Site Promotion
Our mantra:
The key to high search engine rankings is to do the
right things in the right order:
-
Establish your
web presence.
-
Find the right keywords for your web site.
-
Optimize your web pages for these keywords so
as to get high search engine rankings.
-
Submit your web pages to all important search engines
and directories so that prospective customers can find you.
-
Get links that
contain your keywords from other quality web sites.
-
Track the results.
The Web Marketing Checklist:
31 Ways to Promote Your Website
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant
Web Marketing Today, May 4, 2005
|
 |
| Note: The following article includes dozens of links to resources
and more information -- much of it carefully organized on my website
(and in some e-books) for further study, much of it entirely free.
Please excuse the many links to my site. This article originally
appeared in Web Marketing Today, Issue 39, December 1, 1997. As
one of our most popular articles, it was revised most recently on May 4,
2005. |
Cited in PC Magazine,
9/21/99, p. 36
 |
How can you get more visitors to your website? What can you do to
stimulate traffic? Here's a checklist of 31 items you need to consider. Many
of these you're probably doing already; others you meant to do and forgot
about; still others you've never heard of. Of course, a great deal has been
written about this. You'll find links to thousands of articles on site
promotion in our Web Marketing Info
Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/). While we're not breaking any new ground
here, we've tried to summarize some of the most important techniques.
Search Engine Strategies
The most important 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 the content on your
webpage, so let's begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal
indexing.
1. Write a 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>Web Marketing Checklist
-- 31 Ways to Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue
bar at the top of your web browser.)
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on
your home page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that's what people
will be searching for, don't just use your company name "Acme Ammunition,
Inc." use "Silver and Platinum Bullets -- Acme Ammunition, Inc." 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
highlighted portion of the search engine, the more likely they are to click
on the link.
 2. Write a Description
META Tag. Some search engines include this description below your
hyperlinked title. The description should be a sentence or two describing
the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and keyphrases 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:
<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 description first in a sentence or
two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in the
article. 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 by Google and many other search engines, but it is
currently used by Yahoo, so I'm leaving it in. Who knows when more search
engines will consider it important again?
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.
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.
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. To
emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page
name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as blue-widget.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. 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, Yahoo Search Submit Express (formerly SiteMatch),
and targeted content pages.
7. Develop Several Pages Focused on Particular Keywords. SEO
specialists don't recommend using external doorway or gateway pages any
more, 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.
8. Submit Your Webpage URL to Search Engines. Next, submit your
page 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 AskJeeves. 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 penalized 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 positioning. Now fine-tune your focused content pages, and
perhaps your home page, by making minor adjustments to help them rank high.
Software such as
WebPosition Gold (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/webposition.htm)
allows you to check your current ranking and compare your
 webpages against your
top keyword competitors. I use it regularly. WebPosition's Page Critic
provides analysis of a search engine's preferred statistics for each part of
your webpage. You can do this yourself with
WebPosition Gold,
but many small businesses outsource search engine positioning because of the
considerable time investment it requires. You can find links to
hundreds of articles on search engine strategies in our Info Center
(www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mp_Search).
If you want more detail, consider purchasing my inexpensive e-book
Dr. Wilson's Plain-Spoken
Guide to Search Engine Optimization (http://www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/seo.htm).
Linking Strategies
Links to your site from other sites bring additional traffic. But since
Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links
to your website ("link popularity" and "PageRank") as an important factor in
ranking, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines, too.
All links, however, are not created equal. Links from popular information
hubs will help your site rank higher than those from low traffic sites.
You'll find
links to articles on link strategies in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mp_Linking).
10. Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a
directory will help your ranking -- and get you traffic. Be sure to list
your site in the free Open Directory Project
(www.dmoz.com), overseen by human editors. This
hierarchical directory provides content feeds to all the major search
engines. Plus it provides a link to your site from an information hub that
Google deems important.
Yahoo! Directory is another important directory to be listed in, though
their search results recently haven't been featuring their own directory as
prominently. Real humans will read (and too often, pare down) your
200-character sentence, so be very careful and
follow their instructions
(http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/). Hint: Use
somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don't
have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping.
