How To Promote A Website

• BY:
  Search Engine Optimization
  Search Engine Placement
  Search Engine Ranking

Website promotion can seem confusingly complicated. There seem to be so many, sure-fire new ways to get thousands of hits to your website. Whilst some of these methods work, most just waste your time. The most important strategy is to rank high for your preferred words on the top search engines. 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.

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. Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. Words people are most likely to search on put first in the title (called "keyword prominence"). Remember, this title is your entire identity on the Search engines. The more people see in the blue highlighted portion of the Search engines that interests them, the more likely they are to click on the link.

Write a Description META Tag

This sentence should describe the contents of the body text of the webpage, using the main keywords and keyphrases used on this page. If you include keywords that aren't used on the webpage you could hurt yourself. Place those words at the top of the webpage, between the tags, in a META tag in this format.

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.

Make Sure Your Keywords Are in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text

Search enginesexpect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document. Other places you might consider including keywords would be in ALT tags and perhaps COMMENT tags.

Develop Several Pages Focused on Particular Keywords

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 webpages will rank higher for their keywords since they contain targeted rather than general content.

Submit Webpage URL to Search Engines

Next, submit your webpage 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 important are: Google, Inktomi, Alta Vista, and Tehoma. They feed search content to the other main search engines and portal sites.

Submit Your Site to Key Directories

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.

Swap Links With Others

Identify sites with similar content to yours. Get in touch with the site's webmaster (use their name). Politely ask for a reciprocal link, then create a "Links" section on your site and put the links there. Not everyone will respond, but it is worth your effort as search engines can rank sites based on how many other sites link to it!