GENERAL PROMOTION
There are many methods of making a website popular. The best, but most difficult, is word of mouth. Over 50% of the average hits are achieved by direct input of the address. Obviously there are many other methods of making a website popular. In many cases you need to adapt, in order to achieve good traffic measures. Here is a quick rundown of a few possibilities.
- Newsgroups:
This way of traffic generating is one of the most effective on the web.
Every day thousands of users are surfing through the boards and looking
for the latest news. You can be very successful by posting messages with
hidden advertisement. To keep a good reputation, do not post with too much
advertisement. This is very often condemned as Spam. - Linklists:
The oldest, but still most effective method on the web. It is very simple:
Place a link to another site in your "link-section" and ask them
to do the same. A simple link exchange. Of course all of this can be
increased from a simple link exchange to a big banner exchange with a
rotation system. - Banner Exchange:
This is the modified form of a simple link exchanging. Webmasters meet in
a community and put banners into a big "pot". Using a rotation
system, they place their banners on each other's site. Big software
companies, who add banners of sponsors to the rotation, often organize
these systems. - Doorway/Gateway Pages:
This is a very efficient traffic solution. So called "doorway
pages" are different index sites with different functions. Every
doorway page is optimized for a different search engine or linklist. Each
doorway page links to a main page and sometimes contains a reload script
that automatically brings the user to the main page. These pages are very
successful, but not always without risk.
BANNERS
- Place banners where they will be noticed:
We have found that banners when placed at the top of the page can increase
your traffic 6 fold. - Rotate your banners frequently:
Rotating banners attract new surfers as well as encouraging returning
surfers to click on your banner. - Keep the file size of the banner to a minimum:
Fast loading banners won’t keep impatient customers waiting. - Be creative & increase sales:
Design banners that are will attract customers when your banners are
placed alongside others. Add our unique banners alongside your own to
boost your sales.
SEARCH ENGINES
Understanding Search
Engines:
- The average time between submitting your URL and
getting into the database generally takes between 6-8 weeks. In addition,
a submission can expire very rapidly, as no longer appearing in searches,
(about a month or two), apparently due to insufficient site updating. Most
search engines check their databases to see if URLs still exist, or if
they have been recently updated. - Search engines give each document they find a kind of
grading, regarding the quality of the match to your search query. Relevant
scores reflect the number of times a search term appears, if it appears in
the title, at the beginning of a document or HTML tag, and if all the
search terms are related to each other; an explanation is given in each
search engines help files. Some engines allow the user to control the
relevance score by providing different weights to each search word. A
feature that all engines contain is to use alphabetical order or date
stamp in their display algorithm. If relevant scores are not very
different for various matches, you will end up with a default list. A good
summary is useful, too. (The summary is usually composed of the title of a
document, as well as some text relating to the title of a document, and/or
some text from the beginning of the document.)
Links:
- Some search Engines will find your website via links
from other Web pages. Even if you have sent in your URL, your website can
be indexed longer and ranked higher in search results, if many links have
led to your website. Links can be important in some Search Engines to
achieve good exposure.
Text
- If a Web page lacks descriptive text, there is hardly
a chance that your Web page will be mentioned in the results of a search
engine query.
Links inside WebPages
- If there are no links on the Web pages, it can be
possible that some search engines may not register a Website.
Patience
- Some search engines take weeks before updating their
databases. They may be crawling each night, but those new findings aren't
available until the new update. Once you are registered in an engine, you
should check your Website at least once a month. If your listing is
deleted, resubmit the URL again. Many search engines visit Websites on a schedule
developed from Website changes. Resubmitting every month or two will
ensure your websites content being available currently.
Tune up your source
code for Search Engines
- META-Tags:
Meta-Tags are useful, invisible Tags in your HTML-Document that help
Search Engines to place your Site in their systems. They are placed in the
HEAD. - The <TITLE> Tag:
The TITLE Tag should be the first line of text that appears after the
<HEAD> Tag in your html document. When giving your page a Title,
make sure it contains a few descriptive keywords. For example, if you are
"ABC Company", and you sell retail "Books for Kids",
do not title your page "Welcome to ABC Company". Instead title
the page "Retail Books for Kids by ABC Company". - The <META> Tag:
The META Tag contains the description of the Website, and keywords that
are relevant to the content of the site. You may have more than one META
Tag in your document. Here is an example where the Tag is placed in your
HTML document:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Your Title is placed here (including a
couple of keywords, if possible) </TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords"
content="prioritize your keywords, then place here">
<META NAME="description" content="place
your description here (including some major keywords)">
</HEAD>
- Keywords
- Start by making a list of keywords that describe your products/services.
Then rank them in order of importance (not more than 1,000 characters).
- Use as many specific, descriptive and non-generic keywords as possible.
The more specific, the better!
- Select keywords according to what you think people might be searching
for on a Website with your particular content.
- Use your keywords throughout the entire HTML document, not just the
Title and META Tags. In addition, place your most important keywords in
the first few paragraphs of your web page.
- Create a search category corresponding to the content of your website
and keep an eye on the keywords used in the URL's, that appear in the top
20. - Images:
Eliminate large image maps and graphics on your home page. Use small
thumbnail graphics.
Online users are not willing to wait for large pictures to download. If
they have to wait for a long time before the image is completely
downloaded, they will simply leave with a mouseclick and not return again.
Not all browsers work the same way. The golden rule of thumb is: The
bigger the graphic, the longer it takes.
