Christmas is coming, and NOW is the time to plan your site
promotion efforts. This article covers some basic but important
methods of promoting your website in time for this lucrative
holiday season...
.. A client got in touch with me last week concerned about the
approach of Christmas, and the fact that nothing had been done to
promote their website (ever!). They simply wanted to know what
options were available to promote their site, and how much it was
going to cost.
I have reproduced my advice within this article (without
associated costs, obviously). The advice is relevant to those of
you who are actively promoting your websites too. (Always
be careful, however, not to promote the same page too often to
the same search engine or directory!)
< Advice begins...
Dear Concerned Client,
Following on from Friday's telephone conversation about promoting
your site, I have summarised the possible options you might want
to take. The options are as follows:
1) BASIC site submission.
This does not guarantee extra site traffic. A listing on the
major search engines and directories is absolutely necessary,
nevertheless, to provide at least the chance of search engine
traffic. Activities include:
Determination of suitable keywords and site description; use
in search engine (and directory) submissions.
Hand submission of site to 10-20 major search engines
including Google and other major UK search engines
Automatic submission to 50+ directories
Hand submission to DMOZ and Lycos human-edited directories
Hand submission to 10-20 UK shopping guides.
(Not all guides will list the site for free. Some require you
create a reciprocal link, whilst others require a listing
payment or an affiliate program to join (so there is at least
the possibility of earning income).
Automatic submission of one web page to major search engines
via Inktomi. This guarantees the web page will be listed
on several search engines within 48 hours. (Page listing is
refreshed every 48 hours for 1 year thereafter.) It does
not guarantee a good listing, however.
- http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-promote/
- http://www.dmoz.org
- http://www.lycos.co.uk
2) BASIC search engine report.
A simple report can be generated each month, that determines
search engine ranking for 5-10 specific keywords; e.g. 'key word
1', 'key words 2', 'key words 3' etc. (These keywords would be
determined in option 1) above.) There are many sites that allow
you to do this yourself. My favourite tool can be found at
- http://www.did-it.com
3) Create a LINKS PAGE.
Create a links page and engage in an active reciprocal linking
campaign. The ideal solution would be to swap links with sites
that already rank well for your chosen keywords. This process can
be automated a little with free scripts found at
- http://www.cgi-resources.com
Good link-swapping strategies can be found in this article
- http://www.howipromotemywebsite.com/bin/ap.pl?link-swaps
4) Start a pay-per-click search engine campaign (ADVANCED)
Pay-per-click search engines allow you to automatically rank well
on a search engine for any keyword you choose. You simply bid for
a keyword and if your bid is highest your site ranks highest on
the search engine. You simply pay the cost of the bid for each
click your site receives.
Bids can start as low as 1 penny, and the best strategy is to
choose many less obvious keywords and bid as low as you can.
Pay-per-click search engines like GoTo UK (www.uk.goto.com) and
Espotting (www.espotting.com) indirectly reach upwards of 70% of
ALL UK search engine traffic (they sell their search results to
search engines like Excite and Freeserve who incorporate them
into their own searches).
This is a somewhat labour-intensive activity but is a great way
to generate low-cost, targeted traffic. For more details visit
- http://www.howipromotemywebsite.com/bin/ap.pl?pay-per-click
5) Set up an AFFILIATE PROGRAM (ADVANCED)
Set up (and manage) an affiliate program for your site. This
would have the potential to generate a lot of inbound links to
your site, as well as to create an active sales-force. In return,
affiliates would get paid a small commission for any sales or
leads they provided. For more details visit
- http://www.shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-profit/
... Advice ends >
The advice above is aimed at a UK-based client who owns a
shopping-related site (AND one who does not wish to have
search-engine-friendly pages created). Whatever your site is
about, however, there will always be important sites to get
listed on (or swap links with) outside of the major search
engines; you just need to find them.
(For advice about creating search-engine friendly pages visit
- http://www.shoptour.co.uk/go/good-keywords.html )
As I was to undertake this work myself, it was not necessary for
me to provide suitable links (I just added a few (above) for the
benefit of this article). The following links are also useful:
Free web site promotion guide -
http://www.HowIPromoteMyWebsite.com
Free 5-day search engine Masters course, by e-mail -
mailto:1stSearchRanking.1000.1037@optinpro.com
Find important sites to get a link on; use this tool -
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
8 Ways To Promote New Content On Your Website -
http://shoptour.co.uk/webmaster-promote/promote-new-content.shtml
10 Simple Ways That You Can Promote Your Website -
http://www.taurus-graphics.net/websitepromotion.html
Contact your customers via mobile phone text messaging -
http://www.textmefree.com/freesmsonyoursite.html
(And for those of you who really want to master web site
promotion, the single best resource without doubt would be the
newly revised ebook Make Your Site Sell! 2002 (MYSS! 2002),
written by Dr Ken Evoy.
The 400 page traffic-building volume (one of four volumes in
MYSS! 2002!) covers the basics of website promotion together with
pay-per-click-search-engines, affiliate programs and
(importantly) it reveals the web site promotion time-wasters,
too. Unbeatable value. Invaluable.)
Yes, Christmas 2002 is coming. There is no need for concern,
though; this article has shown you many ways that you can
successfully promote your web site and take full advantage of
this holiday festival. Just do something NOW!
About the Author
Steve Nash is webmaster at HowIPromoteMyWebsite.com. He also
edits a bi-monthly newsletter called Promote! Promote! Promote!
Subscribe and get 2 free gifts. mailto:pppromote@getresponse.com
And you can buy the excellent (and MUST-read) MYSS! 2002 at
http://myss.sitesell.com/shopping101.html