Business sites require a $299 annual recurring fee for
Yahoo! Express
to have your site considered for inclusion within seven business days
(http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html). Other
directories to consider might be About.com
and Business.com.
11. Submit Your Site to Industry Sites and Specialized Directories.
You may find some directories focused on particular industries, such as
education or finance. Be sure to register with these. You probably belong to
various trade associations that feature member sites. Ask for a link. Even
if you have to pay something for a link, it may bring you the kind of
targeted traffic from an info hub that you need. Beware of directories that
solicit you for "upgraded listings." Unless a directory is widely used in
your field, your premium ad won't help -- but the link itself will help
boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking. Marginal
directories come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up. Don't try
to be exhaustive here.
 12. Request
Reciprocal Links. Find complementary websites and request a reciprocal
link to your site (especially to your free service, if you offer one).
Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites -- so you
don't send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front
door. Your best results will be from sites that get a similar amount of
traffic to your site. High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer
your requests for a link and don't have anything to gain. Look for smaller
sites that may have linking pages.
Check out Ken Evoy's free
SiteSell Value Exchange.
It (1) registers your site as one that is willing to exchange links with
other sites that have a similar theme/topic content and (2) searches for
sites with similar topical content (http://sales.sitesell.com/value-exchange/).
Additionally, two automated link building software programs stand out --
Zeus and
Arelis. These search
for complementary sites, help you maintain a link directory, and manage
reciprocal links. However, use these programs to identify the complementary
sites, not to send impersonal automated e-mail spam to site owners.
When you locate sites, send a personal e-mail to the administrative contact
found in the
Whois
Directory (www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml).
If e-mail doesn't get a response, try a phone call. I've written a brief
e-book on
Reciprocal Linking Tools outlining various linking strategies and
other software you can use to make the task easier. (www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/linkingtools.htm)
13. Write Articles for Others to Use in their Newsletters. You can
dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area
of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail
newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link to your website and a
one-line description of what you offer be included with the article. This is
an effective "viral" approach that can produce hundreds of links to your
site over time.
14. Issue News Releases. Find newsworthy events (such as launching
your free service), and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in
your industry. The links to your site in online news databases may remain
for years and have some clout with link popularity. However, opening or
redesigning a website is seldom newsworthy these days. You may want to use a
Web news release service such as
PR Web (http://wilsonweb.prwebdirect.com). Placing
your website URL in online copies of your press release may increase link
popularity some.
More info
on PR. (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mp_PR)
Issuing press releases is a traditional promotional strategy, but
there are other traditional approaches that can help you as well.
15. Begin a Business Blog. Want links to your site? Begin a
business blog on your website. If you offer excellent content and regular
industry comment, people are likely to link to it, increasing your site's
PageRank. Learn more about business blogs in our
Web Marketing Info Center. (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&querytype=category&subcat=ms_Blogs)
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.
16. 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.domain.com portion.
17. 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.
18. 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 our Web Marketing Info
Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/), 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. You can find lots to details and tips in
my book The
E-Mail Marketing Handbook (www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/handbook.htm).
19. Install a "Signature" in your E-Mail Program to 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.
20. 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 personalize
the newsletter. You can distribute your newsletter using listservers such
as:
If you're just getting started you can use a free advertising-supported
newsletter from Yahoo! Groups
(www.yahoogroups.com). See
articles on newsletter marketing in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=me_Newsletter).
21. Send Offers to Your Visitors and Customers. Your own list of
customers and site visitors who have given you permission to contact them
will be your most productive list. Send offers, coupon specials, product
updates, etc. Personalizing the subject line and the message may increase
the results. You'll find scores of articles on
general e-mail marketing in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=me_Email-Gen).
22. Rent targeted e-mail lists. We abhor "spam," bulk untargeted,
unsolicited e-mail, and you'll pay a very stiff price in a ruined reputation
and cancelled services if you yield to temptation here. But the direct
marketing industry has developed targeted e-mail lists you can rent -- lists
consisting of people who have agreed to receive commercial e-mail messages.
