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Heaven > Secrets of Promoting your Website
You have to tell people you're out there SecretsFact - Most of the traffic to your site will come from search engines! It is most important to get ranked high with the search engines. There are essentially three things you should do in order to get high ranks: 1) Get your website 'search-ready', 2) Submit your site to search engines, 3) Get other sites to link to yours. Major search engines are: Google, Yahoo , and MSN. You can submit your web site directly to them free of charge. It will a few days for the search crawlers to visit your site, but they will. Most search engines, like Google, rank the sites according to keywords and the number of sites that are linking to your site (well, not exactly but its true in general, you can read more about Google's PageRank here). So you must have sites linking to you. "When you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door". But not when building a web page unless your site is among the top listing of popular search engines and linked to from other websites - no one will know your web page even exists. The Internet consists of billions of different web pages and more appear every day so unless you take action in promoting your page you can consider your time and effort a waste. On this page we will try to help you get your web page higher on search engines and more recognized. The number of websites that link to your website is one of the factors that help search engines determine your relevancy for a search term. Link popularity and gaining new links from outside websites to your website have proven to be a popular concept for people seeking to improve their search engine rankings. What is 'link popularity' and how exactly does it work? Search engines don't just look at the content of your website to determine if you are a match for a search. They also look at the number of outside websites that can validate, by linking, that you are a good match. Search engines have also begun to rank the importance of the sites that link to you. This means if the New York Times links to your site, your credibility is higher than if Joe's Online Newspaper provides a link to your website. Search engines also consider the text contained in the link that is pointing to your website. If the text in the links contains keywords you are trying to compete for, the search engines consider your site to have even greater credibility. Since link popularity has become a factor that people feel like they have some influence over in determining their search engine positioning, many solutions have been proposed for growing your online link popularity. One of the more popular ways is also one of the least effective. Several software programs have been written that help you create lists of websites in your space that might be willing to link to you. These programs also help you gather the email addresses for these sites and even help you craft an email requesting that the site add a link to yours. The concept sounds good but the results are often mixed. If you use one of these tools and simply follow the templates they give you, your email will read like a spam message that won't be taken seriously. The best way to build long-term link popularity is to offer good content and features that provide real value to your audience. As people discover your website and realize its benefits, the likelihood of them linking to your website naturally increases. There are several critical targets if you want to build up your link popularity without appearing to be a spammer. The first is good links from Yahoo and the Open Directory Project. Both of these sites are human based directories that have a lot of influence over search results. If your site is listed in the correct category and has a good description, links from these two websites are seen as validating you are the real thing. The second place it's important to have a link from is topic specific or niche directories. These are websites that are dedicated to news and information that is an exact match for what you provide online. If you have a website that deals with tractor parts, being listed on sites that focus on tractors is very important. In the case where a niche website doesn't know about your website, it's okay to ask them to link to your website. But your message should be personalized to them and also tell them the benefit or feature their users will get from linking to you. Another part of the web that helps build your link popularity is resource sites. Resource sites are lists of links that people put up on their own. These pages are often spread amongst friends and readers who find good information available from the resource. In order to reach this audience, a good PR campaign and press releases can ensure that these individuals know you exist and have a link to your website that they can easily include. One of the most overlooked spots for building link popularity is links from partners and vendors for your business. Because you already have a business relationship with these companies or individuals, you are more likely to be able to request and receive a link from their website. These websites help validate your place online and also establish you within a community of websites online. If you are visible to the community, you are more visible to the search engines. Link popularity also starts at home. You must make sure your link architecture is solid and easily followed by search engines. That's the first way that search engines see you. It's also the way that visitors find information within your website. The easier you make it on your audience to find good information, the more likely they are to link to it. The final way you can work to increase your link popularity is to participate in newsletters and online forums that relate to your website. You don't want to just jump in and give a plug for your URL. You must participate in the discussion as an expert or authority who gives good advice. When you sign your name at the bottom of your posting, be sure to include a signature that includes a link to your website. If these forums and newsletters are archived and remain online, search engines continue to see them and the links they contain. If your website doesn't have a lot of content and you are wondering how you can build your link popularity you should think about building a tool or feature on your website that will be valuable to your online audience. Marketleap's Search Engine Marketing tools are a good example of a feature built to generate link popularity. Marketleap's free tools provide unique data for search engine marketers that they can't find other places. We've also made it possible for people to place our tools on their sites easily by cutting and pasting a piece of HTML code into their web page. Because the tools are valuable to our community, many websites have linked to the tools or added the tool to their own website. Consequently, if you search for "link popularity" at Google, Marketleap will usually appear in the top 3 results on the first page. Link popularity will continue to be an essential factor in successful search engine marketing initiatives for the foreseeable future. Links are a helpful tool for search engines trying to wade through billions of documents and find ones that are relevant to their users. Content
- Content is king and the most important first step any site should do
is create content. Search engines have web robots designed to search a
website and grab keywords and text from the website to be listed on their
search engine. Without a lot of content and pages your chances of being
found are a lot less slim. For example if your web page has ten pages and
your competitors has 100 pages, it is a lot more likely that your competitors
website will be found first. In addition, if your site contains content
that is updated frequently, you give your visitors yet another reason to
visit and bookmark your site. Most users do not just visit websites to
purchase products; many users are looking for information about a particular
subject.
