Online marketing Whether your web site needs search engine optimisation or just to be seen by google or yahoo, listing position is as important today as it ever was...
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Marketing your Web Site
21 Ways to Promote Your Website
How can you get more visitors to your website? What can you do to stimulate traffic? There is no easy process to this. It’s all about building a website that can be seen and crawled by search engines. This is not the be all or end all but by taking these steps we can get some way to improving your rankings.
Search Engine Strategies
Perhaps the most important, and inexpensive -- strategy is to rank high for your preferred words on the main search engines in "organic" or "natural" searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot "spiders" to index and crawl the content on your webpage. We’re not trying to trick the search engines, but to leave them a number of clues as to what your webpage is about.
1.The Page Title.
Write a descriptive title for each page of 5 to 8 words. Remove as many "filler" words from the title, such as "the," "and," etc. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>Dynamite Creative. Graphic Design, Web Design, Photography </TITLE>.
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialise in gold darts and that's what people will be searching for, don't just use your company name "Drinking Sports Ltd." use "Gold and Silver Darts Drinking Sports Ltd." The words people are most likely to search on should appear first in the title (called "keyword prominence"). Remember, this title is nearly your entire identity on the search engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue hyperlinked words on the search engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.
2. Write a Description and Keyword META Tag.
The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and key phrases on this page. If you include keywords that aren't used on the webpage, you could hurt yourself. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title. <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links">. Your maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.
When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag. Then for the keywords META tag, I strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty words and phrases. The keywords META tag is no longer used for ranking your site, by Google, but it is currently used by Yahoo, so I'm leaving it in. Who knows when more search engines will consider it important again? Every webpage in your site should have a title, and META description tag.
3. Include Your Keywords in Header Tags H1, H2, H3.
Search engines consider words that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don't expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines, it won't. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)
4. Make Sure Your Keywords Are in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text.
Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document, where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don't want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it. Other places you might consider including keywords would be in ALT tags and perhaps COMMENT tags, though few search engines give these much if any weight.
5. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks.
Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your page. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and keyphrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or key phrase, such as silver _darts.htm -- another clue for the search engine.
6. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly.
Some webmasters use frames, but frames can cause serious problems with search engines. Even if search engines can find your content pages, they could be missing the key navigation to help visitors get to the rest of your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don't read JavaScript and Flash. Supplement them with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. A site map with links to all your pages can help, too. If your site isn't getting indexed fully, make sure you submit a Google Sitemap following directions on Google's site (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login). Be aware that some content management systems and e-commerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages. You can sometimes recognize them by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes stop at the question mark and refuse to go farther. If you find the search engines aren't indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, and targeted content pages (see below). Commercial solutions include Bruce Clay's Dynamic Site Mapping (www.bruceclay.com/web_dsm.htm) and YourAmigo.com's SpiderLinker (www.youramigo.com)
7. Develop Several Pages Focused on Particular Keywords.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) specialists no longer recommend using external doorway or gateway pages, since nearly duplicate webpages might get you penalized. Rather, develop several webpages on your site, each of which is focused on a different keyword or keyphrase. For example, instead of listing all your services on a single webpage, try developing a separate webpage for each. These pages will rank higher for their keywords since they contain targeted rather than general content. You can't fully optimize all the webpages in your site, but these focused-content webpages you'll want to spend lots of time tweaking to improve their rank.
8. Submit Your Webpage URL to Search Engines.
Next, submit your homepage URL to the important Web search engines that robotically index the Web. Look for a link on the search engine for "Add Your URL." In the US, the most used search engines are: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL Search, and Ask.com. Some of these feed search content to the other main search engines and portal sites. For Europe and other areas you'll want to submit to regional search engines. It's a waste of money to pay someone to submit your site to hundreds of search engines. Avoid registering with FFA (Free For All pages) and other link farms. They don't work well, bring you lots of spam e-mails, and could cause you to be penalised by the search engines. We'll talk about submitting to directories under "Linking Strategies" below. If your page is already indexed by a search engine, don't re-submit it unless you've made significant changes; the search engine spider will come back and revisit it soon anyway.
9. Fine-tune with Search Engine Optimization.
Now fine-tune your focused-content pages (described in point 7), and perhaps your home page, by making minor adjustments to help them rank high.
Many small and large businesses outsource search engine positioning because of the considerable time investment it requires.
10. Promote Your Local Business on the Internet.
These days many people search for local businesses on the Internet. To make sure they find you include on every page of your website the street address, zip code, phone number, and the five or 10 other local community place names your business serves. If you can, include place names in the title tag, too. When you seek links to your site, a local business should get links from local businesses with place names in the communities you serve and complementary businesses in your industry nationwide.
Traditional Strategies
Just because "old media" strategies aren't on the Internet doesn't mean they aren't effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.
17. Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature.
This is a no-brainer that is sometimes overlooked. Make sure that all reprints of cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company's URL. And see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct. In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and including only the www.mydomain.com portion.
18. Promote using traditional media.
Don't discontinue print advertising that you've found effective. But be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages, etc. View your website as an information adjunct to the ad. Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers' attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals. Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising. Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.
19. Develop a Free Service.
It's boring to invite people, "Come to our site and learn about our business." It's quite another to say "Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site." Make no mistake, it's expensive in time and energy to develop free resources, such as this information you see here, but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site. Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales part of your site.
E-Mail Strategies
Don't neglect e-mail as an important way to bring people to your website. Just don't spam. That is, don't send bulk unsolicited e-mails without permission to people with whom you have no relationship. Make sure you have an opt in subscription on all electronic communications.
20. Install a "Signature" in your E-Mail Program
Help potential customers get in touch with you.Most e-mail programs such as AOL, Netscape, and Outlook allow you to designate a "signature" to appear at the end of each message you send. Limit it to 6 to 8 lines: Company name, address, phone number, URL, e-mail address, and a one-phrase description of your unique business offering. Look for examples on e-mail messages sent to you.
21. Publish an E-Mail Newsletter.
While it's a big commitment in time, publishing a monthly e-mail newsletter ("ezine") is one of the very best ways to keep in touch with your prospects, generate trust, develop brand awareness, and build future business. It also helps you collect e-mail addresses from those who visit your site but aren't yet ready to make a purchase. Ask for an e-mail address and first name so you can personalise the newsletter.