Over the last several issues, I have talked about Search Engines;
the importance of ranking to generate traffic to your site, how to
set up your Meta Tags, how to organize your Web Pages, how
to submit your site and how to optimize visits by search engine
spider. If you have missed these issues or want a refresher,
they are posted at http://www.VirtualMechanics.com/news/webtips.htm
Promoting your site and generating traffic is a topic of significant
interest to every Web Manager and designer. Getting a top ten
ranking on the major search engines can go a long way to
accomplishing this objective. Simply set up your Meta Tags
properly, organize your web pages and submit your site to the
search engines and voila!, your done right?
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if 100 web
managers submit their site to the search engines under specific
keywords, at best only 10% of them will succeed in getting a top
ten ranking (maybe 1 will get all 10). Search Engine ranking can
quickly become a game in which you are constantly tweaking
and changing your site in order to maintain or improve your
position. In fact, I have only touched the tip of the iceberg on
this topic so far. The are many other factors, gimmicks and games
that can be employed in the quest for the "holy top ten ranking".
These include topics such as Gateway pages, Word Density
analysis and much more. I will discuss some of these more
advanced topics in future news letters.
Although achieving a high search engine ranking is a valid and
potentially profitable objective, it can also become quite
unproductive. It is a lot like trying to ride the crest of a wave. It
constantly moves and there is always some one else that wants
to be on top. There are many other promotion techniques that
can be equally or more productive than search engine ranking
depending on your business. Working to improve your search
engine ranking gets a lot of attention and press because it
appears to cost nothing and can be learned by anyone that is
willing to invest the time. This is deceptive however. Time is
money, or in this case, web site hits. At some point, the time
invested does not generate a profitable return.
So how else can you promote your site?
Techniques for promoting your site can be divided into two
major categories. These are traditional promotion techniques
and Internet promotion strategies. Examples of the former
include 30 second Super-Bowl TV adds (World Soccer Cup
championship final for those of you outside North America).
Examples of the latter are to purchase banner adds on all the
major Internet sites. Both these techniques are guaranteed to
generate some interest in your site if for no other reason than
to find out were you are getting that kind of money. For the rest
of us, the Internet still provides many opportunities to promote
our sites and attract visitors at minimum expense.
Next week I will get back to more specifics on site promotion. In
the mean time remember that even though some of the techniques
and methods may have changed, the need to promote your
business has not. All basic marketing philosophies, gimmicks
and concepts apply. Streaking the Oscars with your URL on
your butt will probably work.
"IMS Web Tips" is a weekly news letter for all web site managers regardless of experience who are looking for detailed information on
creating, maintaining and promoting their web sites.
