Web Site Promotion 101

By Joanne Glasspoole
Posted Saturday, August 7, 2004

So, you’ve designed a compelling web site that you’re eager to show the world. Every day you add fresh content and tweak your pages to make them prettier, more informative and faster to download. It’s gonna pay off, you tell yourself, as you upload several new pages to your web server.

Midway in the afternoon, you stop what you’re doing to check your traffic reports… You’re excited and eager to confirm just how successful your web site is. Waiting for your site statistics to finish downloading, your glee turns to dread when you learn that only two people visited your web site all day.

What’s a disillusioned Webmaster to do?

Submit Your URL To the Search Engines

Search engines are by far the most popular way to find information on the Internet. Getting your site listed, however, is a chore, and it is oftentimes frustrating because results are not quick to see.

Although there are automated services that promise to get you listed on thousands of web directories and free-for-all (FFA) links pages, it is recommended that you manually submit your site to the top search engines.

Be forewarned that it takes weeks (sometimes even months!) to get listed.

Set up a tickler file to do site submissions on a monthly basis. Resist the temptation to submit more often, because your hard work will go up in a puff of smoke if your URL gets banned for spamming.

The following list is not all inclusive, but it is a good place to start with your search engine submissions.

Free Submissions:

AltaVista
ExactSeek.com
Google
Hypermaze.com
Open Directory Project
iWon
REX
Scrub The web
SplatSearch.com
The YellowPages.com
Try America
whatUseek Network
Gigablast
CompletePlanet
Aesop.com
Jayde
Very Good Search
compilers.net
SearchIt
Jadoo
W8.net
Claymont
AUCTION.com
a2zsol.com
JoeAnt.com
Gimpsy
GoGuides.Org

Paid Inclusion:

Position Technologies
DigitalWork
Site Submit
Yahoo!

Pay-per-click:

Pay-Per-Ranking
ePilot
Espotting
Espotting
goClick.com
Kanoodle
LookSmart
Overture

Directory-Specific Search Engine:

AllSearchEngines.com Swap Links With Other Web Sites

With more than 3.2 billion web pages competing against yours, you can’t rely solely on search engines for web site promotion.

In my experience, the second most important web marketing strategy is reciprocal links.

When I come across an excellent online resource, I add it to my “related links” page, and, if it’s appropriate, I contact the Webmaster to see whether they might be interested in swapping links with me. More times than not, the response is positive.

Since relevant, high-quality links coming to your site from other sites is increasingly important in getting good search engine rankings, I recommend that you put establishing linking partnerships high on your marketing to do list.

Conclusion

Like building a web site, promoting it to the world is hard work, but I guarantee your sense of accomplishment will be well worth the effort when you start to see results. More importantly, visitors!

About the author:
Joanne Glasspoole is an accomplished web designer who specializes in developing search engine friendly web sites. Her clients include small businesses and nonprofit organizations in Minneapolis/St. Paul. (www.glasspoole.com)
Copyright © Joanne Glasspoole. All rights reserved.