Can I promote my own website?
Yes you can. But you must be patient and fully comprehend every aspect of the methods I have used in promoting my websites and all my customer websites.
Let's start by listing the methods used to promote websites.
Meta Tags
Page Titles
Page Text
Optimizing
Search Engine Submission
Spam Search Engine Taboo
Pay Per Click
Media
Web Catalogs & Directories
Banners
Selling Ad Space
Adwords
Adsense
Word of mouth
Linking and link backs (reciprocal linking)
Forums, Blogs and Chat services
Electronic Newsletter
In order to list your site in their databases, search services must have information about your site. Specifically, they must have the name of your site, a description of your site, and the keywords that can be used to index your site. Historically, search services used special XHTML tags called meta tags to obtain this information.
Meta Tags
Meta tags give information about your site to web servers, search services, and other programs. Meta tags are different from other XHTML elements, because meta tags give information about the pages themselves rather than about the content of the pages. Meta tags are not displayed by browsers for human use but are processed by the browsers and other software for their own use.
Keep in mind, that not all search services use meta tags, and the ones that do use them may not use all of them. Thus, meta tags may help you get more hits on your web site, but they are not a cure-all. For example, the current trend is that search services get keywords from the text in your pages instead of from meta tags. Some services may use meta tags, and the tags should be included in your pages.
Meta Tag Syntax
Unless you have an editor that creates meta tags, you will have to go to the XHTML level of editing to insert them. Let's discuss the syntax of meta tags.
Because meta tags are XHTML tags, they are enclosed in angle brackets. Each meta tag has three dedicated words, meta, name and content . Meta identifies the tag as being a meta tag. Name assigns a property to the tag. Content assigns a value to the property.
Page Description
When search services return results, the results include short descriptions of the pages. Some services obtain descriptions from the text of the page, while other services use descriptions given in description meta tags. By providing brief, legible descriptions of your pages in meta tags, you are able to control the descriptions used by the services that use meta tags. Keep the descriptions to 150 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Include in the description the keywords that are important to the page.
Description meta tags look like the following (all one line).
< meta name="description" content="A web site giving hints and tips for those who love camping in the outdoors the scouting way." />
Keywords
People searching the Internet specify keywords to be searched. The search services check their databases for web pages that are indexed by the keywords. At the present time, most search services extract keywords from the page text, but some services may use the keywords meta tag. Keywords meta tags have the following syntax (all one line).
<meta name="keywords"
content="scouts,camping,tents,hiking" />
Notice the keywords are separated by commas, and the string of keywords is enclosed in quotation marks (double quotes). The number of characters allowed in the content of the meta tag by search services probably varies with the service, but plan for around 1000 characters. Spaces are not used after the commas, because they aren't needed and would only make the content of the meta tag longer. Have short phrases as well as single words between the commas.
Choose carefully the keywords you insert into meta tags. Pretend you are searching the web for sites that have themes similar to your site. List keywords you think people might typically use. Include popular synonyms of your keywords (since search services are now extracting keywords from text, the inclusion of synonyms is one of the most important uses of keyword meta tags). Also include common misspellings of the keywords. Include phrases of two or three words that might be used by persons searching for your site. These phrases are of special importance, because when people search on single words, they usually get more hits than they can examine. People then enter phrases of two, three, or more words to narrow the searches. If you place the same phrases in your meta tags, your site will more likely come up earlier in the searches. Make nouns plural to catch both singular and plural words.
Do not enter keywords more than once or twice. Words in phrases should not also be entered as individual words. Search engines check for repetitions of words and penalize pages that have high repetition rates. This penalization varies with the engine, so to be safe, enter words only one or two times.
The meta tag keyword list is ordered in importance from left to right. Add keywords that are unique to the page to the beginning of the meta tag list. Then end the list with keywords that are unique to your site. By doing this, the most important keywords will be placed at the beginning of the list.
Window-Target
A common but unethical practice that some people practice is to create a framed page and link it to another site. The linked page will be displayed, but because the link is in a framed page, the browser will display the address of the framed page not the address of the page at the link. The result is that the displayed page appears to be published under the domain of the framed page. To avoid this happening to your site, place the "window-target" meta tag in your pages.
