The steps are divided into two parts. Part one deals with aspects of design and launch and part two deals with techniques for on-going promotion. These steps should be completed in the order in which they appear.
If you have already designed and published your site, incorporate the advice provided for new web sites where possible.
Whether or not you've started designing your site, open a text editor and compose a description of the intended site content in less than 50 words. Include information about your product, service or cause, as well as information about the people for whom this is relevant.
E.g. A web site about Visual Basic fro VB programmers.
Refer to the thirty word description you created and remove common words such as "the", "and", "it" and "a". From the remaining terms compile a list of ten or so keywords or phrases that best describe the content of your site and the people for whom it is intended.
E.g. 'links', 'code', 'programming'.
Start your browser and go to your favourite search engine. Search the web using some of the keywords and phrases created in step 2. Make a note of the kinds of site that are listed highly given the kaywoards used. If these sites are not closely related to yours, then you should review the keywords in your list. Add to your list those phrases and keywords that do result in lists of sites similar to yours. You may find a thesaurus useful during this exercise.
Go back over your keywords and check that all of the aspects of your publication are reflected.
There are a number of design techniques you should incorporate to maximize the first-time 'findability' of your site in search engines.
Structure: Few exhibition stands have only one point of entry. Rather, they utilise every available point of entry around the space provided. If your site is more than a single page, treat every page as a potential point of entry and allocate keywords accordingly.
E.g. In your web site about 'links' you might have a page about 'links' which describes 'Ray's'. Competition is fierce in the struggle for prominent search engine listing. This is particularly so with common and general keywords such as 'links'. The competition will be much reduced if you use 'Ray's'. You won't get many of those who search for 'links', but you will get a good proportion of those who search using more specific keywords. This process can be repeated for all of the main pages in your site. It's called the 'Doorway Technique'.
Six general principles! get them to return. Your most valuable visitor is the one who returns. Use the following 6 design principles to maximize your revisit rate.
Additional Tips:
The following promotional design tips are for the benefit of those search engines that 'spider' a site such as Infoseek. A 'spider' search engine is one that visits a submitted site and makes its own assumptions about content based on the frequency and concentration of keywords and phrases.
The notes you make during this tutorial will be of use during the manual submission of a site to search directories such as YAHOO.
Apply these techniques to each of the main pages of your site.
Title:
The content of the title of your page is the single most important consideration for successful 'findability'. It is the first thing that many search engines will look to for an indication of the content of your page. Furthermore, if they notice it, casual browsers will read it and make a split second decision about wether or not they will click your link.
At least one of the pages of your site should stress the name of your organization. Avoid phrases like Home Page.
Give each of the pages of your site a different title and avoid repeating the name of your organization.
Distribute your top keywords and phrases around the titles of your pages and put them at the beginning of the title.
E.g. Page 2 might be titled: 'Visual Basic: links, code, and tips of Ray's VB Land'.
Make it visible and eye-catching.
E.g. Link, code, and tips!
Meta Tags:
Meta tags are placed in the 'head' of a web page and provide search engines with a guide to the content of a document without the need to place keywords in the body of the page itself.
A word of warning before you write a huge list of Meta tags. Search engines will check on the number of tags used and some will ignore pages that contain more than seven repetitions.
Taking each of your pages in turn add the keywords or phrases you have allocated for each page to the Meta Tag section.
You should put the text in the Meta tags in both mixed case, upper case and lower case, separate keywords an phrases with a comma and a space.
Headings
Having looked in the title and the Meta Tags, a spider search engine will look for any text in 'Heading' form. Namely H1 and H2 HTML tags. Repeat the title of your page at the top in one of these heading sizes. In the Page
Repeat your keywords or phrase at the beginning of the first sentence of the page and again somewhere in each of the next 2 sentences.
Put the keywords or phrase in the ALT attribute of any prominent images at the top of your page.
