Web Site Promotion ( SEO - Search Engine Optimization )

How can I get my site to come up first when someone uses a search engine?

This is tdc's most asked marketing question.
Right now there are over 225 million registered web sites (2012)  and how do you get people to find it?

Page Ranking is the answer and if you really want to find out how - just type in "Page Rank"
into Google. 

How can I using 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-Newsletters 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 8.75 billion (2011) 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.

Some examples of tdc's designed sites that have come up on Google's first page are:

"Living Alone"

"Sunday Dinner"

"Hockey Instruction"

"Islandview Bed and Breakfast'

"Industrial Land for Sale Eastern Ontario"

"Apartment for Rent Brockville"

"Heating with Wood"

"Tree Care"

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 with a link to your site.
    Here you have to be careful because you would like such a banner advertisement to be as close
    to related information as possible.  Ask the number of hits that the web page gets where you
    want to place the advertisement banner.  These are usually quoted as hits per month.... Ask
    for a breakdown of what types of hits these might be as there are page hits, unique hits, and hits
    of all the components of the web page.... which can be a lot... 

   Also, ask for the size permitted... and if they would only want static banners or if dynamic anitmate
   banners can be use.... the real good ones will allow "Flash" animations with background sound.
   Banners can be designed that are animations and have a recorded message if someone just
   passes a mouse over it ... Neat eh?

Using PopUps and PopUnders -- these are small pages that popup when the page loads (popup)
    or popsup when the viewer closes the page.  They basically redirect the view when they click
    on the links to pages that provide detailed information.  At tdc we use PopUnder pages for
    pages that are high on our viewers hit list. An example is our Canadian Parliament Web Cam Page   

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.  See - Why do email newsletters?

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. It is not a good idea to send this out on Mondays.  Monday
     is the worse day as people in offices tend to delete all unsolicited mail in the
     morning without reading it.  Try Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
     and Friday afternoon. 

And if you have the financial resources, advertising your site on another media like
     print media, television or radio.  This is called cross media promotion. 

     Does it work....? Well the best media is television shows which focus on the product or
     service that you are selling.  Our experience shows that hits where your product is
     highlighted on a TV show for say a 15 minute segment will drive your hits up from
     10 per hour to over 1000 + per hour.  This of course will not be sustainable even if
     the TV station has replays on their web site.  And speaking about TV station replays
     these are good things because it is our experience that exposure and click through
     when TV stations lists replays of a show that highlights a service or product will last
     for over 1 ½  years.

    Radio.... forget it .... it is our experience that radio exposure does not stick in the heads
    of a listener as much as that of a TV show as indicated by site statistics.  And 15 or
    30 second radio is hopeless especially when the amount of information needed so
    a customer can decide to buy is huge. Mentioning web site addresses on radio ads
    is a waste of time.... It is better to announce that a listener type the name of your company
    into Google to find it.

    Newspapers are somewhat good but are a little above those created by radio for some
    strange reason...  Especially print advertising which has limited space for which an advertiser
    can sent out their message encouraging people to buy their product or service.  But it depends
    upon the size of the advertisement... Bigger here is better.... but bigger is expensive especially
    when one is trying to reach a large consumer audience.

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.

For your information, Robin Johnston marketing guru has lots of marketing ideas on how to get those sales UP -  Check out his web site HERE

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.

tdc's Web Site Design and Marketing

         telephone 613 342- 0639     

Updated: Monday, December 10, 2012

We thank all the 450,000+ people who came to visit our clients' sites in 2005 and
it is our wish that you could also be part of our client list in 2006

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Requests for Proposal for Web Site Development
can be sent to:  tdc Marketing and Management Consultation

tdc Marketing and Management Consultation
117 King Street East Suite #2
Brockville Ontario Canada
K6V 1B7

phone: 1- 613 342-0639

Copyright © 2012