How to effectively promote a new website

Written by Robin Eldred


One ofrepparttar most difficult challenges that website owners and designers face today is how to get a brand new website noticed. In other words, how to get your site indexed byrepparttar 124549 major search engines so that it can start appearing within search results.

The best approach to this problem is on a case by case scenario of course, but there are some fundamental activities that you can undertake that will expediterepparttar 124550 process and give you that kick start that your site needs.

(There are a variety of tools that can help you get these tasks done. The most popular include WebPosition Gold, WebCEO and IBP)

On-page Factors

Before any search engines arrive at your front door you want to ensure that your content is going to be indexed favourably. This has to do with what are called “on-page” factors. This includes your visible content, META tags, page names, directory names, ALT tags, TITLE tags, HTML structure, etc. Using one ofrepparttar 124551 aforementioned tools can help to ensure that your pages are optimized for particular keyphrases relevant to your business.

Of course, before you optimize your pages you’ll need to know what keyphrases to optimize them for. One ofrepparttar 124552 best tools for researchingrepparttar 124553 search engine landscape is WordTracker. It’s an affordable service that you can make use of on an as-needed basis. There are a couple of nice free tools, however, including Overture’s Keyword Selection Tool and Google’s AdWords Selection Tool.

Once you’ve identified your most potentially lucrative keyphrases you can then proceed to work on your “on-page” factors and optimize your web pages.

Off-page Factors

Off-page factors are things outside of your website and web pages. Essentially, they are how other websites link to your site. This is where life gets a bit tricky. It’s no wonder that Google, repparttar 124554 world’s number one search engine, is placing more and more emphasis on “off-page” factors; they’re much more difficult to control.

Submission Still Works

Contrary to what you may have heard (or perhaps right in line with what you’ve heard) website submissions still work. This is not to say that all website submission tools are created equal, however. Some tools (like SubmitWolf) will submit to thousands of search engines and directories – this is not very useful. You need to focus onrepparttar 124555 handful of search engines and directories that mean something.

Using a tool like WebPosition Gold, WebCEO or IBP can help automate this process. Keep in mind thatrepparttar 124556 true goal of website submission is to get your site indexed byrepparttar 124557 major search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN). Once your site and most of its web pages have been indexed there is no point in further website submissions. This is an early task only and shouldn’t be necessary for a site older than about 6 months.

Inbound Links

Getting quality, relevant links to your website from other websites is essential to your site’s success. Each of these “inbound links” is considered a “vote” for your website. But, unlikerepparttar 124558 democracies of our modern era, all votes are not created equal. Differentiating factors include:

  • Link type.

Submitting Your Site To The Open Directory

Written by Sumantra Roy


Getting your site an optimum listing inrepparttar Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org) is vitally important as far as search engine positioning is concerned as Google gives a lot of importance to sites being listed inrepparttar 124548 Open Directory.

In this article, we focus on how you can get your site an optimum listing inrepparttar 124549 Open Directory. Even if your site is already listed inrepparttar 124550 Open Directory, you should read this article to find out how you can get multiple listings inrepparttar 124551 Open Directory.

Before you submit your site, go through your entire site and ensure that there are no missing graphics, no links leading to empty or non-existent pages and no "Under construction" symbols. Also, check for typos and grammatical errors. Furthermore, your site must provide good content. If your site simply contains links to various affiliate programs, you will find it difficult to get through. The Open Directory does not mind sites containing links to affiliate programs, as long as you provide proper content.

You now need to selectrepparttar 124552 two most important keywords for your site based on their popularity. If you don't yet knowrepparttar 124553 keywords which are applicable for your site, have a look at my article on "Choosingrepparttar 124554 correct keywords for your site", available at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?4901&keywords.htm In this article, I have mentioned that while selectingrepparttar 124555 keywords for your site, you should look at bothrepparttar 124556 popularity ofrepparttar 124557 keywords as well as their competitiveness. However, forrepparttar 124558 purpose of this article, don't worry aboutrepparttar 124559 competitiveness - select keywords only onrepparttar 124560 basis of popularity.