Avoid adding unnecessary text. The addition of every irrelevant word or phrase weakens the concentration of your keywords.
Go to Infoseek
Your pages are now ready to receive visits from spiders. Infoseek (www.infoseek.com) processes Add URL requests in minutes.
Try searching for the exact keywords and phrases you have added to each page and make a note of the number of results. Remember that many internet users put phrases into speech marks to search for an exact phrase.
Add each of your pages to infoseek and make a coffee.
Repeat the search exactly as before and make another note of the number of results.
Make a note of your page placement and the associated keywords in the page and in the search, for each page. If your link does not appear, but the result numbers suggested that a page has been added, it is likely that your page has not scored a high enough relevance percentage against the keywords. If this is the case, make adjustments to your pages and re-submit after 24 hours.
Once you are satisfied with the placement in Infoseek, you can start to submit your URL to all of the other spiders you can find. This is a good time to use Submit-it or another free multiple submission service.
Having designed and tested your keywords in Infoseek create a "promotion record" web page on your hard drive for each of the main pages for your site. (e.g. indexpromo.html). In it you should record the promotional activity for that page and track the results in search engines.
If you are Webmaster for a client, insist that the organisation's internet address be added to ALL printed publicity material and that internal memos be sent round to familiarize employees with the publication.
As previously mentioned, some search engines require you to complete a form in order to have your site listed. These are often referred to as directories as addition is often a manual process. Some of these directories take many weeks and sometimes months to process a submission. Some fail altogether. However, it remains the case that a well registered site will attract many new contacts with little or no ongoing effort on the part of the publishers. So, get it right first time.
Whilst the many free submission services are useful for submitting to spiders, directories' requirements vary and it is best to submit to each one individually.
Visit as many of the top 50 directories as possible and try searching for your keywords and phrases. Make a note of the required information such as the number of keywords permitted or the number of words allowed for a description.
Open a text editor and add the information that you are likely to need such as contact details and URL and email etc. Spell check this. There is nothing more embarassing than spotting a typo in a description that stays on-line for months.
If a directory permits a 50 word description, use it all.
LAUNCH PRESS RELEASES
Compile a list of all the Internet Trade Publications and obtain a name and e-mail address for the person responsible for reviewing and/or listing web sites. Send an email message to all of these people including the title of the site, the exact URL and a brief description of the sites content.
Compile a list of the publications relevant to the activities of your client or the content of the web site.
NEWSGROUPS AND MAILING LISTS
Go to http://www.liszt.com and search by key word for newsgroups and mailing lists relevant to your site content.
Subscribe to as many relevant news groups and mailing lists as possible.
Compose a message stressing any free products or services or information and send a copy to each of the news groups on separate days if possible.
Send a similar message to the host of each of the mailing lists to which you have subscribed.
NB - Try to be creative and avoid sending dull web site launch announcements.
MUTUAL LINKS
Compile a list of the top 10 web sites that appear in search engines and directories when you search using the key words or phrases associated with each of your pages. Visit these web sites and send a message to the webmaster suggesting the creation of reciprocal links. You may find that you have to create links in your site first.
Repeat this process in the five or so major search engines as shown in the Netscape search page.
WEB RINGS
Go to www.webring.com and join two or three web rings that already
attract your target market.
Once you have completed part one you should establish an on going program of promotion to sustain traffic rates at your site.
At this stage you might consider holding regular free draws or the distribution of a newsletter.
These techniques are designed to help you build a database of the names, locations and e-mail addresses of visitors to your site.
Every month send out a reminder message to all of the visitors who have visited your site and requested addition to your mailing list.
Copy the details of these reminders to relevant newsgroups and mailing lists.
Monitor messages left in newsgroups and mailing lists and if the answers to questions asked are on your web site reply to them to that effect. Make sure that your signature file always contains the URL of your web site.
From time to time repeat the launch announcement process in part one, especially if you make significant and news worthy changes to your
site.
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