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Strategies for Promoting Your Site

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Now that you've built it, how will they find it?

Unless you actively advertise the existence of your site, there is a good chance that you will be the only visitor your site ever gets. 

Because there are tens of thousands of websites competing for the same universe of surfers, only they that figure out how to successfully promote their site will survive. Fortunately, promoting your site doesn't have to be an overly complex process.  

However, because mastering search engine concepts is a complex topic, we will only cover the basics in this chapter of our tutorial.  For those of you that are interested in exploring this topic further, I've included a list of resources that will provide you with a much higher level of detail. 

Keep in mind that when working with search engines, patience is key.  Structuring your website for optimal search engine ranking is a time consuming process that may involve multiple repetitions of submitting your site and tweaking your page contents/structure.  Seeing positive results can often take weeks, if not months, and will probably require lots of work. If you don't succeed at first, don't give up.

Search Engine Basics

Search engines are the primary windows to the internet.  Their purpose is to index websites in a way that allows people to use keywords to find the sites that interest them. Search Engines send out "robots" to search the web and bring back the full text of pages so they can be indexed not just by the words they contain, but also by phrases.

The key to using search engines effectively is to understand their indexing processes, and use this understanding to maximize your website's search engine readiness.  You will need to structure your web pages so that search engines can easily determine the subject(s) covered, and then index your pages by the appropriate keywords.  

Each search engine is different and has its own unique way of determining relevance.  Some of the more common aspects of your website that search engines review when determining relevance include:

  • Meta tag content
  • Page content and the identification of keywords based on frequency and positioning
  • HTML comments and ALT tags
  • Keywords in URL's
  • Link popularity (how many other sites link to yours)
  • Defining your site's common theme.  

For a comprehensive list of the criteria used by each search engine, click here.  

Let's do it

Properly structuring your web pages is a multi step process.  Below is a generic list of activities that address the most commonly used search engine indexing concepts.  

  • Define your target audience.  What kind of person do you want your site to attract?  What are their needs?  
  • Define and list your site's services.  What does your site offer?  Attracting the appropriate visitors is a matter of matching your services to their needs.
  • Develop a concise page title.  50 characters or less is ideal.  Place this page title in the HTML title tag.  Many search engines use your page title as the site title in their listing.
  • Develop a concise page description.  Try to stay under 200 characters.  This description should be placed in the "description" Meta tag.  Some search engines use this information to describe your site.  Others build their own descriptions from the first paragraph of text on your pages.
  • Develop a list of keywords that describe your site's offerings.  What words most accurately summarize your site's offerings?  Minimize keyword repetition as much as possible.  Try to keep the list below 1000 characters. These keywords should be placed in the "keywords" meta tag.
  • Develop a concise and clear page summary.  Something in the 200 to 250 word range is ideal.  This page summary should be the first text on your page.  Tip: Emphasize importance by repeating keywords from the keyword list; however, don't repeat a keyword more than 7 times.  Some search engines use this information to build descriptive text about your site.

As I mentioned earlier, mastering search engine concepts is a time consuming, complex process.  Applying these concepts to maximize search engine rankings is not easy and will often take lots of tweaking.  From personal experience, I have found that the above basics are a good start in addressing these concepts.

When you're ready to submit your site, you can find a comprehensive list of the major search engine submission pages at searchengines.com.

Search Engine Resources

As a final note, I thought I would mention three of my favorite search engine resources:

  • First, a great site for info on search engines is (you guessed it),  searchengine.com.   They offer a wealth of information in an extremely well organized and easy to use format.  They are an excellent search engine resource and best of all, they're free.
  • The second resource is a book titled:

         "Increase Your Web Traffic in a Weekend 3rd Edition with Cdrom"

    by William R. Stanek. I feel this book is a very good introduction to Web site promotion. Stanek takes a high level look at how search engines work and, how to optimize your site and improve your search engine rankings. He also looks at guides, directories and other promotional techniques. Because this book is a "high level" look at several promotional techniques, he doesn't get into the specific differences between search engines, i.e., he doesn't tell you how to optimize your site for Infoseek Vs Altavista. 
  • And finally, if you would like to get to a very detailed level of optimization that addresses search engine specifics, I would suggest checking out a site called

    www.webposition.com    .

    They specialize in that area and I have found them to be very knowledgeable. In fact, they have a free trial version of their software that I have used and found very beneficial and informative. They also have a downloadable manual that contains lots of useful information on how to optimize your website for each search engine.

Directories

Directories categorize Web sites by topic and provide a brief description of the site.  Unlike search engines that use "robots" to index and list sites, directories use real people to review sites and determine their value and relevance in relation to a particular topic.  For this discussion, I will focus on two directories that I believe will give you the most bang for your buck, Yahoo and ODP (The Open Directory Project).

