"Whew! Thank heavens THAT's finally done", you
contentedly think to yourself as you sit back in your
chair after checking the final link in the brand new
website you've been laboring over day and night for
the past three months and have just uploaded to your
webhost's server. "Now I can relax."
That's just so CUTE! Actually... I have a confession
to make. That's what I thought when I finished my
first website too. I naively assumed that all the
search engines indexed every single site on the web
automatically and that all I had to do was upload my
site and... voila! Instant traffic. I wish!
It doesn't work like that, sorry. "Build it and they
will come", you thought? Uh uh. No. They won't. You
and your webhost are the only ones who know your site
exists and, let's face it, your webhost doesn't really
care so long as you pay your hosting fees every month.
So, now that your website is officially "out there",
the real work of making its presence known can start.
And, as you will see, this is a never-ending process
so you need a plan and a strategy.
To begin with, you need to do your initial submission
work. Once that's done, you need to have a systematic,
organized method of ensuring your site continues to
draw traffic. Here's how to do it:
CREATE A PROMOTION TOOLKIT
Before you do anything else, create a text file and
call it "Promotion Toolkit" or something like that.
Enter into this file a list of all of your webpages
and set up columns for: Engine/ Directory Submitted
To, Date Last Submitted, Next Submission Date. In the
same file, create descriptions of varying lengths for
your site. I suggest word lengths of 10, 15, 25, 35,
50, 75 and 100. Do the same for the purpose of your
site. Later, when you start publishing your own ezine,
create descriptions for that too. Also write a website
announcement and keep a record of keywords that you
think site visitors will enter into the search engine
when looking for sites similar to yours.
You will find your Promotion Toolkit to be invaluable
when submitting your site to search engines,
directories, announcement lists and all the various
other places you will be listing your site. By taking
the time to create powerful, effective descriptions
and announcements, you will save an enormous amount of
time when actually submitting your site because you
can just copy and paste the information from your
Promotion Toolkit.
INITIAL SUBMISSION WORK
There are two major things you need to do initially:
submit your site to the major search engines and list
it with all the online directories you can find.
> Submitting to the Search Engines
Your very first task after creating your Promotion
Toolkit is to submit your site to all the major search
engines. Now, when creating your website you did, of
course, first learn about principles of webdesign and
the importance of meta tags and the like for search
engine positioning, right? If not, I suggest you do
this now BEFORE submitting your site. Perhaps the best
resource currently available is Ken Evoy's "Make Your
Site Sell". If you don't have it, get it.
There are hundreds of so-called "search engines". In
reality, only a handful are worth the effort of
securing a decent ranking.
These are:
Alta Vista - http://www.altavista.com Excite -
http://www.excite.com Hotbot - http://www.hotbot.com
Infoseek - http://www.infoseek.go.com Lycos -
http://www.lycos.com Northern Light -
http://www.northernlight.com Web Crawler -
http://www.webcrawler.com Yahoo - http://www.yahoo.com
There are a few other major players out there but
these are the "big 8".
> Submitting to the Directories
In addition to search engines, there are hundreds of
directories where you should list your site. Space
does not permit listing them here so I recommend you
visit Virtual Promote, a brilliant site with links to
virtually every promotion point on the web today. It
will take you a long time to submit to all the
directories listed there but just work at it and
eventually you'll get there. It's at
http://www.virtualpromote.com. It was this site that
advised setting up a Promotional Toolkit. One of the
best pieces of advice I ever took.
ONGOING PROMOTION AND MAINTENANCE
OK, so you've taken care of your initial submission
work. Let's turn now to what you need to do on an
ongoing basis to get and keep traffic flowing to your
site. Again, space doesn't permit a detailed treatment
of all of these strategies. They're intended just as
thought starters.
> Ezine
The single most important thing you can do for the
long-term viability of your website is create an
ezine. This keeps your site uppermost in your readers'
minds, reminds them it and you exist, who you are and
why they should do business with you. You don't have
to make your ezine the central plank of your business
as I do. You can, instead, just use it as an adjunct
to your website; a way of staying in touch with your
site visitors. For a really great site to help you get
started, visit Kate Schultz' EzineZ.com -
http://www.e-zinez.com.
> Write Articles
This is an amazingly effective way of generating
traffic to your website and subscribers to your ezine.
Every time you write an article for your ezine, submit
it to the various article databases that exist for
this purpose. Other ezine publishers are always on the
lookout for good content and if they publish your
article (complete with your byline and site details)
you will enjoy traffic and subscribers as a result.