<meta http-equiv="window-target" content="_top" />
Robots
Robots are spider or crawler programs that are "owned" by search services and spammers. The robots constantly roam the web and index web sites into their search databases. The robots meta tag, if it is honored by the spiders, allows you to control which pages are indexed and if local links on those pages are followed to obtain more pages to index. Replace xxx with "index", "noindex", "follow", "nofollow", "all", "none", or combinations of those words. "all" is the same as "index,follow", and "none" is the same as "noindex,nofollow".
<meta name="robots" content="xxx" />
Meta Tag Location
Meta tags are placed anywhere within the header of your page . For example, a meta tag could be placed in the header, as follows.
<html>
<head>
<title>blah blah</title>
<meta name="keyword" content="dog,cat,horse,pig,cow,bird" />
</head>
<body>
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Each web page should have an XHTML title that describes the page. This title appears in the title-bar of browsers. It also appears as the name of the link in search results.
The title is entered into some WYSIWYG editors by right clicking on the page background and selecting Page Properties , and then entering the title in the Title field. The generated XHTML element is placed inside the page header.
<html>
<head>
<title>Camping the Scouting Way, tents, backpacking, bsa</title>
</head>
Source Of Keywords For Searches
In addition to identifying the page for browser windows and Internet searches, the title is used by all search services as a source of keywords, and these keywords are usually given the highest priority. Thus, a few of the most important keywords for a page should be included in the title, ordered in importance from left to right.
Each Page Has A Title
Each web page should have its own unique title element. This will help your visitors learn what your pages can do for them, and it will increase the probability of Internet searches finding individual pages in your site and placing them close to the front of the results.
Alphabetical Search Results
A few search services alphabetize their search results. Because of this, some web designers attach letters or punctuation characters to the front of their titles to make their sites appear at the front of the results. For example, if I were to do that with a site, I might use the following as the title of the home page.
<title>AAA Camping the Scouting Way, tents, backpacking, bsa</title>
I don't recommend this practice, because it makes the titles hard to read. In addition, most search services don't alphabetize results.
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The rankings given by search services are affected by the text within your pages, especially your home page. In addition, not all search services use meta tags to obtain descriptions of your pages. Some services create descriptions from the text of the pages. Thus, to obtain higher rankings and to insure that your search descriptions are accurate, follow the following suggestions.
Use the home page to provide a concise and accurate introduction to the theme of the site.
Keep the home page short by placing on subordinate pages information not pertaining to the introduction of the theme. Short pages may receive higher rankings from the search services. In addition, short pages load faster. Some web designers recommend that web pages have at least 250 words so search services have enough text to analyze for keywords.
Place the most important sentences at the top of each page. The top of the page may be more likely to be read by visitors and may be given higher priority by the search services.
Write your page text to have real meaning to your visitors. Page content is king in optimizing web pages. Place the most important keywords throughout the text in each page, especially the top half of the page, but be sure that the keywords fit within the context of their page. That is, do not stuff irrelevant words in your pages in attempts to increase your search ratings. Doing so will dilute your pages, giving you lower ratings, and may cause your pages to be removed from the search services.
Be sure your keywords are relevant to the pages in which they are used.
Organize your pages into subtopics and use "headers" (the XHTML <h> elements) to "announce" each subtopic. Use color and font changes to cause the headers to stand out from the text in the subtopic. The headers will help your visitors navigate through each page, and they may help you to get higher rankings from search services.
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To get high search rankings, you must optimize your web site to have quality content that is useful to your visitors. Let's look at the specific things you can do to optimize your web pages for high search rankings.
First, the most important rule: web pages that have good content for your visitors will likely have high rankings from the search engines. This is critical for good rankings (and to good page design).
Divide your site into categories that are natural and appropriate for the theme of your site. This will help both your visitors and the search engines find the information they are seeking.
Have each web page contain unique information. That is, each page makes its own contribution to the site.
Choose a navigation scheme that is logical and natural, one that your visitors and the search engines can easily follow.
Choose 3 or 4 keywords or phrases that are appropriate for each web page. Because each page is unique, these keywords will be unique with their pages. Write text or copy for each page that gives important, significant, and useful information about the topic (don't just write fluff that doesn't say much). Place your keywords and phrases in a few appropriate places in the text such that the keywords contribute to the value of the text (don't over do this; putting your keywords in too many places may get you penalized by the search engines).
Use variations of the keywords and phrases in a way that is natural for the topic and that contributes to the content of the page. This is important because most search engines extract keywords from the page text for indexing. Put the keywords in the XHTML <title> element and in alternate text attributes for graphics.
