic. Use this coupon code to get a $10 discount at Hostgator only for
JazzPresentation Readers. JAZZPRES10
b) Use Google Analytics
Google provides excellent tool called ―Google Analytics‖ to monitor your web site traffic. Once it is configured for your website, the tool provides different kinds of graphical analysis.
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As the traffic increases it is essential you reach high ranking in Google and in alexa. Both Google and alexa follows different mechanism to rank the site. You can
monitor the Google site ranking thru Google tool bar or the alexa ranking thru alexa tool bar. Higher the rank, your site will appear in first few pages of search.
d) Configure and Track Adsense
Install and configure Google Adsense. It is a powerful tool provided by Google. Adsense allows others to use your website for advertising their content. It can be a marginal revenue generating tool for your site. Monitoring Adsense channels can also be very effective to identify the type traffic you are getting for your website.
e) Track Free Download
As you add free downloads to your website, it is essential you monitor the number of downloads of free content. There are many download counters available on the internet to track your free downloads. Either you develop or use a readymade download counters available in the net. Tracking the downloads will help you to monitor the type of traffic to your website.
Step 3e: Bones of “Build Back links“
Building ―Backlinks‖ is an very important activity. Based on number of Backlinks your site has the search engines rank your site higher. There are many important
activities you will have to perform to generate backlinks. Let us study each bone of ―Building backlinks‖
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a) Leave Signature and Comments in Social network
We have already discussed about the importance of registering in social networks. To generate backlinks it is very important to leave comments and your website address in your signature. Social network can be an ocean, hence you must ensure you work only on your subject, otherwise it can create spam.
b) Create list
Creating Top list in related products can be a very good way of generating backlinks. Here are few examples:
If you are selling Web templates – Create a list of top ten websites which are selling web template
If you selling or affiliate for web hosting service then create a list of top ten web hosting service companies.
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c) Create Content in you tube
YouTube is one of the most popular sites and in addition to all the fun there,
YouTube offers many opportunities for promotion and getting traffic to your site. It is a very good way of creating backlinks.
d) Link Trading
Link trading is the task of getting links to your site on other sites by trading links. This is done to get more traffic to you web site. Link trading creates more traffic in two main ways, increased search engine rankings and also from the traffic the links themselves generate from people clicking on them.
e) Create How to Guides
In most of the cases I have a problem, I do not know how to solve it, and I do a Google search. This means what people are looking for is ―How to guides‖. Most of the surfers love how to guides. If your how to guides are good sites will start creating backlinks to your site.
f) Write about product trends
Another important content people surf for is latest trends and new features about products. Again if your content is good and talks about new trends good websites will start creating backlinks to your site.
Step 4 Summary - 5 identified Root Cause
Quality content
Advertise your web site
Track and monitor website
Ensure search engine traffic
Build backlinks
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