Promoting your site can seem overwhelming. It's not. Everyday there's a
new offer in your mail box that promises you a magic fix. Keep your
focus.
Emphasize these three points:
1. Content
Have a good content. Make sure your site have a focus and its obvious
to users. Most users don't want to stumble around guessing what you're
about. Make sure you site has something new to say or organizes
information in a new or useful way to web site visitors? Visitors will
recognize this, bookmark the site, tell friends and other websites will
link to you increasing your "popularity".
2. Main Page
- Don't make it all pictures and graphics - load it up with words -
good words. And it's best not to ever use frames.
Make sure you describe the site, its purpose and use the words that
the visitors use when they're looking for your site. Use the same words
and alternative words in your metatags.
Make up a great title for your site and be descriptive. When
visitors see your site in the search result listing - those first 5
words better grab their attention and say it all.
Compare your best title idea to real titles that come up when
someone searches for your site.
Use our
Search Page and quick tips for finding headings now.
Search engines look at your site and count how often you use
words and where you placed the words on the page. The more often (up to
a point) and more prominent the use, (ie. those header tags) then the
more the page is about your "word".
Search engines like Alta Vista, Infoseek, Excite, HotBot, Lycos,
Canada.com, Webcrawler, Google, Northern Light - don't just use keywords
- popularity counts too and other factors.
Wnat to learn more about search engines? ....
Check out Danny Sullivan's
Search Engine Watch for an outstanding site jam packed with
information.
3. Usable
- Everyday we see 100's of sites that are just plain hard to use and
hard to navigate. Make sure your site labels are
- clear
- consistent
- legible.
It's hard enough getting visitors to your site ONCE, but if your site
is difficult to use then it's death by mouse click and they'll never
return.
Writing Good Copy and Search Engine Optimization (SE0)
It's imperative that you write excellent copy on your site that is
effective at communicating your message online. Follow the advice above
and learn more about writing online. I have a few presentations and
workshop handouts about
writing online posted on my personal web site. To learn from a pro,
consider buying
The
Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines by Jill Whalen - a
special report on search engines. This report is punchy, short and
packed with sound advice.
|
