 Web
Site Promotion
Congratulations! You've got yourself your very own, brand new
Usborne website designed. It's been published to the worldwide web and you,
your family and friends have all visited the site and you're feeling
suitably proud.
Is that it? Is that all you have to do? Do you just sit back now and wait
for hoards of cyber visitors to bombard your site. The answer, of course, is
no!. There are plenty of people out there looking for our wonderful product
and business opportunity and it's now your job to get them to visit your
site. Online and offline, with a little effort you
will find your site will become an integral part of your business marketing
strategy (yes, you do have a strategy).
In order for
your Web site to be successful, you need to promote it. There are many ways
to promote your site, but one method registering your site in the various
Internet search engines.
Main Search
Engines
Indexing your Web site on the main search engines is easy once you get
the hang of it. Some of the main, or more common, search engines are:
You can list or index your Web site with these and other search engines
for free by manually submitting your Web site.
It is important to understand that when you submit your site to search
engines, either manually or using automated service/software, you are merely
inviting their automated system (robots, spiders) to visit your site to
index the content of your site and possibly add your site to their database.
Your site WILL NOT instantly appear on their search engine. However, with
due diligence and patience (and some luck) your site will show up within a
few days or a few months. This may sound discouraging, but hang in there!
To manually submit your site, visit a search engine and click on the
submit your URL link and read the instructions and guidelines to
submitting a URL. Most search engines only required the full URL and name of
your Web site. Others may also require you to enter an e-mail address, a
brief description or up to five key words.
Other search
engines suggest you use Meta Tags.
General
Guidelines
Here are the
general guidelines to submitting an URL to a search engine.
- Go to the
Web site of the search engine you wish to be listed in.
- Find the
add/submit URL link. Click on it.
- Follow the
instructions and enter the full URL of your site including the http://.
Enter in the full name of the site. Enter any other appropriate
information that is required including an e-mail address, a brief
description or some key words.
- After
submission, the search engine may take anywhere between three days and 2
weeks for your URL and information to be added.
Meta Tags
Meta Tags are
HTML code used by search engines to specifically index your web site. Meta
Tags consist (primarily) of two separate fields: description and keywords.
The Meta Tag description field should be brief and to the point, providing a
clear and succinct description of the page and its contents..
The Meta Tag
keyword field can be used to specify additional key words or synonyms that
describe the contents of a site. META tag keywords are used in the indexing
process but will not display on your Web page. The keywords can include up
to 1000 characters of text. Be sure that the key words chosen are relevant
to the contents of the page.
All Websites
in the JustGreatBooks.com program have standard meta tags already
programmed. Your website has the following coded in the description field:
"[your name] based in [your town, your province] is an independent Usborne
Books at Home consultant providing award winning children's books to
Canadian families."
Currently, the
following keywords automatically coded into each page of your site include:
UBAH consultant, ubah, UBAH, Usborne Books at Home, usborne books at home
consultant, Usborne Books, usborne, award winning books, birthday, books
for children, books, Canada, Canadian, child, children, children's books,
crafts, daycare, education, educational books, educational children book,
educational children's books, educational products, educational,
exceptional, fundraisers, gift, history, home business, home parties, home
school, homeschool, K-12, kids, language, learning, librarians,
library, mom, opportunity, parent, preschool, publishing, reading,
reference books, school book fairs, school, school, science, WAHM, women,
work at home
Please note:
Not all engines use Meta. For instance,
Excite
says:- Our spider doesn't honor meta tags. We believe our decision
protects our users from unreliable information.
Resources
-
How
Search Engines (Say They) Work . Forget the
usual debate about which search engine provides the "most relevant"
results. Yes, some engines do seem to provide better results than others.
However, all of them will provide at least some relevant results to a
query. In fact, usually search engines produce so many relevant results
that it is difficult to understand why a page ranked first did better than
another page ranked 20th.
Updating
Your Web Site's Listing
Update your
listings in the major Search Engines and Directories (Google, Yahoo, Lycos,
Altavista, HotBot, Excite, etc.) if you have made any significant changes to
your web site such as: changing your domain name, changing file or directory
names, moving pages to different directories, adding or deleting files, or
making significant changes to the text on a page for which you want your
listing updated quickly.
- To update
your listings with the Search Engines, you can re-submit the URL of your
index page and let their spiders 'crawl' through the rest of your site or
you can re-submit the URL of each of the pages that has changed.
- You can
delete an old listing for an outdated URL by submitting the URL of the old
page once that page has been removed from the web server. When the Search
Engine tries to index the non-existent page, it will get a "File Not
Found" error and will delete any entries it has for that URL.
- If you
simply move your entire web site (including your domain name) from one web
hosting provider to another, you will not need to update your listings
with the search engines.
|
 More ways
to promote your website - offline!Here are a few tips for the offline
marketing of your website that are easy and generally inexpensive to put
into action.
Start with your existing marketing - make sure you put your Web address
on all your flyers, brochures, business cards, catalogues, order forms etc.
If you're not planning to print more stationary for a while why not invest
$20 or so in a self inking stamp then stamp the address on anything that
leaves your hands in the meantime.
The simplest, most economical way to go is make sure EVERY email that
leaves your computer has a "signature" at the bottom featuring your website.
Most, if not all, email programs have this option.. USE IT!
Include your Web address in all your newspaper/newsletter advertising,
and don't forget encourage people to visit you at
www.justgreatbooks.com/yourname
Include your web address in your telephone answering message, after all
you have a captive audience! Let them know they can find out more via the
net 24 hours a day.
When customers call, ask if they have Internet access. If they do,
encourage them to also visit your web site for up to date hostess and
sponsoring promotions, stock availability and customer specials. (explain
that they'll be able to access the information quicker than waiting for it
to be mailed or faxed out to them). If they visit the site once it's likely
they will return next time they need to know something -- AND refer their
friends!
Use your web address as a screen saver and set it to scroll across the
screen when your PC is not in use. Obviously, your customers won't be seeing
your webaddress... but if you work in an office situation as well (some UBAH
consultants have full-time or part-time jobs elsewhere), your work
colleagues will. Potential customers! Even at home, by seeing your web
address every time you sit in front of your computer, you will be reminded
of it subliminally... when you think it, you say it.
If you feel brave enough, make sure your web address is displayed on your
vehicle for all to see...let's face it web addresses are a lot easier to
remember than phone numbers.
Here's another stretch -- but some have done it! Have t-shirts
printed with your Web address and logo - give them out as prizes or
promotional items at trade shows, open days or sales. One of your t-shirts
could end up spreading your name about the place while it's fishing, camping
or jogging or even downtown at the kids' market!
So there you have it, obviously not all the above points will be
practical for everyone, but even if you get one or two offline website
promotions up and running you'll be going a long way towards getting people
to visit your site, and that's what you want isn't it? |