When you add keywords and phrases to the text, be sure that they are appropriate to the theme and content of the page. Do not stuff keywords and phrases into the page that don't relate to the theme of the page, and do not repeat the keywords and phrases a lot of times.
Add a description meta tag to each page that briefly (200 characters or less) describes the page. Because each page is unique, these descriptions will be unique with each page. These descriptions may be used by search rankings to describe your links, so write them to entice people to click on your links.
Add a keyword meta tag to each page that contains the 3 or 4 keywords that are special to the page. Since most search engines currently use page text for locating keywords, use the meta tag to give synonyms and common misspellings of the keywords.
Keep the most important pages within the first two sub-levels of your site. Search engines may give higher rankings to web pages that are easy for persons (and spiders) to access, i.e. access with just one or two clicks.
To cover pages that are more than two sub-levels down in your site hierarchy, have a site map that links to every page in the site. Be sure the site map is linked from the home page.
If your site has dynamic pages (pages that are generated dynamically by your server when visitors click on links), have static links to each dynamic page. Search engines don't rank dynamic pages very well. Having static links to those pages helps.
If you redesign your site, such that page URLs change, have a custom 404-error page that points your visitors back to your home page (or another appropriate page). You will need cooperation from your server webmaster in doing this. Besides pointing your visitors to appropriate pages in your site, your custom error page can contain general information about your site to entice your visitors to continue surfing your site. Some designers use a site map as the error page.
Using Flash is ok if you use it like a graphic, i.e. small areas to enhance your pages in appropriate ways. Pages that are nothing but flash will get low rankings since those pages have no (or little) text for the search engines to analyze.
In summary, optimize your site by having excellent content in the web pages. Focus each page on particular keywords, keywords that are unique to each page and are meaningful to your visitors.
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Each search service has its own characteristics. Knowing those characteristics will help you design your site to be ranked higher by the services. Most search services provide Help information that describes how you can improve your ranking. The following links take you to the Help information.
Keep in mind, however, that search engines and directories are not static. They are continually being updated with more refined search algorithms to give better service and to defeat people who try to abuse the engines and directories to get higher rankings.
Free Submissions
AltaVista (uses Yahoo! Search)
HotBot (click on Help)
Lycos (click on Help)
Free Directories
Directories do not have a general ADD URL section. You have to traverse the category directory structure until you are in the category you want your page to be listed in, and then click on ADD URL. Submissions are reviewed by an editor who decides if the submission will be listed.
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Some web developers spam the search services in attempts to get higher rankings. In the beginning, spam worked, but search services are getting more sophisticated, and spam now results in pages and sometimes whole sites being dropped from search service databases. 
Each service has its own definition of spam, but the following list characterizes spam
Repetition of keywords . Search services give higher rankings for multiple occurrences of keywords. Developers abused this by repeating keywords many times, and services now penalizes pages that have repetition of keywords. Some services allow a few (2 or 3) repetitions, but use caution in how much repetition you have.
Scatter your keywords and phrases throughout the page, and use variations of the words. Make the use of the keywords appropriate for the context of the page. Search services now do context checking of keywords.
Keywords not related to web site . Certain keywords, such as sex and naked have high usage in web searches. Some developers add those keywords to their pages in hopes of getting more hits. Search services now do context-testing of keywords and penalize pages that have keywords not related to the themes of the pages.
More than one page title (HTML <title> tag) . Many search services put a high priority on keywords found in page titles, assuming that titles will be read even if the pages aren't read. Pages that had more than one title tag used to get higher rankings, but search services now penalize this abuse.
Text the same color as the background . Most search services now index every word in the text of the page and give higher rankings for words that occur more often. People abused this by repeating keywords in the text many, many times. The repeated keywords were set to the color of the background so they were invisible to the human visitors but visible to the spider software used by the services. Services now penalize this technique.
Duplication of pages with different URLs . A technique that has been used to give multiple listings in search results has been to duplicate a page several times and assign different names (URLs) to the clones. Search services penalize the use of this technique.
A better technique is to divide the site into several unique pages and submit the site to search services. The spiders will eventually visit each page.
Some people create different versions of the same page and optimize the versions for different search services. The pages may be interpreted as spam. If you do this, use a robots.txt file to limit access to a given page by only the service for whom that page is optimized.