Some good starting points for article submissions
include:
Sites:
Idea Marketers - http://www.ideamarketers.com Ezine
Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com (another gem
from Kate Schultz) Find Your Dream -
http://www.findyourdream.com Media Peak -
http://www.mediapeak.com
Announcement Lists:
Publish In Yours -
mailto:publishinyours-subscribe@egroups.com Free
Content - mailto:freecontent-subscribe@egroups.com
> Doorway Pages
These are webpages you create with a specific search
engine's algorithms in mind. Essentially, it's a
webpage optimized for a particular search engine
(configured to meet the search engine's criteria for
keyword density, title, description etc.) and
submitted to that search engine only. The webpage
includes a link to your site.
What happens is that the doorway page, because it can
be easily optimized to be attractive to specific
search engines, ranks well and therefore the websurfer
selects it from the search engine results. The doorway
page is called up but immediately diverts the surfer
to your main site.
Be aware, though, that the search engines are aware of
this practice and some are penalizing for it.
I recommend you bookmark Search Engine Watch to stay
abreast of this issue and also to stay current with
various search engines' general preferences which seem
to change on a daily basis:
http://www.searchenginewatch.com.
> Ezine Advertising/Ad Swaps
Your promotional strategy should also include paid
advertising in ezines. If you also publish your own
ezine, don't forget to do some ad swapping with other
ezine publishers.
For a directory of ezines that accept advertising,
check out: The Directory of Ezines -
http://www.lifestylespub.com The Free Directory of
Ezines - http://www.netmastersolutions.com
> Free Classifieds and FFA Links
Opinion is divided on how effective placing ads at the
free classified sites really is. Personally, I've
found that it's not worth the effort, particularly
when you consider that by submitting to these sites
you become an immediate target for spam. But, others
claim to have success with it, so by all means, give
it a go.
Some of the most popular sites include:
Yahoo Classifieds - http://classifieds.yahoo.com
Adland Pro - http://www.web-source.net/adlandpro.htm
Web Sitings - http://www.websitings.com/classads/
Small Biz FFA - http://www.smallbizffa.net FFA Network
- http://www.ffanet.com
Submitting your site to the FFA (Free For All) sites
won't do much for you in direct terms. The reason to
submit to these sites is that they boost the number of
sites the search engines record as "linking" to yours
and this can boost your ranking with some engines. Be
prepared for a DELUGE of mail back from these sites.
You'll need to set up email filters to handle it.
> Invite Referrals
Give your site visitors and ezine subscribers a way to
recommend your site and ezine to others. Recommend It
is worth signing up for: http://www.recommend-it.com.
> Fresh Content
Update your website content frequently to give
visitors something to come back for. Invite site
visitors to leave you their email address so you can
notify them when your site changes.
> Keyword Bidding
GoTo.com is one of a new breed of search engines that
allows you to bid on key words to improve your
ranking. At present, this is a ridiculously cheap way
of ensuring a good ranking so it's worth thinking
about. Some keywords can be had for as little as $0.01
per visitor. This means you pay GoTo.com one cent for
every visitor they send you: http://www.goto.com.
> Reciprocal Links
Contact webmasters of complementary but not
competitive sites and ask if they will swap links with
you.
> Discussion Boards, Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
Constructively participate in discussion boards,
newsgroups and mailing lists relevant to the subject
matter of your site. Include a link to your site
and/or ezine in your sig file.
> Joint Ventures
Enter into joint ventures with other websites and/or
ezines. This could be as simple as cross-promoting
each others' ezines on your "Thank You For
Subscribing" page or something grander such as getting
together to promote a new product or service you have
both developed for the purpose.
> Press Releases
There are several good press release services
available. Here's just two:
Canada One, a free interactive press release builder -
http://www.canadaone.com/promote/pressrelease.html
Gebbie Press - links to print and electronic media on
the Internet http://www.gebbieinc.com
See what I mean about your work just starting?
Hopefully you can also see why everyone keeps telling
you that you need to spend 80% of your time on
marketing!
Running a business online is no different to running a
business offline when it comes to marketing and
promotion. Both require planning, diligence and
application, day in, day out.
That's where the real work of running an online
business comes in. It's not the website that's
necessary but not sufficient. It's your website
coupled with hours of work promoting it that makes
your business a success.
One without the other will relegate you to the
scrapheap of wannabes - all 95% of them. Don't let
yourself be one of the 95% who never make it. By
getting the foundation (your website) right and then
constantly and effectively promoting it using all of
the methods outlined in this article (as well as your
own brilliant ideas, of course) you stand a very good
chance of securing your place among the 5% of online
businesses that actually do make it.
About the Author
Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning A
Home-Based Business Online... practical home business
ideas, resources and strategies for the work-from-home
entrepreneur. Subscribe at
http://www.fawkner.com/subscribe.html