Web Site Promotion 101
So, you've designed a compelling Web site that you're eager to show the world. Every day you add fresh content and tweak your pages to make them prettier, more informative and faster to download. It's gonna pay off, you tell yourself, as you upload several new pages to your Web Host's server.
Midway in the afternoon, you stop what you're doing to check your traffic reports...You're excited and eager to confirm just how successful your Web site is. Waiting for your site statistics to finish downloading, your glee turns to dread when you learn that only two people visited your Web site all day.
What's a disillusioned Webmaster to do?
Here are a couple of "musts" to add to your to-do list to help you get started marketing yourself and your Web site.
SUBMITTING TO SEARCH ENGINES
Search engines are by far the most popular way to find information on the Web. Getting your site listed, however, is a chore, and it is oftentimes frustrating because results are not quick to see.
Although there are automated services that promise to get you listed on thousands of Web directories and free-for-all (FFA) links pages, it is recommended that you manually submit your site to the top search engines.
Be forewarned that it takes weeks (sometimes even months!) to get listed.
Set up a tickler file to do site submissions on a monthly basis. Resist the temptation to submit more often, because your hard work will go up in a puff of smoke if your URL gets banned for spamming the Search Engines.
The following list is not all inclusive, but it is a good place to start with your Search Engine submissions.
Free Submissions
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Ah-ha
http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp
AllTheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
AltaVista
http://addurl.altavista.com/sites/addurl/newurl
Ask Jeeves
E-mail: mailto:url@askjeeves.com
Direct Hit
http://www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html
Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com /help/addurl
Google
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Hotbot
http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp
Lycos
http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html
MSN Search
http://listings.looksmart.com/info/msn_free_submit.jhtml
National Directory
http://www.nationaldirectory.com/addurl/
Northern Light
http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html
Open Directory Project
http://dmoz.org/add.html
Scrub The Web
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html
Voila
http://www.voila.fr/Informations/Moteur_guide/submit.html
WhatUSeek
http://www.whatuseek.com/addurl.shtml
Paid
Placement
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Excite
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url
Inktomi
http://www.positiontech.com/inktomi/enroll.cfm
Iwon
http://search.iwon.com/commerce/submitasite.jsp
Looksmart
http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=US&chan=lshomeft
Netscape
http://digitalwork.netscape.com/onlinead/registersite/
Yahoo!
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
Pay-per-click
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7Search.com
http://www.payperranking.com/
ePilot.com
http://www.epilot.com/backoffice/AdvertiserCenter3/default.asp
Espotting.com
http://www.espotting.com/advertisers/list_yoursite.asp
FindWhat.com
http://www.findwhat.com/content/promote.asp
goClick.com
http://www.goclick.com/register.mod
Kanoodle.com
https://safe.kanoodle.com/client_services/listings/
Overture
http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/
For those of you who want to try an automated service, I highly recommend Add Me! and ABS Easy Submit .
LINK EXCHANGES
With more than 3.2 billion Web pages competing against yours, you can't rely solely on Search Engines for site promotion.
In my experience, the second most important marketing strategy is establishing link exchanges. In analyzing my visitor stats, it is clearly apparent that the majority of my traffic comes from the reciprocal linking partnerships I have established with Web sites that complement mine.
How do you go about establishing a linking partnership?
When I come across (or am referred to) an excellent online resource, I add it to my "Related Links" page, and, if it's appropriate, I contact the Webmaster to see whether they might be interested in swapping links with me. More times than not, the response is positive.
Since relevant, high-quality links coming to your site from other sites is increasingly important in getting good Search Engine rankings, I recommend that you put establishing linking partnerships high on your marketing to do list.
For more information about link exchanges, check out LinkLeads.com . LinkLeads is a targeted search engine/portal of Web sites seeking reciprocal linking partners. Membership is free. Getting results is relatively easy.
Although this list is far from comprehensive, these two tasks are an important starting point in your online marketing strategy.
Like building a Web site, promoting it to the world is hard work, but I guarantee your sense of accomplishment will be well worth the effort when you start to see results. More importantly, visitors!
About the Author
Copyright (c) 2000-2001 by Joanne Glasspoole. Joanne Glasspoole is the editor/publisher of CYBER QUEST. Each issue is jam packed with original reports, news briefs, cool Webmaster tools, and more. To subscribe, send email to mailto:Majordomo@lists.kdv.com with "subscribe cyberquest" in the body of your message. Visit Joanne's web site at http://www.glasspoole.com
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