Yahoo

As I'm sure you've already heard a million times before, getting listed in Yahoo is the single most powerful promotional tool you can utilize.  I personally know website owners whose page views have increased 2000% (two thousand percent) per day just by getting their site listed in Yahoo's directory.  Why?  Because everyone knows that only quality sites are included in the Yahoo directory.

Yahoo has two processes for submitting your site.  Non-commercial sites can use the "standard" free submission process.  Commercial sites must use the "Business Express" process which costs $199.  The Standard process doesn't guarantee a timely response, and it usually takes several weeks before you'll hear back from Yahoo.  The Business Express process guarantees a response within 7 business days.  As I mentioned, the Business Express process is required for commercial sites, but anyone can use it.  Unfortunately, neither process guarantees that your site will be listed in the Yahoo directory. 

When submitting your site to Yahoo, make sure that you follow their instructions to the letter.  Also make sure that you find the most appropriate category/sub-category for your site.  Guidelines for finding the most appropriate category can be found at the Yahoo - Finding an appropriate category page.

Even though there may be a cost associated with getting listed in Yahoo, if you're serious about promoting your site, Yahoo is where you want to be.  

ODP (The Open Directory Project)

The Open Directory Project has recently become more and more widely accepted as an independent directory source for many popular search engines.  Currently, there are 190 sites that use the ODP directory data in their search engines.  Included in this list are search engines such as AOL Search, DirectHit, HotBot, Google, Lycos and Netscape Search.  Because the ODP directory is so widely used, it's a very good idea to submit your site and have it included in their list.  This way, even if you don't get a prominent ranking by their search engine, you will have a presence via their directory list.

When submitting to ODP, just like Yahoo, you should follow their directions carefully.  ODP is a very hightly respected organization and will not tolerate spamming or any misuse of their directory.  Currently, ODP does not charge for inclusion in their directory, making them an even more valuable promotional resource.

To submit your site to the ODP directory, begin at the ODP Home Page and click on the "add URL" link.  You will find step by step instructions for submitting your site.

Newsletters (E-zines)

E-zines (Electronic Magazines) are one of the most powerful tools for establishing and promoting your presence on the web.  Even though running a quality E-zine takes lots of work, it pays for itself many times over.  Some of the stronger benefits and reasons for publishing a newsletter are:

  • Newsletters allow you to maintain a relationship with your customer base.  That periodic email they receive serves as a reminder that you and your site's services are still there.  
  • Newsletters build trust. Providing useful information an a regular basis will establish you as a knowledgeable source of information in your area of expertise. 
  • Newsletters are an excellent informational vehicle.  They allow you to keep your customer base informed about new products, services and changes on your site.

However, there three rules that you absolutely must follow if you are going to publish your own e-zine.  

  • Don't spam.  The best way to accumulate email addresses is through an opt-in box on your site.
  • Do maintain privacy.  Make sure your privacy policy is clear about what you do with the email addresses you acquire.
  • Do provide an easy vehicle for unsubscribing.  Not everyone wants to continue receiving your newsletter and for those that don't, make it easy to get removed from your mailing list.

Finally, if you're seriously considering starting up an Ezine, or would like to improve one that you are currently publishing, visit the Ezine University.  I have found them to be an extremely valuable resource and their site includes an excellent tutorial for developing an effective E-zine from scratch.

Banner Ad Exchange Programs

Banner ads are those flashy rectangular boxes containing promotional material about someone else's site that you often see at the top (or bottom) of a commercial site.  Even though they are still a very popular form of advertising, my personal opinion is that any form of Banner Ad is highly overrated. Statistics show that click through rates have dropped to less than 1/2%, meaning that less than one in every 200 banner views will click through to the promoted site. This fact alone makes banner ads a potentially expensive vehicle for promoting your site. 

A cost effective alternative is to join a Banner Exchange Program.  In a Banner Exchange Program, a third party "provider" collects banner ads from the members and displays your site's ad on other member's sites.  The frequency at which your ad is displayed depends on the number of times other member's ads are displayed on your site.  There are numerous Banner Ad Exchange Programs on the internet; some are good, some not so good.  My recommendation would be the bCentral Banner Network.

The bCentral Banner Network is probably the largest banner exchange program on the web.  They have over 300,000 member sites and offer 2,000 categories from which to choose to target your ad. 

With SmartClicks, for every two banners shown on your site, your banner is displayed on someone else's site.  In addition to having a large member network, SmartClicks also has a very comprehensive reporting tool that provides real-time and historical information on click through's. 

In Summary

As you've probably noticed, promoting your site may be just as much (if not more) work than building your site.  The primary difference between these two efforts is that when you are building your site, you can set your own pace; when you are promoting your site, the promotional vehicles you use set the pace.  Getting a prominent listing in a search engine will require constant tweaking; designing an effective banner ad that attracts visitors may require months of testing; developing a newsletter with a steady following may take years.  Patience and persistence are the true keys to successfully promoting your site.  The bottom line: DON'T GIVE UP.