Different splash pages linking to same home page . Another technique to get multiple listings in search results has been to have several splash pages link to the same home page. This technique is also being penalized. Again, a better technique is to divide the site into several unique pages.
Different pages given to search services than to human visitors. This is known as cloaking and allows pages that would be hard to read by people to be given to search services. Search services penalize this technique.
Only link to/from appropriate sites . Search engines give higher rankings for sites that have a lot of links coming to them. However, these sites must be appropriate for the theme of your site. Avoid linking to and requesting links from sites that aren't related to your site. Search services want quality links not quantity of links.
Don't resubmit your site many times. After you have submitted your site to a search service, wait until you are indexed before you resubmit your site. Make significant changes to the content of the site before resubmitting
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By paying for visits from people who are searching on keywords related to your product or service, you are almost ensuring that your website will generate more revenue with a higher conversion rate of visitors to customers. The more popular programs include Google AdWords, Overture Content Match and Site Match, as well as smaller players like FindWhat, Kanoodle and Mamma.
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The mainstream media can be effective sources of promotion for your web site, if you play the game by its rules. Make your press releases news worthy, i.e., be sure they convey news that is of general interest. This type of news usually involves the movement of money. Include statistics from reliable sources. People won't be interested in your product unless it will save them money. Design your press releases such that your words create visual images in the minds of people. Plan a series of press releases that tell a story how your company can save them money.
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Taking out annual subscriptions in one or more of the major web catalogs (e.g. Inktomi, FAST, AskJeeves, etc.) and business directories (e.g. YellowPages, Superpages) can help garner some immediate traffic for your website. Web Catalogs tend to work well for new sites, as they get you some all important links in the early stages. Business directories work for virtually any business as they put a listing (or ad) for your website right in front of people looking for exactly what you're selling.
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An advertiser that is interested in posting banner ads on other sites has three basic options. The advertiser can:
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Arrange to display other Web sites' banner ads in exchange for them displaying its ad.
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Pay publisher sites to post its banner.
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Pay an organization, usually a banner network to post the banner on a number of publisher sites.
These three arrangements take many forms and advertisers and publishers must choose the specific arrangement that best suits them. If you want to post banner ads on other sites but don't have the capital to mount a traditional advertising campaign, you may choose to exchange banner ads with other sites. There are two ways you can go about this. The first is to individually develop relationships with other Web sites and trade specific banners. This is a very natural process and allows you to place your banner ads conscientiously and post other Web site banner ads that fit your site well. Your banner ad doesn't end up on very many sites, however, unless you invest a whole lot of your time in seeking out interested webmasters.
If you want to get your banner ad on a lot of sites in a short amount of time (and don't want to pay for it) then your best bet is joining a banner exchange program.
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Selling banner advertising space is a great way to use your site's traffic to generate revenue, but it can be a bit tricky. The easiest option is to join a banner ad network, which will recruit advertisers, keep track of your earnings, and control banner ad placement on your site. In exchange for these services, the network will take a hefty percentage of the advertising money generated by your ad space.
If your site gets a good deal of traffic, more than 100,000 impressions per month, then you should be able to join a good banner network's CPM program. If you have a smaller site, you should look into banner network click-through programs, which tend to have lower minimum traffic requirements. You probably won't make much money in a click-through program, however, because you are only paid when visitors actually click on the banner, which is very seldom (typically, less than 1 percent of the people who see a banner will click on it).
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Google adwords are like pay-per-click search engines in that you can bid on your keyword phrases to determine which position you get. However, they are listed on the right hand side of search results on the Google engine, plus throughout partner sites such as about.com etc., and private sites of relevance that have been accepted into the Google AdSense program (relevance is determined by the content on the page where ads appear). You design your own ads to display, and can also design banner ads to appear in some of their partner sites.
How can we make money off of our existing traffic? Well, Google AdSense of course. Probably the most popular of affiliate programs for one reason, not that it pays the best, but because it has the best mechanism. It takes into account what you have written, and then displays ads it feels to be the most relevant. And this increases your odds of people clicking your ads.
Now many people have all these assumptions when the first start running AdSense ads on their site. Most people think that they will just start raking in the dough for running a couple ads on their site. Guess again. So if you want a get them 20” rims quick scheme, this isn't it, but if your looking to make a little extra money at the expense of running ads on a site, then you should consider AdSense.
