Search Engine Strategies
Perhaps the most important -- and inexpensive -- strategy
is to rank high for your preferred words on the main search
engines in "organic" or "natural" searches (as opposed to
paid ads). 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. The idea here is
not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant
clues as to what your webpage is about.
1. 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. This page title
will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page
is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making
it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage
between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:
<TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist -- 32 Ways to Promote Your
Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the
top of your web browser.)
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your
business name on your home page. If you specialize in silver
bullets and that's what people will be searching for, don't
just use your company name "Acme Ammunition, Inc." use
"Silver and Platinum Bullets -- Acme Ammunition, Inc." The
words people are most likely to search on should appear
first in the title (called "keyword prominence"). Remember,
this title is nearly your entire identity on the search
engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue
hyperlinked words on the search engine, the more likely they
are to click on the link.
 2.
Write a Description and Keyword META Tag. The
description should be a sentence or two describing the
content of the webpage, using the main keywords and key
phrases on this page. If you include keywords that aren't
used on the webpage, you could hurt yourself. Place the
Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the
<HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: Some search
engines include this description below your hyperlinked
title.
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase visitor hits,
attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news
releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links">.
Your maximum number of characters should be about 255;
just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on
Google, though more may be indexed.
When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then
write a description of the content in that article in a
sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and
key phrases included in the article. This goes into the
description META tag. Then for the keywords META tag, I
strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty words and
phrases. The keywords META tag is no longer used for ranking
by Google, but it is currently used by Yahoo, so I'm leaving
it in. Who knows when more search engines will consider it
important again? Every webpage in your site should have a
title, and META description tag.
3. 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. Don't expect the search engine to parse your
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the
headlines -- it won't. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2,
and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note:
Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a
mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the
CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)
4. Make Sure Your Keywords Are in the First Paragraph
of Your Body Text. Search engines expect that your first
paragraph will contain the important keywords for the
document -- where most people write an introduction to the
content of the page. You don't want to just artificially
stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google
might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area
of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so
don't overdo it. Other places you might consider including
keywords would be in ALT tags and perhaps COMMENT tags,
though few search engines give these much if any weight.
5. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks. Search engines are
looking for clues to the focus of your page. When they see
words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these
potentially important, so hyperlink
your important keywords and keyphrases. To
emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could
have a page name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as
blue-widget.htm --
another clue for the search engine.
 6.
Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. Some
webmasters use frames, but frames can cause serious problems
with search engines. Even if search engines can find your
content pages, they could be missing the key navigation to
help visitors get to the rest of your site. JavaScript and
Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great
for humans, but search engines don't read JavaScript and
Flash. Supplement them with regular HTML links at the bottom
of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that
take a search engine spider from your home page to every
page in your site. A site map with links to all your pages
can help, too. If your site isn't getting indexed fully,
make sure you submit a
Google Sitemap following directions on Google's site (www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login).
Greg Tarrant's Google
Sitemap Generator and Editor (www.sitemapdoc.com) is a
free tool to build these. Be aware that some content
management systems and e-commerce catalogs produce dynamic,
made-on-the-fly webpages. You can sometimes recognize them
by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of
numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes stop
at the question mark and refuse to go farther. If you find
the search engines aren't indexing your interior pages, you
might consider URL rewriting, a site map, and targeted
content pages (see below).
7. Develop Several Pages Focused on Particular
Keywords. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists
no longer recommend using external doorway or gateway pages,
since nearly duplicate webpages might get you penalized.
Rather, 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 pages will
rank higher for their keywords since they contain targeted
rather than general content. You can't fully optimize all
the webpages in your site, but these focused-content
webpages you'll want to spend lots of time tweaking to
improve their rank.
8. Submit Your Webpage URL to Search Engines.
Next, submit your homepage URL 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
used search engines are: Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL Search, and
Ask.com. Some of these feed search content to the other main
search engines and portal sites. For Europe and other areas
you'll want to submit to regional search engines. It's a
waste of money to pay someone to submit your site to
hundreds of search engines. Avoid registering with FFA (Free
For All pages) and other link farms. They don't work well,
bring you lots of spam e-mails, and could cause you to be
penalized by the search engines. We'll talk about submitting
to directories under "Linking Strategies" below. If your
page is already indexed by a search engine, don't re-submit
it unless you've made significant changes; the search engine
spider will come back and revisit it soon anyway.
9. Fine-tune with Search Engine Optimization.
Now fine-tune your focused-content pages (described in point
7), and perhaps your home page, by making minor adjustments
to help them rank high.
10. Promote Your Local Business on the Internet.
These days many people search for local businesses on the
Internet. To make sure they find you include on every page
of your website the street address, zip code, phone number,
and the five or 10 other local community place names your
business serves. If you can, include place names in the
title tag, too. When you seek links to your site (see
below), a local business should get links from local
businesses with place names in the communities you serve
and complementary businesses in your industry
nationwide.
Links to your site from other sites bring additional
traffic. But since Google and other major search engines
consider the number of incoming links to your website ("link
popularity") as an important factor in ranking, more links
will help you rank higher in the search engines, too. Google
has introduced a 10-point scale called PageRank (10 is the
highest rank) to indicate the quantity and quality of
incoming links. All links, however, are not created equal.
