Site Promotion: Getting the Word Out

If you utilize these guidelines, you will find that your web site will be much more effective. The marketing of a web site is much more than getting hits. It is getting the hits that work.

Announce Your Site on your ISP's Member's Site List
Most Internet Service Providers (ISP) provide a list of their members home pages. Some of these lists are rather simple. Others are broken down into business, personal, and other categories. This is free public relations and people do browse these lists, if for no other reason, to see their own listing. If you can add a description, certainly do so and spend as much care on it as you do in submitting to the search engines.

Submitting to "What's New" Sites
There are many What's New sites on the Internet. Don't forget that the Search Engines and Directories may have a What's New area for submissions.

Optimizing for Search Engines
Several search engines (Alta Vista is one) make use of the META tag to specify descriptions, keywords, author, etc., in addition to analyzing the text of your web pages.

There's no silver bullet in getting a page to appear at the top of every search engine's listings. Generally, any page is competing with several hundreds or thousands of others for the same audience. You can only beat the others by offering something unique, and reflecting that in your choice of keywords. Here are some general tips that help a page to gain more attention while remaining relevant to the product or service provided:

Select your title with care
This is what the web will know your site or page as. It's worth a lot of effort to get it right the first time as updating a page with a search engine may prove difficult. Normally the first heading (H1) will be the same as the title (TITLE). TITLE should contain your most important keywords. If someone searches, for say, "web development tips", and a search engine returns several pages, one of which is titled "Web Development Tips", then they'll probably visit that one first. Don't add extraneous text and keywords to the title.

Use the H1 tag to restate your title
Use the H1 tag near the top of your home page to restate the page's title. It's fine to put an eye- catching logo at the top of the page, but a logo means nothing to a search engine. Consider using both a logo and the H1 tag.

Select your keywords carefully
Determine the two or three dozen keywords that seem to be the most important to your site, then ensure that the most important of those are in your title and mentioned early on your web page. Examine your competitors, or similar sites on the web.

Yes, you must state those things that your pages are definitely about, but you must also find keywords that set you apart from the others. Not many people are likely to search for the exact title of your page but the correct choice of keywords will serve to bring your site nearer to the top for people who search intelligently. You can do nothing for those who simply type in a couple of words and hope.

Don't repeat the same keywords too many times, because it can work against you. In the past, pages rose to the top if they included lots of repeated words. This data manipulation trick is called "spamdex", but it no longer works in most search engines. For example, InfoSeek warns that using a keyword more than seven times in a meta description will cause the description to be ignored. Pages with repeated words are now penalized and will no longer appear prominently on a search results list.

The keywords you consider most important may not be exactly what users enter. Use a thesaurus or brainstorm with others to come up with keywords and synonyms, and then rank them, most important first. This is important -- so spend some time on it. The lack of success with some search engines does not mean that the site isn't being found. People might find you by entering more words. Adding just one or two extra words can dramatically make a site more relevant, and it can be hard to anticipate what that word will be.

Have a descriptive paragraph on your home page
This paragraph is in the HTML HEAD (in a META tag) and in your introductory text. This is what the search engines will usually display to the user if your page is among the search results. People who manually index the web will most likely use this for an annotation. Search engine catalogs contain the text read from the various web pages the engines have visited.

If you want your Web page to be found using certain search words, be sure to include those words near the beginning of the Web page. If you don't want your site to be found using certain search words, make sure they are not included on the Web page. The spider makes determinations about relevant words based on how the words are used on the page. If a page lacks descriptive text, then there is little chance that page will come up in the results of a search engine query.

It's not enough for that text to be in graphics. It must be HTML text. Some search engines will catalog ALT text and text in comment (!--) and META tags. To be safe, a straight HTML description is recommended. If you really cannot put a text description there, use the META tag.

Some search engines only catalog what they find in the user-visible text portions of your Web pages. They ignore anything in META tags, comments, and anything in Java and Perl scripts or CGI directories. If you use frames, consider using the NOFRAMES tag to include information for searchers and for people whose browsers do not support frames. Spiders are often not able to index automatically redirected pages.

The more frequently words are found in Web pages cataloged by most search engines, the more difficult it is to find any particular page containing those frequently used words. For example, "HTML forms and CGI" will appear in hundreds of thousands of other Web pages. Your page might appear as number 51,939 on the search results list of 93,000 Web pages that all four of those words appear in.

Removing or Revising Pages
If you do not want your site to be cataloged at all, follow the instructions on "robots.txt" files. The robots will ignore your site when this file is found. Be sure to delete any old pages from search engines that you no longer want cataloged. If you revise your pages, resubmit them so they can be re-indexed.

Offer Text-only Versions
If your home page has lots of graphics or Java scripts, if you use page redirection, or if most of your site is contained in databases, Perl and CGI, consider creating a text-only Web page that describes your company's or organization's Web site.

Describe the "who/what/when/where/why" of your site
This kind of page is a huge help to people searching for specific information, for the visually impaired who use ASCII-to-voice systems and for people who use text-based browsers like lynx. Put this text-only page in your top-level directory, link it to the home page and submit an ADD SITE request for the text- based page.

Submissions to Award and Review Web Sites
Getting your web site listed as Cool Site of the Day or be designated a Top 5% of the Net, will generate a tremendous amount of traffic to your web site. You can't receive these accolades unless the web reviewers learn about your site. The best way to get noticed, reviewed, and maybe even recognized with an award is to submit information to them just as you did to the search engines. You probably can even use the same text you used for those announcements.