We now discuss how you should writerepparttar 124561 Title and Description of your site's listing inrepparttar 124562 Open Directory. You don't really have much choice regardingrepparttar 124563 Title asrepparttar 124564 Open Directory insists thatrepparttar 124565 Title berepparttar 124566 official name of your site. There is no way around it.

When you writerepparttar 124567 description, your aim should be to makerepparttar 124568 Open Directory editor's job as easy as possible. You should not giverepparttar 124569 editorrepparttar 124570 feeling that he/she needs to edit your description in any way. The moment an editor starts to edit your description, you risk having your keywords removed from your description.

Your description should be a single sentence which conveys what your site is all about and containsrepparttar 124571 two keywords you are targeting as close as possible torepparttar 124572 beginning ofrepparttar 124573 description. However, your description should not just be a list of keywords -repparttar 124574 description that you use should be a proper sentence and should be grammatically correct.

Broadly, here arerepparttar 124575 rules that you should remember when formingrepparttar 124576 description:

i) Make sure thatrepparttar 124577 description can tell a visitor what your site is all about. Things like "Have a look at our site" or "Welcome to my site" does not tell a visitor what your site does.

ii) Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamation marks. Phrases like "The best web site dealing with widgets!!" or "Offersrepparttar 124578 BEST QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can find anywhere" are inappropriate.

iii) Don't capitalize every word in your description - capitalize onlyrepparttar 124579 first word. Of course, if some ofrepparttar 124580 words inrepparttar 124581 description are proper nouns, then you should capitalize them.

iv) Writerepparttar 124582 description inrepparttar 124583 third person. Don't say "We offer financial planning and credit counseling services", say "Offers financial planning and credit counseling services.".

v) Don't make your description too long - limit yourself to 15 words atrepparttar 124584 most. If you are lucky, you may be able to get accepted with a description longer than 15 words. However, longerrepparttar 124585 description, higherrepparttar 124586 probability thatrepparttar 124587 editor will want to edit it.

vi) Check your description for typos and grammatical mistakes.

vii) End your description with a period. Ifrepparttar 124588 editor has to addrepparttar 124589 period torepparttar 124590 end of your description, she may also end up editingrepparttar 124591 description, which is not what you want. Your aim is to haverepparttar 124592 editor acceptrepparttar 124593 exact description that you had written in order to ensure that your keywords are not removed fromrepparttar 124594 description.

Now, we come to how you can selectrepparttar 124595 right category for your site. Go torepparttar 124596 Open Directory, and search forrepparttar 124597 two keywords you have established. Does a particular category come up atrepparttar 124598 top for bothrepparttar 124599 keywords? If so, go to that category, and see whetherrepparttar 124600 sites present inrepparttar 124601 category are similar to yours. Also see whether that category has a Description and/or a FAQ. Read them and find out whether that category is applicable for your site. If so, this isrepparttar 124602 category you should submit your site to.

If different categories come up atrepparttar 124603 top forrepparttar 124604 two keywords, go through allrepparttar 124605 categories and find out which isrepparttar 124606 most appropriate category amongrepparttar 124607 different categories.

For some keywords, you will find thatrepparttar 124608 Open Directory does not display any categories. In this case, find out which category most ofrepparttar 124609 top sites belong to and submit your site to that category, assuming it is applicable for your site.

Once you have selectedrepparttar 124610 right category, click onrepparttar 124611 "add URL" link atrepparttar 124612 top. Type inrepparttar 124613 address of your site inrepparttar 124614 first text box,repparttar 124615 official name of your site inrepparttar 124616 next text box,repparttar 124617 description that you have earlier developed inrepparttar 124618 third text box and your email address inrepparttar 124619 fourth text box. Althoughrepparttar 124620 Open Directory says that includingrepparttar 124621 email address is optional, I would recommend that you include it - if, for some reason, your site is not accepted,repparttar 124622 Open Directory editor may want to tell you why your site has not been accepted.

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