These lists cost $40 to $250 per thousand or 4˘ to 25˘ per name. Do a
smaller test first to determine the quality of the list. Your best bet is to
find an e-mail
list broker to help you with this project -- you'll save money and get
experienced help for no additional cost (www.wilsonweb.com/contact/listbroker.htm).
You'll find many
articles on opt-in e-mail marketing in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=me_Opt-in).
Miscellaneous Strategies
23. Promote Your Site in Online Forums and Blogs. The Internet
offers thousands of very targeted e-mail based discussion lists, online
forums, blogs, and Usenet news groups made up of people with very
specialized interests. Use Google Groups
to find appropriate sources (http://groups.google.com).
Don't bother with news groups consisting of pure "spam." Instead, find
groups where a serious dialog is taking place. Don't use aggressive
marketing and overtly plug your product or service. Rather, add to the
discussion in a helpful way and let the "signature" at the end of your
e-mail message do your marketing for you. People will gradually get to know
and trust you, visit your site, and do business with you. You can learn more
from
articles in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mm_Newsgroups).
24. Announce a Contest. People like getting something free. If you
publicize a contest or drawing available on your site, you'll generate more
traffic than normal. Make sure your sweepstakes rules are legal in all
states and countries you are targeting. Prizes should be designed to attract
individuals who fit a demographic profile describing your best customers.
See dozens of
articles on contests and incentives in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=ma_Incentives).
25. Ask Visitors to Bookmark Your Site. It seems so simple, but
make sure you ask visitors to
bookmark your site
or save it in their Favorites list. (www.wilsonweb.com/wmta/bookmark.htm)
Why don't you bookmark the article you're reading right now? You know
you'll want to find it again soon.
26. Exchange Ads with Complementary Businesses. Banner exchange
programs don't work well these days. But consider exchanging e-mail
newsletter ads with complementary businesses to reach new audiences.
Just be sure that your partners are careful where they get their mailing
list or you could be in trouble with the CAN-SPAM Act.
27. Devise Viral Marketing Promotion Techniques. So-called viral
marketing uses the communication networks (and preferably the resources) of
your site visitors or customers to spread the word about your site
exponentially. Word-of-mouth, PR, creating "buzz," and network marketing are
offline models. #13 above, "Write Articles for Others to Use in their
Newsletters," is a viral approach. The classic example is the free
e-mail service, hotmail.com, that includes a tagline about their service at
the end of every message sent out, so friends tell friends, who tell
friends. You can learn more in my e-book Demystifying Viral Marketing
($12) available for no cost when you subscribe to my free, weekly
Web Marketing Today
newsletter (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt/). You can find
articles on viral marketing in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mm_Viral).
Paid Advertising Strategies
None of the approaches described above is "free," since each takes time
and energy. But if you want to grow your business more rapidly, there comes
a point when you need to pay for increased traffic. Advertising is sold in
one of three ways: (1) traditional CPM (cost per thousand views), (2) pay
per click (PPC), and (3) pay per action, otherwise known as an affiliate
program or lead generation program. Do some small tests first to determine
response. Then calculate your return on investment (ROI) before spending
large amounts. Here are some methods:
28. Buy a Text Ad in an E-Mail Newsletter. Some of the best buys
are small text ads in e-mail newsletters targeted at audiences likely to be
interested in your products or services. Many small publishers aren't
sophisticated about advertising and offer attractive rates. For example, we
offer low-priced 2-Line
Ads in Web Marketing Today each week (www.wilsonweb.com/ads/2-line-ad.htm).
Banner ads get such a low click-through rate (0.2%) these days that I don't
recommend paying much for them. Banner ads typically cost about 50˘ to $1
per thousand page views.
