How can I get my site to come up first when someone uses
a search engine?
This is tdc's most asked marketing question.
How can I using my my site target a specific geographical region?
This is tdc's second most asked marketing question. ( we have been are working on
the answer for three years and
possibly
we could have a solution as we have been using geographically targeted
e-Newsletter to test this concept) Presently, we are not clear that
this is the answer but what we know is that if a page is mentioned in the
newsletter with an associated link, sometimes there is an increase in the
page hits.
Accordingly the Google index there are about 8 billion (2006) Web pages on the Net. Three thousand + search engines are used to find these pages
but only 8 major search engines are used by the majority of the people surfing the Web.
(Google, Yahoo, Excite, Alta Vista, InfoSeek, AOL, Northern Light and Web Crawler)
Approximately 95 % of the billion + people who are on the web use these 8 search
engines.
Internet users can give Web sites a thumbs up or thumbs down in less than the
blink of an eye, according to a study by Canadian researchers.
In just a brief one-twentieth of a second -- less than half the time it
takes to blink -- people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of
their experience with an Internet site.
The study was published in the latest issue of the Behavior and Information
Technology journal. The author said the findings had powerful implications
for the field of Web site design.
Statistically it seems that the chances are remote that your site will come up first.
In fact it is said that it is easier to find the the name of John Smith in
the New York City phone book than it is to find one's Web site on the Web.
This statement is totally untrue.
It is tdc's experience that of the tdc sites we have designed for clients we were able to
get the site to listed within the top 10 several times on different search engines.
WEB sites like any other product or service must be promoted if it is to be seen or used.
There are several ways on and off the WEB that they are promoted.
By:
Listing your site in various reference
directories such as the Yahoo, Alta Vista,
AOL and the Yellow Pages. Most of these directory search engines
use
volunteers who make submission recommendations to these directories.
Submission of the site address of the main
portals of your Web site to search
engines like Northern Light, Web Crawler, Excite and Infoseek on
a regular
basis. Most take about 6-10 weeks to get your site listed.
Requesting sites to provide a link to your
site in exchange for a reciprocal listing.
Being a member of a mail list where topics
of the same interest are discussed and
developing an on line relationship with the members of the mail
list.
Promotion of your site in the signature of
every e-Mail sent.
Advertising in banner advertisements on
other sites.
Renting space in an on-line mall.
Developing an e-Mailing list and sending
out periodic notices to interested people
notifying them of major changes to your site.
Handing out a business card with your site
name and address on it.
Putting the site name and address on all
your off Web print and media promotion
material
Mentioning your site name and address in
all public relations releases.
Designing promotional material like TEE
Shirts or hats that have the Web Site
address written on them
Designing into your site information
that is updated constantly. The viewer is asked
to bookmark the page because the information given is
always updated.
tdc's Froggy
and tdc's FarmGate are such sites.
Adding a "recommend this page to a
friend" link. This is done by providing an
e-Mail that pops up when activating with the recommendation in the body of
the letter.
Creating a Newsletter sent periodically to
persons who have interest in topics
pertaining to that site.
And if you have the financial resources,
advertising your site on another media like
print media, television or radio.
In our experience we have found that the most effective way is to promote
the site on line is to register the site in the search engines and also to carefully
provide key descriptors words in the META tags and Title of the Web site.
Various Spiders and Robots constantly wander the 'Net looking for and indexing Web Pages.
In order to assist them in identifying pages and their content there are a number of HTML
Tags that are important.. Two such tags are the META tag and the Title tags which provide
a description of the site in the form of content, title and key words. These descriptors
are not seen by viewers but are in hidden text triggering the robots and spiders to
download updated and new pages.
Listing sites in various directories is fine, except the input is usually done manually by
the web site manager and in some cases can take up to four weeks to have your site listed.
Once listed it does become a useful tool, because it too can be found by the robot search
engines. Directories are fine as long as they are updated constantly and researched so
that they listings are not out of date.
To have your site referenced on other sites is like the icing on the cake. It gives your
site the same credibility as having your work referenced in a printed media. This is
especially true if they link your site to theirs. Most tdc designed
sites have links pages (or in our case Web Friends Pages) where they list
your site and you list their site.
Does it cost money to promote the site?
No, not really if you are willing to spend the time to go to each search engine and
directory and input the information required. Some directories and search engines simply
require the URL number. Others require a description of the site in a specified number of
words plus some information about the site address and snail mail address.
It all takes work and there is no easy way it is accomplished.
The best companies who design, promote and maintain sites on behalf of clients will spend
on an average 10-20 hours a month doing this laborious site promotion work. If the general
content of a site is what the market is looking for, these sites get the most hits.
And, don't forget to use a site access report to daily analyze a site's performance.
According to the GVU7 Survey done by Georgia Tech, this is how people find out about
Web sites:
Search Engines -- 87%
Links from other sites -- 85%
Printed Media -- 63%
Word of mouth -- 58%
Newsgroups -- 32%
e-Mail -- 32%
Television -- 32%
Other -- 28%
Books -- 28%
tdc has found these are the most successful methods to have a site that is referenced at
the top of the search engine list ~~ but the reality of this is that statistically it next
to impossible. The tdc designed Hockey Made Easy site was once the top of Google. It takes a
lot of site maintenance to make this happen. Google changes the
algorithm that they use to determine who ends up on their first listed pages
nearly every month. Once we experienced a drop from about 1000 pages hits a
day to down to 450 in one day which was maintained for three months and then
they came up back to 1000+ hits a day.
If your site is not performing as well as you expect - Perhaps we can help.
tdc Marketing will review your site and provide professional consultation
services.
We do it for a few select clients.
Just e-Mail
me asking to provide a review of your site to and make suggestions on how
the performance can be improved. I will e-Mail you back with our fee for
services, an
estimation of the time required and how payment can be made on the web.