Web Site Promotion 101

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 Host's 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?

Here are a couple of "musts" to add to your to-do list to help you get started marketing yourself and your Web site.

SUBMITTING TO SEARCH ENGINES

Search engines are by far the most popular way to find information on the Web. 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 Search Engines.

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

Free Submissions
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Ah-ha
http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp

AllTheWeb
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php

AltaVista
http://addurl.altavista.com/sites/addurl/newurl

Ask Jeeves
E-mail: mailto:url@askjeeves.com

Direct Hit
http://www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com /help/addurl

Google
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Hotbot
http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp

Lycos
http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html

MSN Search
http://listings.looksmart.com/info/msn_free_submit.jhtml

National Directory
http://www.nationaldirectory.com/addurl/

Northern Light
http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html

Open Directory Project
http://dmoz.org/add.html

Scrub The Web
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html

Voila
http://www.voila.fr/Informations/Moteur_guide/submit.html

WhatUSeek
http://www.whatuseek.com/addurl.shtml

Paid Placement
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Excite
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url

Inktomi
http://www.positiontech.com/inktomi/enroll.cfm

Iwon
http://search.iwon.com/commerce/submitasite.jsp

Looksmart
http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=US&chan=lshomeft

Netscape
http://digitalwork.netscape.com/onlinead/registersite/

Yahoo!
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/

Pay-per-click
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7Search.com
http://www.payperranking.com/

ePilot.com
http://www.epilot.com/backoffice/AdvertiserCenter3/default.asp

Espotting.com
http://www.espotting.com/advertisers/list_yoursite.asp

FindWhat.com
http://www.findwhat.com/content/promote.asp

goClick.com
http://www.goclick.com/register.mod

Kanoodle.com
https://safe.kanoodle.com/client_services/listings/

Overture
http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/

For those of you who want to try an automated service, I highly recommend Add Me! and ABS Easy Submit .

LINK EXCHANGES

With more than 3.2 billion Web pages competing against yours, you can't rely solely on Search Engines for site promotion.

In my experience, the second most important marketing strategy is establishing link exchanges. In analyzing my visitor stats, it is clearly apparent that the majority of my traffic comes from the reciprocal linking partnerships I have established with Web sites that complement mine.

How do you go about establishing a linking partnership?

When I come across (or am referred to) 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.

For more information about link exchanges, check out LinkLeads.com . LinkLeads is a targeted search engine/portal of Web sites seeking reciprocal linking partners. Membership is free. Getting results is relatively easy.

Although this list is far from comprehensive, these two tasks are an important starting point in your online marketing strategy.

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!