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 | Marketing a Website REGISTERING WITH SEARCH ENGINES One of the best ways to market your web site is to register it with as many search engines as you can especially with popular ones. Registering a business web site may no longer be a free process so it is likely to cost you money. Also registering with a search engine doesn’t guarantee you will be found; it just means you’re in their database. It may take as long as 4 to 8 weeks for your site to be indexed by most search engines. Popular search engines like Yahoo for instance demands a high premium to be in their database because they are the largest search engine around. Yet there is no guarantee your site will be listed by them. They only guarantee a review of your site even after you paid the high registration fee of $299, for business users. Yahoo is not a true search engine but more of a hybrid; a directory with people reviewing and cataloging web sites and utilizing other search engines to return their search results. A true search engine is a software program that surfs the internet looking at and indexing web sites. They are called robots, spiders, or crawlers. Some search engines require a URL only, for example www.mydomain.com, when registering a web site. Others ask for a URL, name of site, and a brief description of your web site. The search engine indexes your web site and generate key words based on how many times a word or phrase appears; where it appears; what size fonts these key words show up as, etc. Only register your site when it is up and running; a site under construction could turn away a potential customer permanently. Always reregister your site if you have new information, product or service to offer and when there is a change to your site. USING KEY WORDS To generate traffic to your web site, you need to use as many key words on your web pages as possible, while still making the site readable and easy to understand. For example, an online company that sells chocolate pastry would put words like chocolate pastry, chocolate, fudge, fudge candy, fudge brownies, etc. throughout the site in order to have search engines recognize these words as important words for your site. The more these words are used on the site the better the chance search engines will think of them as important. Another way to get recognized is to position your key words in your title and first paragraph. Text is more preferable than graphics on your homepage. This helps not only for the search engines but your readers as well. Tables can prevent key words from being listed. Even though they may be next to your text when viewed by people, search engines see it at the top and the text at the bottom, thus lowering the chance of your key words being read. Meta tags can help with this. USING META TAGS Some search engines index web pages by meta tags. Meta tags allow you to provide search engines a suggested title, key words, and description which means you have the ability to optimize your chances of being listed high by meta tagging key words. There is no guarantee you will be listed high; it only provides a better chance. Be careful not to abuse meta tags by falsely using key words not related to your web site topic. Search engines have a method to screen out this method and you won’t be listed at all. Below is an example of a meta tag used as a description and for key words.
When creating links to your other pages or other web sites, make sure they are text links and not image map links. Search engines may not read image maps correctly so they will not index your other pages. A site map with text links can help the search engine find other pages to your web site. An example of a text link is: <a href="http://www.mydomain.com/name_of_page.html">description</a>. Normally search engines can follow links to your other pages but that’s not always the case. You should try submitting the first 2 to 3 pages that best describe your site. You should monitor your listing after your site has been listed by the search engine. Sometimes your site may get lost or you find yourself several pages from the top of the search so you will need to resubmit again and again. TRY AN OFF LINE APPROACH A news release is an announcement to the public of who, what, when, where, and how of your web site. Make sure it is news worthy and not a sales pitch; otherwise it may never be printed. Go after editors interested in what you do. Below is a link to a web site about news release that may be helpful: http://www.canadaone.com/promote/pressrelease.html Direct mailing is another way to reach prospects. Include your web address and explain your service or product. Also advertise your site in certain sections of the newspaper depending on who you target. If you provide a service to other businesses, have your ad show up in the professional services section or business section. If you need more information, this can be obtained from the internet. It contains tons of information; depending on what you are looking for, you are bound to find it. Good luck on your new venture!
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