- Use WIDTH and HEIGHT tags:
The most effective change you can make to increase loading speed, is to
add WIDTH and HEIGHT tags to all of your images on a page:
<IMG SRC="myfile.gif" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="40">
where w=# of pixels wide and h=# of pixels high that
"myfile.gif" actually is.
- Use ALT tags:
Some Search Engines control the content of your web page by looking at the
ALT tags in your <IMG> tag. Always remember to use the ALT tag with
certain specified keywords again:
<IMG SRC="myfile.gif" WIDTH="160"
HEIGHT="40" ALT="use some keywords here"> - Start Page
- Your start page should not be too big. A little image in the center and
a short description of your homepage and/or company is sufficient to
promote your website. Do not use any frames on your starting page. Some
search engines have problems with framesets. The most important are the
<META> tags. There are a lot of <META> tags that can promote
your page in a very easy way.
- Important: Do not use the same color for your text-color as you have for
the background! This will definitely bring numerous hits through
META-Search Engines, but editorial search engines – which are used by most
of the users – do not like these pages. They will not accept your page and
will not add it to their list. - Specific Search Engines
|
|
|
|
- Index: the most important factors affecting the ranking of your
site
- Resubmit vs. Automatic Update: Some engines will ask you to resubmit
your pages if you have changed any of the information that they need to index
your site. Other search-engines will automatically update your information with
no resubmission. Once you are in a search-engine that automatically updates,
you should check to see if your updates have taken effect. If not, then
resubmit.
- Crawl: If the engine will crawl the site from one URL. Crawl means:
You have just submitted your main-URL and the search engine will
"crawl" the other pages of your homepage. Search engines sometimes
also crawl to external links.
- Time: The time it takes for the engine to spider your site once you
have submitted. To check the different time periods, see the table.
- Pages: How many pages they suggest you can submit from your site
- Link Popularity: If they rank pages based on link popularity
- Check Link Popularity: How to check link popularity
- Check Listing: How to check your listing - to see if you're listed
- Alt Tags: If they "read" alt tags
- Meta Tags: Which Meta tags they support
- Case Sensitive: If searches are case sensitive
- Title Tag: maximum length - boost/no boost - if an engine boosts, it
means that it will use this to rank your page.
- Keyword Tag: maximum length - boost/no boost
- Description Tag: maximum length - boost/no boost
- Spider: Which spider belongs to which engine – after taking a look at
your access or referrer logs, you will know if the spider has visited your
page.
- Stemming: Yes - supports stemming means that you only need to include
the longest version of the word
- Search Engines/Web Lists
The initial step for a user, if he is searching for information. That is
why search engines are very important for your website. With the help of
search engines the Internet becomes more user friendly. In order to get a
high ranking of your page you can use certain tricks. But, you must
differentiate between two types of SE’s: The "normal" search
engines and the web lists. Web lists are – contrary to search engines –
websites checked and collected by the editorship. In order to get listed,
more luck than tricks is required. - Summarized Tips for Your Web Pages
- Every page should have a <TITLE> in the <HEAD> area.
- Every page should have < META> tags describing the page (not too
much).
- Every image should have the WIDTH, HEIGHT and the ALT tag.
- The words used in the <META> tags should also be used at the start
page as a normal text
- Don’t use invisible words at your start page!
- For pictures, use JPG format - GIF format is 2+ file size.
- Your start page should not be divided into any frames. Some engines have
problems with frames
- Your start page should not be bigger than 15KB (incl. images)
DOORWAY/GATEWAY PAGES
- Simply stated, gateway or "doorway" pages
are HTML pages within a web site that are optimized to achieve high
rankings in search engines. These gateway pages are typically stored in
the same directory as the index page of the site, or in some cases, work
like the index page. The gateway page will have a link to the main page of
the site (the page that the webmaster has designed as the
"navigation" page) and, at times, will include a "Meta
refresh" tag or Java redirect script, which will automatically take
the user to the main page. - The concept of a gateway page is very simple, and in
recent months such pages have become an acceptable method of promoting
sites to major engines. However, there are important considerations that
one should be aware of before designing and submitting a gateway page.
Those who maintain search engines are very particular about what is
submitted to their indexes. They may not always be capable of locating
every site or page that bends or breaks their rules, but they are always
looking for them, or programming their spiders to take note of them. It
is, therefore, very important to design a gateway page in accordance with
what the search engines deem acceptable. - It is also worth noting that the aforementioned
"Meta refresh" tag and the Java redirect script are usually not
viable options for the gateway or any other page. It is acceptable to use
such tags or scripts, but search engines usually do not like them, whereas
AltaVista and Infoseek consider them to be "Spam" - In most cases, common sense prevails. For instance, a
gateway page with a list of keywords, and a link to the main page is
obviously going to be considered as "Spam" to a reviewer or a
Meta crawler that is designed to spot such problems. An important thing to
remember while designing this entrance page for your site is that it
should have a reasonable description of your site, outlining the products
or services offered or the subject matter of a non-commercial or
advertisement-driven site. - The description of the site should be well written,
just like the text of your main page, and should incorporate your keywords
in a skillful manner, that is not overbearing. The gateway page should, if
possible, include an image or logo (use 'ALT' text with it) and be
designed so that it is at least somewhat pleasing from a
"(perspective" standpoint). Lastly, the page should incorporate
carefully selected Meta tags (title, description, and keywords), that
describe the content of the site and that match the text, which is
viewable by the user. Well constructed and implemented, gateway pages can
be a very effective way of achieving high rankings within the search
engines.
No comments:
Post a Comment