Links from popular information hubs will help your site rank
higher than those from low traffic sites.
11. Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a
link from a directory will help your ranking -- and get you
traffic. Be sure to list your site in the free
Open Directory Project
(www.dmoz.com), overseen by overworked
volunteer 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. But don't be impatient and resubmit
or you'll go to the end of the queue.
Yahoo! Directory is another important directory to be
listed in, though their search results recently haven't been
featuring their own directory as prominently. Real humans
will read (and too often, pare down) your 200-character
sentence, so be very careful and
follow their
instructions (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/).
Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of
characters allowable, so you don't have wordy text that will
tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping. Business sites
require a $299 annual recurring fee for
Yahoo! Express to have your site considered for
inclusion within seven business days (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html). Other
directories to consider might be
About.com and
Business.com.
12. Submit Your Site to Industry Sites and Specialized
Directories. You may find some directories focused on
particular industries, such as education or finance. You
probably belong to various trade associations that feature
member sites. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay
something for a link, it may help boost your PageRank.
Beware of directories that solicit you for "upgraded
listings." Unless a directory is widely used in your field,
your premium ad won't help -- but the link itself will help
boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.
Marginal directories come and go very quickly, making it
hard to keep up. Don't try to be exhaustive here.
13. Request Reciprocal Links. Find complementary
websites and request a reciprocal link to your site
(especially to your free service, if you offer one). Develop
an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites --
so you don't send people out the back door as fast as you
bring them in the front door. Your best results will be from
sites that get a similar amount of traffic to your site.
High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your
requests for a link and don't have anything to gain. Look
for smaller sites that may have linking pages.
14. Write Articles for Others to Use in their
Newsletters. You can dramatically increase your
visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise
and distribute them to editors as free content for their
e-mail newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link
to your website and a one-line description of what you offer
be included with the article. This is an effective "viral"
approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site
over time.
15. Begin a Business Blog. Want links to your
site? Begin a business blog on your website, hosted on your
own domain. If you offer excellent content and regular
industry comment, people are likely to link to it,
increasing your site's PageRank.
16. Issue News Releases. Find newsworthy events
and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in your
industry. The links to your site in online news databases
may remain for years and have some clout with link
popularity. However, opening or redesigning a website is
seldom newsworthy these days.
Traditional Strategies
Just because "old media" strategies aren't on the
Internet doesn't mean they aren't effective. A mixed media
approach can be very effective.
17. Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and
Literature. This is a no-brainer that is sometimes
overlooked. Make sure that all reprints of cards,
stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company's
URL. And see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct.
In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and
including only the www.domain.com portion.
18. Promote using traditional media. Don't
discontinue print advertising that you've found effective.
But be sure to include your URL in any display or classified
ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow
pages, etc. View your website as an information adjunct to
the ad. Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers'
attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where
they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order.
Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the
back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals.
Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and
less expensive than online advertising. Consider other
traditional media to drive people to your site, such as
direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to
promote websites, especially in a local market.
19. Develop a Free Service. It's boring to invite
people, "Come to our site and learn about our business."
It's quite another to say "Use the free kitchen remodeling
calculator available exclusively on our site." Make no
mistake, it's expensive in time and energy to develop free
resources.
E-Mail Strategies
Don't neglect e-mail as an important way to bring people
to your website. Just don't spam. That is, don't send bulk
unsolicited e-mails without permission to people with whom
you have no relationship.
20. Install a "Signature" in your E-Mail Program
to help potential customers get in touch with you.
Most e-mail programs such as AOL, Netscape, and Outlook
allow you to designate a "signature" to appear at the end of
each message you send. Limit it to 6 to 8 lines: Company
name, address, phone number, URL, e-mail address, and a
one-phrase description of your unique business offering.
Look for examples on e-mail messages sent to you.
21. Publish an E-Mail Newsletter. While it's a big
commitment in time, publishing a monthly e-mail newsletter
("ezine") is one of the very best ways to keep in touch with
your prospects, generate trust, develop brand awareness, and
build future business. It also helps you collect e-mail
addresses from those who visit your site but aren't yet
ready to make a purchase. Ask for an e-mail address and
first name so you can personalize the newsletter. You can
distribute your newsletter using listservers such as:
If you're just getting started you can use a free
advertising-supported newsletter from
Yahoo! Groups
(www.yahoogroups.com). See
articles on newsletter marketing in our Research Room
(www.wilsonweb.com/cat/cat.cfm?page=1&subcat=me_Newsletter).
22. Send Offers to Your
Visitors and Customers. Your own list of customers and
site visitors who have given you permission to contact them
will be your most productive list. Send offers, coupon
specials, product updates, etc. Personalizing the subject
line and the message may increase the results.
