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WEBSITE PROMOTION
DIY GUIDE
Overview
Check your own
rankings
Check your
competitors ranking
What makes a
good site to promote
What makes a
bad site to promote
Promoting
difficult websites
Meta Tags
Copy
File Names
Keywords and
Keywords Phrases
Description
Hyperlinks
Important
Search Engines and Directories
Registration
Fees
Other Tips
What Not To Do
Promoting difficult websites
Websites that
have an opening Flash Graphic may look very pretty but besides annoying
most people nearly all search engines are not equipped to recognise Flash
and consequently they cannot see anything at all. If your index page is
entirely constructed of Flash the search engine Spider (an automated robot
that searches an indexes your site) will see no more than a one page
website with no, or almost no content. It will probably assume your
website is still under construction and it is extremely unlikely your
website will ever achieve good rankings. There are several ways to
overcome Flash pages and menus. the favoured way is to construct identical
"Mirror" pages or menus replacing the flash animation or menus with gif
animation. With a basic graphics package this can be performed using
screen capture and normally does the trick. The pages created can
either be promoted in their own right or can often replace the entire site
pages and can be promoted using the index page. By making gif, text, and
image pages you are creating a navigation structure, images that can have
image alt tags, and text that can all be read and Spidered by the search
engines. For the first time they can get past the first page and make a
report on your site. We then have to fix it so that report results in your
website coming top in the rankings. An alternative to creating mirror
pages on the site is to create a mirror website altogether and promoted
that. This is also a good idea because it normally allows the new "mirror"
website to have the keyword phrase in the title, which always helps when
promoting. Gif animation is only practical for small animations and Flash
sub-menus are also difficult to re-create. Search engine spiders, or
robots, also know as "Bots", work by indexing your website. They need to
find a navigation structure, they also need to find copy (text) and lots
of it. it helps if your site has images and that their file name and Alt
tag both have your keyword phrase in them.
Meta Tags
Some major
search engines give less importance to what is on actually on the page,
simply verifying that your website has all the "qualities" listed above.
Instead, they gather all the information they need from the "Meta Tags".
What your site called, the description, what the important keywords are,
etc. So if you want to promote your site effectively, Meta Tags are very
important.
Copy
The most
recent "Essential" element a website must have in order to ensure page one
rankings is Copy (Text). Some search engines insist that your index page
must have at least 200 words on it. These words must include your keywords
at regular intervals but not too often. Repeating keywords too often can
result in your website being classed as spamming and may result in it
being banned.
File Names
Most websites
have a folder called "images". In that folder are images called things
like "Title_Bar", "Button_Left", "Image_4", "Spacer" etc.
Anything on
your site that can be named should be named, to include your keywords.
Images, Pages, Downloads, Style sheets, Folders, everything. The more files
are named with your keywords, the more chance you have of increasing your
rankings. So re-named the folder to "Your_Keyword_Phrase_Images" and
re-name you images "Your_Keyword_Phrase_title_bar", "Your_Keyword_Phrase_Button_Left"
etc.
Keywords and Keyword Phrases
A "Keyword
Phrase" is what customers enter into search engines to find businesses
like yours. it could be something like "Structural Engineers in the UK".
Keywords are other important words which you may want to list, too many to
include in your keyword phrase but potentially customers may use sometimes
in their search. An example could be: "underpinning, surveyor, foundation,
subsidence, building, party wall, civil engineering, structural engineers,
england, uk, engineering, analysis, design, consulting, building,
construction, architect, refurbishment, reports, warehouses, bridges,
offices, contractors.
Description
Some search
engines copy exactly what your description says, others take what you
write yourself as a guide to what they will say. A well written
description that mentions your keyword phrase twice in 20 to 30 words can
result in a high ranking. The trick to success is that your description
should look and sound normal without obviously hyping the keywords. Get
this right and your work will reap rewards. Always start the sentence with
your keyword phrase first.
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