One good paragraph of fifty words or less is probably about right. The reviewers probably won't read much more than that to decide whether your web site is worth a look. The important thing is to write the announcement and to submit it.

There are over 300 review sites where you can submit your web site. Some of them have special criteria for inclusion. For example, there are review sites that only look at scientific web sites. Don't submit your site unless it is appropriate. The science guy doesn't want to know about model railroading.

Not all web reviewers are created equal. A review or award from one reviewer may produce thunderous traffic, whereas another may not even produce a ripple on your site access statistics. Except for a few of the biggest, you can't really tell what will produce the most visitors to your web site. All I can say is submit your web site to as many of the appropriate ones as you can. If you recognize some names, you should probably submit to them first.

Participating in Newsgroups
Post an announcement on all relevant Usenet newsgroups. If your page is a commercial one, you should limit your postings only to newsgroups that are designated for commercial announcements. Remember, you are trying to build goodwill, not ill will. You might do this gradually, posting only one message a day and spaced a few days apart. If you start getting flames (irate e-mail messages) you'll know you are doing something wrong, and these messages will tell you exactly what that is. To avoid any problems you should read the charter for the newsgroups that describes its intended use.

If you have some expertise in a field related to the subject of your web site, you can post answers to other's questions on an appropriate newsgroup. Giving polite, informative answers will earn you a measure of respect from the other newsgroup participants and making sure that your signature includes your web site URL will garner quite a few hits from them. This is free targeted advertising to potential customers or clients already interested in what you have to say or sell.

Making Click Throughs Work
As we hone our banners, meta-tags, and key words in order to get the hits, we sometimes forget that once we bring web surfers to our sites, it is imperative that we make use of that traffic. A successful banner can bring in initial hits, but in order to make those hits work there are a few things that we must remember:

Use Descriptive Banner Text
Even though a misleading or cryptic banner might increase your hits, it will not bring in the types of visitors that you want. When designing your banner, provide a hint as to the type of information that the user will find on your site. This will target your audience and increase effectiveness in the long-run.

Make Your Site Accessible
The Internet is a melting pot of people with varying degrees of computer literacy. Many of the your click-throughs will come from users who are new to the Internet. If you can create content that is clear and easy to understand, there is a much better chance that your visitors will utilize your site to the its fullest extent.

Reciprocal Links

Sell Your Goods and Services
If your site is created for commercial purposes, make sure that you have a sales pitch on your home page. Many of the visitors that will visit your site as a result of your banner will stop at the homepage. If you let them know what you have to offer from the onset, there is an increased possibility that you will attract interest and ultimately make sales.

Bring Them Back
A nice way to increase your hits is to give the web surfer a reason to return to your site. Your banner will only bring visitors to your site once. It is your responsibility to make them come back. Provide a useful service or an information section that is updated weekly. Allow them to want to bookmark your site.

Press Releases
Your press release should target both general interest and special interest media. Your targets should include print, broadcast, and Internet media. General interest media includes your local newspaper, magazines, and radio and television stations. Special Interest media includes trade publications and newsletters that focus on some niche area of interest. The important thing to remember as you pursue this avenue, is that your press release must be newsworthy, i.e., news, if it is going to be published and generate the traffic to your web site that you are seeking. You should also recognize that what's news to one organization isn't necessarily news to another.

If you have the right kind of site you might get into a national magazine. If it's a special interest site it might correspond to a special interest section of the publication or be involved in a special event of the time. For example, if the periodical has a section that covers politics and your web site focuses on politics. You might send them your PR Release on your model railroading web site, for example, just as they are putting together a special report on how model railroading is taking the nation by storm. Most periodicals have a list of upcoming topics, and closing dates, that can be had just for the asking. You might call the editor for the department you are targeting to reinforce your message.

If one of your local stations has a local events or talk show that covers computers, the Internet, or the area of interest of your site it might be an appropriate subject to talk about when you call into the show. Most local stations have a public service announcement service so you should submit your site to that also. You could also offer to tape a 10 minute segment on a regular basis for them focusing on your area of interest on the Information Superhighway.

Writing the Press Release
Writing the press release should not be too difficult. Keep it brief. About two pages double spaced is about right. Always include some direct quotations as if you were being interviewed. With some good direct quotations, the reporter can write the story as if he actually bothered to interview you. Since reporters are very busy people, this extra touch will be very appreciated and your web site is more likely to get some press coverage. A well-written press release can be used verbatim by some trade publications. The trade publications that have no paid subscribers and a lot of advertisers often don't have a lot of reporters hanging around looking for something to do. The editor just might pop your entire release, unedited (He's busy too), right into the publication.

Using your Existing Business Advertising
Advertise your site everywhere your budget allows, put it on your literature, business cards, flyers, etc. If you have built your web site as a means of generating traffic to your business and/or business web site, be sure also to publicize your web site by putting it on your letterhead, your business cards, your invoices, your advertising, and any other form of communication you use regularly to keep in touch with your customers and to pursue new prospects for your business. Don't forget to put a brief description or the web sites name along with its URL in your signature file for your e-mail program. Every time you e-mail someone you want to automatically advertise your web site.