Promote, promote, promote!

By Ruth McIntyre-Williams
Posted Monday, August 9, 2004

Whats important in successfully selling real estate? Location, location, location. What’s important in selling your web page? Promotion, promotion, promotion! Your site is floating around in cyberspace. Does anyone know it’s there? Not unless you tell them — over and over and over. Blow your own horn, talk, write, dance the dance. Whatever it takes to get the attention of the public, do it!

And do it yourself! There are services that will submit your site to lots of search engines. They say they will track it and resubmit as necessary. Fill out their forms, hit the “submit” button, and hope something will happen. It might. But to be sure — do it yourself!

Pick out a few of the best-known search engines/search directories, like Jayde. Submit your URL to them yourself, carefully choosing the best category for your site. That’s for starters. Check back every couple of weeks to see if your site is listed. If it isn’t, resubmit it. Keep on reSubmiting it until it shows up. This is the easy part.

When your URL shows up, it turns out to be listing number 240 out of 573 sites in that category. If it’s not on the first three pages (usually listings 1-60), you won’t get much from it. People get tired and move on after reading three pages of listiings. You’ve got to move up. This means adding meta tags, or revising the ones you have, and — reSubmiting your URL. It may mean restructuring your site and its headings, titles, and navigation links, as some search spiders ignore meta tags, and — reSubmiting your URL. Perhaps many times. This is the hard part.

Submiting to search engines is a science.There are scores of free articles out there on ways to be successful at it. Start surfing.

Search engines are good. It’s the place to start because the results are proven. But it can be a long process. If you’re serious about this promotions stuff, you will busy yourself elsewhere while you’re working on search engine submissions. The search engine will be your best friend as you do.

First, let’s talk banners. There are a slew of free banner exchange services listed on search engines. Most of them have a stock banner you can tailor for yourself, or you can create your own banner advertising your site and upload it to the banner exchange. There are standard banner sizes used on the net, and you can get these from the exchanges. Be sure to make your banner fit the standard, or it will be refused.

Once you have had your banner accepted by an exchange, they will begin displaying your banner on other websites, while you must put the code on your website that allows them to display their banners on your site. The banner service will also keep track for you of how many “impressions” your banner has had, how many times your banner was clicked on, and other pertinent information. Keep an eyes on these stats. If your banner isn’t performing well, change it. Put up several different banners and track them. Which is doing the best? Perhaps one exchange service is producing better results because they’re choosing better where they put your banner. Balance banner style and exchange results. This you have to do for yourself. Check your stats regularly. If things are going well, you may want to upgrade to a fee-based exchange. Optimize your promotion.

Next, webrings. .A webring is a group of websites that are all related to a specific category/topic. Find them on the search engines. Webrings may have smaller audiences than search engines and banner exchanges, but they are (remember this word) targeted. For instance, you are selling wooden ducks. On a search engine, your site is listed in a large category, possibly Arts and Crafts. You don’t know where your banner on the exchange is being shown. But — every site in the Wooden Duck webring has to do with wooden ducks. The number of viewers may be smaller, but every one of them is interested in wooden ducks, or they wouldn’t be surfing the webring. So a much higher percentage of viewers will respond to a targeted site, like a webring. They like wooden ducks. They like your wooden ducks. They buy.

You can’t stop there. Go back to the search engines, and start looking for any site that relates in any ways to yours (targeting your audience). See what that site can do to promote your site. Check out the links on their link pages, add your URL if you can. Search for directories that relate to your site, and get yourself listed in them. Write articles for ezines and enewsletters that directly or indirectly publicize your site. Send press releases to the local paper. Advertise in the local paper. Be tireless. Be aggressive. Promote, promote, promote.

About the Author
Published By: Ruth McIntyre-Williams
Web Site URL: Clovenstone Adventure Novel