Promote Your Site – 23 Steps

1. Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title. Write a descriptive title for each page — rich in keywords you want people to find you with — using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many “filler” words from the title (such as the, and,etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. 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 interesting. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:
<TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist -- 23 Ways to Promote Your Website</TITLE>.
(It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your web browser.)

Blue bar at top of web browser containing the Title

Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialize in after-market motorcycle parts and that’s what people will be searching for, don’t just use your company name “Moe’s Motorcycle Parts” use “Aftermarket Motorcycle Parts and Accessories — Moe’s Motorcycle Parts” The words people are most likely to use in a search should appear first in the title (called “keyword prominence”). Remember, this title is your 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 META Tag. Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and keyphrases on this page. Don’t include keywords that don’t appear on the webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase traffic to your site with search engine optimization, email campaigns, social networking, keyword search, directory submission"> The 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 you prepare a webpage, write the article first, then develop a keyword-rich title (#1 above). Then write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords a keyphrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag. Next, strip out the common words, leaving just the significant keywords and phrases and insert those into the keywords META tag. It’s no longer used much for ranking, but it can’t hurt and it may have some minor value.

3. Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3). Search engines consider keywords 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.

4. Position Your Keywords 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. Search engines traditionally can’t read and index words that are contained within graphics or Flash.

5. Promote Your Video, Images, and Audio Content & Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags. This helps your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes help get your images ranked higher for image search. A Google search displays relevant listings for images, videos, local businesses (see #10 below), and audio clips. Therefore, consider creating such content appropriate to your business and then optimizing it so it can be ranked high enough to help you. For example, if you were to get a top-ranking, informative video on YouTube that mentions your site, it could drive a lot of traffic to your site. For more information, search on “optimizing images” or “optimizing videos.”

6. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks. Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and keyphrases.

7. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. You want search engine robots to find all the pages in 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 very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus 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. Don’t set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, out-dated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems. Some content management systems and e-commerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages, often recognizable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go farther. If you find the search engines aren’t indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.

8. Create a Site Map.

The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site. It allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site. Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.

The following sites are helpful in this process:

9. Develop Webpages Focused on Each Your Target Keywords.Use Google Insights for Search or the free keyword suggestion tool on Wordtracker to find the related keywords people search on. In this case: write a separate webpage featuring the each of the keywords relevant to your site. You’ll write a completely different article on each topic.

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. Also create a free listing for your local business on Google Maps Local Business Center and Yahoo! Local . That way your business can show up on a map when people do a local search.

11. Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic. A directory is is a hierarchical listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory. Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project. Yahoo! Directory is another important directory. Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given. 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. Other paid business directories that might help are About.com and Business.com. Click here for a listing of more possible directories.

12. Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focus on particular industries, such as education or finance. If you belong to various trade associations that feature member directories, ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and your search engine ranking.

13. Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters. You can 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. You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week.

14. 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 updated content, people are likely to link to it, increasing your site’s PageRank. Consistency and having something to say are key.

15. Become Part of a Social Media Community. Some of the best online communities for business include Facebook and Twitter . In addition, you may want to participate in a social bookmarking community in which members share with each other information about websites, articles, or news items that they like (or don’t like). These include Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Google Bookmarks. Search engine spiders troll these sites looking for links to something new and relevant. You can usually place a link to your website in your profile, but the biggest gain comes when other people mention you (which generates traffic to your site), link to you (which increases your PageRank and brings traffic), or bookmark you (which increases your PageRank and brings traffic). Observe proper etiquette in these communities – don’t join a community to spam them or talk incessantly about your business. Like any community you must listen, comment, and make a genuine contribution for the good of others. Otherwise, your self-serving links and comments will hurt your reputation.

16. Promote Your Site in Online Forums and Discussion Lists.The Internet offers thousands of very targeted e-mail based discussion lists, online forums, and groups made up of people with very specialized interests. Use Google Groups (groups.google.com) to find appropriate groups. Search online for blogs or other forums. Don’t bother with 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.

17. Ask Visitors to Bookmark Your Site or save it in their Favorites list.

18. Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL. And see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct.

19. Use traditional media. Continue to use print advertising that you’ve found effective. Be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages, etc. 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. Leave your web address on your voicemail.

20. Develop a Free Service. Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.

21. Create An Email Signature.

  • Add your website address and contact information to the signature of your email.
  • Don’t use all CAPITALS
  • Don’t try to make pictures out of keyboard characters. They won’t display correctly in all email programs.
  • Include http:// in front of your website address. This will make your link clickable in most email programs.
  • Keep it short.

22. Maintain a Newsletter/Mailing List.

  • Include a subscription form on every page of your website.
  • Promote sign-ups through free whitepapers, e-books, or other products.
  • If you have a local business, ask customers to sign up for your e-mail list to get “special Internet only offers.”
  • Send a transactional e-mail to an existing customer to initiate, remind, confirm, or thank the person.
  • Send special offers, coupon specials, product updates, etc.

23. Talk About Your Website