Metatags - Metatags are hidden text found in the source code of a web page - in between your <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags - and are commonly queried by many search engines. Below are some examples of how to use metatags in your HTML Code. Example:Add tags similar to the above two tags into the heading of your web page. In the above examples we list the description of this page you are currently reading, this description is commonly used for the description of your website when it is listed in a search engine. The second tag are keywords that relate to this page. Finally, the last three tags should be used on your primary page, these tags tell web robots how and when to index all your pages. In the above example we are telling the robots to check the website every 15 days and to index all following pages. Make sure to also read the next section on the robots.txt file for additional tips on directing web robots aka webbots or spiders. If you're still having problems check out MetaCrafter - it will set up your metatags automatically. General Rules of Metatags:-
Search engines that utilize metatags will only pull the first few lines of the description and keywords (although you can use up to some 1,000 keywords if you so wish). Do not post more then four lines of information as it will not be viewed by the search engine and could cause the search engine to deny your page. Post the description and keywords of information that is really on your site. There is nothing worse to then entering keywords or descriptions that do not relate to the page they are on. Commonly this will cause a search engine to block the page and/or complete web site if caught. In addition tricking your customers or visitors to visit your site is not going to help your website. Titles - A lot of search engines use the title of your web page when displaying your site in their listings. Therefore it is always a good idea to place a little more information into the title of your page such as the main keywords. Your 'title' tag could well be a synopsis of your 'description' tag but keep the title short (at most two or three lines or 80 characters), use words that you think a potential visitor may be searching for, and make the title understandable. For example our title for this page is 'Secrets of promoting your web page' this title is not only descriptive but also has commonly used keywords such as 'secrets', 'web page', and 'promoting'. E-mail - If you allow your visitors to e-mail you you shoul reply promptly although this can be very hard when you receive a lot of e-mail. If you experience large volumes of e-mail make sure to mention this to users before they e-mail you. When responding always make sure to have a signature which gives your web page's name, address, and your e-mail address. This helps remind users of your websites address and is an excellent free method of advertising. However, we highly recommend that you do not participate in spam, not only do users commonly not pay attention to spam, but those that do often block you and/or your website from sending mail to their servers and often users will make an effort not to visit your site. 'Free' - A lot of the people browsing the Internet are looking for free information, much like a user visiting a library does not expect to pay to read a book. If your site contains free information make sure to mention it, for example: 'ClickMe for FREE Computer Technical Support'. But do not use the word 'free' unless your site truly offers something for free with no gimmicks, to do so would be a deception Although 'free' is a word commonly abused, users who have followed your site from a link indicating it is free, only to find that it is not free, will loose respect for you and your company and will likely immediately leave. Bad Links - Bad links are a growing issue and commonly will cause your visitors to look elsewhere or make the visitor irate. If possible try to never change any of your links on your page, even if you plan on redesigning a web page. It is likely that those pages are already indexed in search engines, linked on other web pages, or even bookmarked. Removing or moving your page is like starting all over, and could cause a loss of visitors. Analyze your
own web page on the search engines. Generally you may have the ability
on big search engines to see who is linking to your website and/or how
many of your links are on a search engine. Search engines that provide
these features commonly have them in the advanced section of their search
engine. Below are some examples of how this can be done in some of the
more popular search engines.
url://http://www.celticsurf.net - Shows you the URL's Altavista currently has listed on its search engine.Google has similar features to those listed above link http://www.celticsurf.net - Shows you pages Google has in its search engine that link to your web page.Marketleap provides a free 'popularity scan' of your website, detailing the search engines linking to your site and the number of links from each. Make sure to update and/or add new information to your website or sections of your website frequently. Not only does this help keep visitors checking your website frequently, but it also grabs the attention of search engines such as Google, that watch for sites that are frequently updated and may also help keep your site on the top listing of search engines. Make updates and/or adding new information to your site at least once a month, the more often you update your site and add new fresh information the more likely it will be listed higher on search engines as well as visited. Domain / URL - When registering a domain name, make sure the name is short and simple. For example, 'celticsurf' is a much easier name to remember and type than 'celticsurfsfreetechnicalhelp'. Visitors may want to send a link of your website to a friend in e-mail or tell them about it on the phone. If your link is to long or cumbersome the user will likely become discouraged and not mention it or remember it. Many of the common domain names have already been taken, so make sure that you have several names in your mind or down on paper - a domain name lookup or 'whois' is available through various sites. Navigation and Layout - If a user is unable to navigate your website they are not going to be able to view all your information and/or will likely leave your website. Statistically, a user who is visiting your website for the first time will only give it a few seconds' viewing time. So always provide your visitors with destinations, interesting destinations, don't just leave them hanging. If the user is not able to navigate past your first page they will likely quickly leave your site - forever. See also our page on navigating your website Spelling and grammar - Your page is likely to be seen by thousands or even millions of different types of people, watch your spelling and grammar and make sure that is correct. Links
- Link to other popular related pages and see if they participate in any
type of link exchange. Google bases its results on who else is linked to
your site and how popular their site is. The more people that link to you
the more likely you will be found and in Google's case the more likely
you will be at the top of the search results.