Many small-medium sized companies make little or no effort to actually use and maintain their Websites once they've been built. In fact, the majority of small business Websites that I come across in the course of my work do far more harm than good for that very reason. It's sad, but true. With a little effort though, that 'online business card' can become the valuable asset you've always known it could be.
Okay, let's get started....
Launch Your Website
Hopefully you're very proud of your new site and presumably that means you'd like to tell people about it. There are several rather obvious ways that anyone can do this:
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EMail
-
Telephone
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Word of mouth
-
Snail mail
Yes I know -- it's hardly rocket science but it's always helpful to start with the basics, and telling all your customers and friends about your new site is a good way to begin.
Let's look at each of these points in a little more detail:
Email everybody in your address book, and if possible and appropriate, ensure that everyone in your company does the same thing. But be careful! This kind of email can easily be considered spam . Bear these two important points in mind:
-
K.I.S.S. Keep It Short and Simple. 4-5 lines including the URL will be quite sufficient.
-
Send plain text. Don't be tempted to send html email, as many will object to it and some won't even open it. Besides, most email clients will render the URL as a link anyway.
Telephone
We'll focus here on how you might approach your customers (your friends will probably be delighted to hear from you and excited by your new site, so calling them to tell them won't be a big deal).
In my humble opinion (which means that it's not even remotely humble!), there are two rules to promote your site by phone without causing annoyance:
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Call to inform your customers of a genuine benefit to them regarding your new Website.
-
Tell them about it when you next speak to them in the course of business -- don't call them solely to tell them about your site.
For example, you may wish to tell all of your customers where they can now find important information, or perhaps take advantage of a special 'Website-only' offer. More on this later. And remember to tell whoever answers the phones in your business to mention the new site in each call as well.
Word of Mouth
This doesn't really warrant much explanation, other than to point out that when you tell someone about your new site, your recommendation will have a greater impact if you can hand them a business card that shows the URL (or at least write it down for them).
Your efforts here will again have far greater results if the people that you talk to perceive some benefit in visiting you site, such as special offers and relevant information on products and services.
Snail Mail
The rules here are pretty much the same as for email. The best way is to either write a short mailshot that details a specific benefit to be found on your site, or include a small note/paragraph in your regular correspondence to clients. Don't forget to add your website address.
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Linking and link backs (reciprocal linking)
This is a fantastic way to increase the importance of your website in the eyes of the search engines. The rationale that the search engines use is that if other sites are linking to yours, then your site must be important. A link from another site to your site is considered a “vote” for your site. The more of these votes, the better; to an extent, of course. Steer clear of such black hat techniques as link farms and free for all (FFA) sites. I recommend starting by asking your vendors, suppliers and customers if they could link to your site in exchange for a link to theirs. You could then branch out into related businesses that service a different audience (e.g. a competitor in another city that you don't service).
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Forums, Blogs and Chat services
Forums, blogs, bulletin boards and chat services are a relatively good way of putting information on the web. Individuals use them as diaries or journals to document their progress in their endeavors or to record their observations or comments about particular activities. Blogs are primarily one-way discussions from the owners of the blogs, although some blogs allow others to respond to the owner, thus providing two-way discussions.
Bulletin boards or discussion forums provide two-way discussions. Anyone can create new topics or threads and can reply to existing posts, although most forums require visitors to register before they can post. Visitors can read existing posts without having to register. Bulletin boards have existed longer than the world wide web; prior to the web, bulletin boards provided forums through dial-up connections.
Web sites can use these tools to advertise their site, post news releases, tips of the day (or week or month), etc. Bulletin boards can also be used for those activities that are non-commercial. Both blogs and bulletin boards can be used to create feedback pages to allow visitors to comment on the site and information or products offered by the site.
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An electronic newsletter is a fantastic method for staying in touch with not only existing customers, but potential customers as well. Provide useful, interesting information on a regular basis and be sure that people can subscribe and unsubscribe easily. Utilizing a good tool (e.g. Constant Contact) will make your life easier and allow people to forward the newsletter to their friends and colleagues (known as Viral Marketing). You can also use the newsletter as a vehicle for announcements or specials. Never charge anything to subscribers, and build your list by running contests or promotions.
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To begin, search for your requested domain name by typing the name in the box below, (this search service is free) along with the appropriate extension in the drop box below, such as .com .biz, .info, .org (for non-profit organizations), .net (for networks).
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