23. Rent targeted e-mail lists. We abhor "spam,"
bulk untargeted, unsolicited e-mail, and you'll pay a very
stiff price in a ruined reputation and cancelled services if
you yield to temptation here. But the direct marketing
industry has developed targeted e-mail lists you can rent --
lists consisting of people who have agreed to receive
commercial e-mail messages. These lists cost $40 to $400 per
thousand or 4¢ to 40¢ per name. Do a smaller test first to
determine the quality of the list. Your best bet is to find
an e-mail list broker to help you with this project --
you'll save money and get experienced help for no additional
cost.
Miscellaneous Strategies
24. Promote Your Site in Online Forums and Blogs.
The Internet offers thousands of very targeted e-mail based
discussion lists, online forums, blogs, and Usenet news
groups made up of people with very specialized interests.
Use Google Groups to
find appropriate sources (groups.google.com).
Don't bother with news groups consisting of pure "spam."
Instead, find groups where a serious dialog is taking place.
Don't use aggressive marketing and overtly plug your product
or service. Rather, add to the discussion in a helpful way
and let the "signature" at the end of your e-mail message do
your marketing for you. People will gradually get to know
and trust you, visit your site, and do business with you. Y
25. Announce a Contest. People like getting
something free. If you publicize a contest or drawing
available on your site, you'll generate more traffic than
normal. Make sure your sweepstakes rules are legal in all
states and countries you are targeting. Prizes should be
designed to attract individuals who fit a demographic
profile describing your best customers. S
26. Ask Visitors to Bookmark Your Site. It seems
so simple, but make sure you ask visitors to bookmark your
site or save it in their
27. Exchange Ads with Complementary Businesses.
Banner exchange programs don't work well these days. But
consider exchanging e-mail newsletter ads with complementary
businesses to reach new audiences. Just be sure that
your partners are careful where they get their mailing list
or you could be in trouble with the CAN-SPAM Act.
28. Devise Viral Marketing Promotion Techniques.
So-called viral marketing uses the communication networks
(and preferably the resources) of your site visitors or
customers to spread the word about your site exponentially.
Word-of-mouth, PR, creating "buzz," and network marketing
are offline models. #14 above, "Write Articles for Others to
Use in their Newsletters," is a viral approach. The
classic example is the free e-mail service, hotmail.com,
that includes a tagline about their service at the end of
every message sent out, so friends tell friends, who tell
friends.
Paid Advertising Strategies
None of the approaches described above is "free," since
each takes time and energy. But if you want to grow your
business more rapidly, there comes a point when you need to
pay for increased traffic. Advertising is sold in one of
three ways: (1) traditional CPM (cost per thousand views),
(2) pay per click (PPC), and (3) pay per action, otherwise
known as an affiliate program or lead generation program. Do
some small tests first to determine response. Then calculate
your return on investment (ROI) before spending large
amounts. Here are some methods:
29. Buy a Text Ad in an E-Mail Newsletter. Some of
the best buys are small text ads in e-mail newsletters
targeted at audiences likely to be interested in your
products or services. Many small publishers aren't
sophisticated about advertising and offer attractive rates
30. Begin an Affiliate Program. Essentially, a
retailer's affiliate program pays a commission to other
sites whose links to the retailer result in an actual sale.
The goal is to build a network of affiliates who have a
financial stake in promoting your site. If you're a merchant
you, need to (1) determine the commission you are willing to
pay (consider it your advertising cost), (2) select a
company to set up the technical details of your program, and
(3) promote your program to get the right kind of affiliates
who will link to your site. Consider affiliate management
software.
31. Purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) ads with
Yahoo
Search Marketing (formerly Overture) (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/overture.htm)
and Google
AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/select/).
The top ads appear as featured links to the right of
"natural" search engine results for your keywords. Your
ranking is determined by how much you've bid for a
particular search word compared to other businesses.
(www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/bidmgt.htm).
32. List Your Products with Shopping Comparison Bots
and Auction Sites. Shopping bots compare your products
and prices to others. Google's
Froogle
(www.froogle.com) is free, so be sure to list your
products there. A Froogle listing also helps your product
page's ranking on Google. Some work on a PPC basis:
mySimon
(www.mysimon.com),
BizRate (www.bizrate.com),
PriceGrabber
(www.pricegrabber.com), and
Shopping.com
(www.shopping.com). Others expect a
commission on the sale and sometimes a listing fee,
especially sales systems that host the merchant. These
include eBay
(www.ebay.com),
Yahoo!
Shopping Auctions (http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com),
Amazon zShops, Marketplace, and Auctions
(http://zshops.amazon.com), and
Yahoo! Shopping
(http://shopping.yahoo.com). You pay
to acquire first-time customers, but hopefully you can sell
to them a second, third, and fourth time, too.
We certainly haven't exhausted ways to
promote your site, but these will get you started. To
effectively market your site, you need to spend some time
adapting these strategies to your own market and capacity.
Right now, why don't you make an appointment to go over this
checklist with someone in your organization, and make it the
basis for your new Internet marketing strategy?
Smb Web Design is able to build you the best campaign for
your site and your niche. Smb Web design will
increase your sales and profits through its
industry expertise in addition to giving
you a great looking website that works!
Call us now at 347-659-5647 TO START!!!!
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