Should you
submit all your pages to the search engines or just your main page? This
depends on whether or not you want all your pages to be found by
the search engine in question, there may be pages you don't want indexed.
Some search engines will only index the pages you actually submit and will
not crawl or spider your website looking for additional pages. Some engines,
notably Google and Lycos, will spider your whole site starting with your
root page. In general, though, it's always best to submit all pages you
want indexed. But be careful, some sites will only allow you to submit
so many URLs in any 24 hour period and others will not allow you to submit
more than one URL.
AllTheWeb - Search results on AlltheWeb are provided by Yahoo! which is one of the most visited and well-known search engines on the Internet. To add to Yahoo itself you will need to go through the index and find the page that has the category of your page. Choose the option to 'suggest a site' at the bottom of the page. This is similar to the method long-used by dMoz. Keep in mind Yahoo is the one of the hardest locations to get a link on because the each page is manually added and the majority of the Internet wants to be on Yahoo! Generally speaking it could take anywhere from two to four months to get listed on their pages. Alexa - Alexa, a subsidiary of Amazon, is a very influential and upcoming search engine. Altavista - Altavista is another frequently used search engine and service. When posting your site you will be able to get your link on their page a lot faster than what you will on Yahoo, which means you should post links to each of the main pages on your web site. Google- Today Google is the ranked as the most popular and well-known search engines on the Internet and is commonly is the only search engine used by many people. We highly recommend that you ensure your site is listed on Google. Google has a unique method of sorting pages, known as a "PageRank" each page on the Internet is given a rating. Although Google does not disclose all the factors used to create a PageRank, below are a listing of some of things that are believed to help create the PageRank.
How much content is on the page and how often that content is updated. Some words, when followed by a colon, have special meanings to Google. One such word for Google is the link: operator. The query link:siteURL shows you all the pages that point to that URL. For example, link:www.google.com will show you all the pages that point to Google's home page. You cannot combine a link: search with a regular keyword search. Excite - Excite gives you access to more then 50 million pages, 140,000 pre-selected Web site listings, and thousands of Usenet postings and is a valuable source of visits to your page. Northern Lights - Northern Lights is another big search engine that has the capability of using other search engines as well as its own. Look Smart - Look Smart is a search engine is similar database to Yahoo! with over 18,000 different subjects to explore, like Yahoo! you have to browse their search engine to find an appropriate location using the link at the bottom of the page
These search engines and directories provide a free submissions page where
you can submit your website and a few pages of your website to be included
in their results.
Marketleap
recommends that you read the search engine's submission guidelines and
not submit your website unnecessarily or excessively.
Meta tags - Keywords and DescriptionOften people starting an internet business don't have a clue how to go about their marketing campaign. They end up posting ads aimlessly to places that do nothing but send them spam and waste time and money. When used correctly these marketing techniques will dramatically increase traffic and sales without emptying your bank account. INTERNET MARKETING TECHNIQUES PPCs (Pay
Per Click) - These are a very widely used method of getting traffic
to your website. Pretty much everyone uses PPC's at one time or another.
The concept is really simple… you bid a certain amount on keywords related
to your product or service. Then when someone searches for those keywords
they find your ad (assuming you bid high enough). Finally, they click on
your ad and you pay the amount you bid. This is great because you only
pay for traffic that actually goes to your site and all the traffic is
targeted.
Article
Writing - Writing articles is another great way to generate a lot of
quality traffic as well as make a name for yourself on the internet. All
you do is write on a topic you know about and submit it to places that
accept article submissions. This one scares people at first because they
don’t think they can write.
Forum Submissions - Basically all you do with this one is go to internet business forums and post answers to people’s questions. This one is more for making a solid reputation for yourself as a knowledgeable and trustworthy individual. Ezines
– Ezines are one of the best sources of information on the web. They
can make a huge impact on your marketing success if used correctly. Most
Ezines offer ad space that you can buy for fairly cheap. Some even accept
ads for free. You can also write articles (explained above) and submit
them to Ezines to get free exposure. The Directory of Ezines (DOE) is well-known
as the premier resource for the best Ezines. You can find the DOE at http://tinyurl.com/39do4
SUBMITTING YOUR LINKS You could try
the SubmitWolf and Dynamic2000 submission programmes, both of which have
free versions, enabling you to target submissions according to the nature
of your site. And get listed on google and dmoz. And get other sites to
link to yours to improve your ranking.
Link Swapping
- It's kind of a Catch22 situation to get good PR (page rankings). For
other webmasters to want to trade links with you you need to have good
rankings, but to get good rankings you already need to have links - in
Google, anyhow. Linking to other sites willynilly could certainly damage
the value of your links and therefore the willingness of other webmasters
to want to trade links with you.
FINALLY Start out slowly.
If possible, begin with a new site that has nëver been submitted to
the search engines or directories. Choose a domain name that best fits
your brand, and start out by optimizing just the home page.
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