 29. Begin an Affiliate
Program. Essentially, a retailer's affiliate program pays a commission
to other sites whose links to the retailer result in an actual sale. The
goal is to build a network of affiliates who have a financial stake in
promoting your site. If you're a merchant you, need to (1) determine the
commission you are willing to pay (consider it your advertising cost), (2)
select a company to set up the technical details of your program, and (3)
promote your program to get the right kind of affiliates who will link to
your site. Consider affiliate management software such as
My Affiliate
Program (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/myaffiliateprogram.htm),
AffiliateClicks (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/affiliateclicks.htm),
or Ultimate Affiliate
Program (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/groundbreak.htm).
More info in the
Web Marketing Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=em_Associate).
You can see all the current software reviewed in my book
Report on Affiliate
Marketing Software 2005 (www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/affilisoft.htm)
30. Purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) ads with
Yahoo Search Marketing
(formerly Overture) (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/overture.htm)
and Google AdWords
(https://adwords.google.com/select/). The top ads
appear as featured links to the right of "natural" search engine results for
your keywords. Your ranking is determined by how much you've bid for a
particular search word compared to other businesses. This can be a
cost-effective way to get targeted traffic, since you only pay when someone
actually clicks on the link. Lower cost PPC systems include
FindWhat
(www.wilsonweb.com/afd/findwhat.htm) and
Kanoodle
(www.wilsonweb.com/afd/kanoodle.htm). An excellent
e-book on PPC strategies is Andrew Goodman's
21 Ways to Maximize
Profits on Google AdWords (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/pagezero.htm).
More
information on PPC ads can be found in our Info Center (www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=mp_PPC).
Pay Per Click advertising can be quite cost-effective when you learn
how to use it. Yahoo Search Marketing even offers some
free credit to get
you started. (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/overture.htm)
31. List Your Products with Shopping Comparison Bots and Auction Sites.
Shopping bots compare your products and prices to others. Google's
Froogle (www.froogle.com)
is free, so be sure to list your products there. A Froogle listing also
helps your product page's ranking on Google. Some work on a PPC basis:
mySimon (www.mysimon.com),
BizRate (www.bizrate.com),
PriceGrabber (www.pricegrabber.com),
and Shopping.com (www.shopping.com).
Others expect a commission on the sale and sometimes a listing fee,
especially sales systems that host the merchant. These include
eBay (www.ebay.com),
Yahoo! Shopping Auctions
(http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com),
Amazon zShops, Marketplace, and Auctions (http://zshops.amazon.com),
and Yahoo! Shopping
(http://shopping.yahoo.com). You pay to acquire first-time customers,
but hopefully you can sell to them a second, third, and fourth time, too.
We certainly haven't exhausted ways to promote your site,
but these will get you started. To effectively market your site, you need to
spend some time adapting these strategies to your own market and capacity.
Right now, why don't you make an appointment to go over this checklist with
someone in your organization, and make it the basis for your new Internet
marketing strategy?
Content
- EzineArticles
(Expert)
-
WWIO BizContent
- SmallBiz Knowledge Base
- IdeaMarketers - Free Web Content, Free Articles & Ezine Builder
eCommerce
PayPal - Login
Shopping Carts, Merchant Accounts, Credit Card Processing
A Swarm of Free Traffic to Your Site Guaranteed!
AdSense Consulting Marketing Management Design Strategies
Free advertising for blogs BlogSnob
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eMail Systems
-
Ezine Director
MailerMailer
(6956886k) -
Keywords
- Google AdWords
KeywordCount -
Keyword Density
(GoRank)
- KW Analyze Top 10
(GoRank)
Meta Tag Generator (Vancouver)
Wordtracker
Links
Link Popularity
(GoRank)
Link Popularity
(MarketLeap)
LinkPopularity.com
Links-to-You
Products to Sell
-
aStore (Amazon)
-
Commission Junction (as jbvp)
Veriuni
Store (SFI)
Search Engine Optimization
Google’s Guide to SEO
Google Ranking Factors
GoogleRankings
Search Engine Watch
SelfPromotion
SEO Tools
(GoRank)
Spider Simulators
1-hit.com
gritechnologies.com (Poodle)
Web Site Development
HTML Tidy Project Page
The W3C Markup Validation Service
FrontPage MVP
iSubmit Website Submission Service
WebMasterWorld.com (Forums)
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