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| How to Promote your small business web site without costing you a nickel |
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Thursday, September 6, 2007
Desc : Organizing a Cost Effective Small Business Web Site Promotion And how to promote your website! How to: Promote your small business web site without costing you a nickel. Small Business Web Site Promotion The most important thing to remember when you want to encourage visitors to visit your web site is to make sure they will want to return again. ‘Visitors’ means not just human web surfers, but also the search engines and directories. Small business website promotion, no matter how much you promote your site, will be the look of the site that will keep visitors there and hopefully buy your products or services. Optimize your Site for Search Engines; Check your links Small business website promotion starts with a search engine spider indexing or cataloging your site by following the links from one page to another. Just as human visitors dislike a broken link, so do the spiders. If a link doesn’t work they’ll simply move onto the next page. No matter how sophisticated the search engine software is, it can’t index what it can’t find. Also remember that a spider will not be able to follow a link that requires a form submission or Java Script so small business website promotion is very important. While considering the subject of links, if you are using HTML and CSS on your site, make sure that both work properly. A certain minimum level of requirements must be met so that your pages will display correctly. It is only if these are met that a spider can do its work. There are free facilities online that can check both of these for you. * Make sure your links work. * Do not use forms or Javascript if you want a search engine spider to find your pages * Check that HTML and CSS work properly. Do not make your Pages too big! Most of us have heard the expression ‘size isn’t everything’. While this may not be true of many things, it does matter when it comes to web pages. People do not like having to wait an eternity for a web page to load. Search engine spiders may not fully index a page bigger than 150k in size. Remember that the size of a page does not simply depend on the actual HTML file itself, but includes everything on the page such as images, banners etc. If you have a lot of images on your pages, then either reduce the number of them, or use a program such as Macromedia Fireworks to optimize them for the web. If the page has a big file size because there is a massive amount of text in it, then you should consider splitting the text into smaller, more manageable pieces and putting them on several pages and linking one to another. SEO Chat has a tool called "Page Size Lookup" which can tell you the size of your web page; you can check it out at http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/page-size/ * Keep the file size to below 150k * Optimize images for the web * Use a free page size checker to find out the actual size of the page. Search Engines and Directories; What is the difference between a search engine and a directory? People frequently use the term ‘search engine’ as a catch-all expression for anything they use to search the Web. They are different things though, and an understanding of the differences will enable you get use both effectively to promote your site more successfully. How does a search engine work? Search engines use highly sophisticated software to search the web for new pages. It then automatically creates and updates their indexes. Whenever they find an active hyperlink, they will follow it and add that to the index and so on. These ‘crawling’ programs are generally referred to as ‘spiders’. Normally, all this is totally automatic, but sometimes human intervention is involved. The spider will return periodically to the pages and check for updated content. Often there will be a delay between you uploading your page, and the spider finding it, unless you submit your URL directly to the search engine itself. You can submit a web URL to Google ™ free of charge. * Search engines are usually automatic * They will revisit your pages. * Spiders will find all the pages on your site as long as there are active hyperlinks for them to follow. * You can submit a site to most search engines free of charge. How Directories Work. The primary difference between a search engine and a search directory is that a directory is compiled by a real person. Frequently the site owner will submit a short description of the site together with its URL to the directory compiler to be considered for inclusion. Directories are arranged into categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for. When you submit your site to a directory, you choose the category you want your site to be featured in. A reviewer then checks to ensure that your site is in the most suitable category. Another difference between a search engine and a directory is that whereas a search engine could list every individual page in your web site, a directory will generally only contain a single entry covering your entire site. * Directories are compiled by real people. * They are categorized. * A reviewer checks to ensure your site is in the best category. * A directory will usually only contain one entry for your entire site. Shared Indexes and Hybrids Things are never so straightforward though. Some search portals are a hybrid, combing a search engine and a directory. The search engine part returns automated results, while the directory gives human found results. Normally, a hybrid will supply hits from the directory as the primary source, with the search engine results of individual pages as the secondary source. Getting your Site Ready It cannot be stressed too strongly that search engines and/or directories are by far the most important way of getting your site noticed. To do this, you have to properly prepare the site and submit your URL to them. Keywords are important: Choose the right keywords Think what your web site is all about. If you had to describe your site in one word, then that word is your first keyword. Then think about other words to describe your site. Make a list of them, with the most important at the top of the list and so on. You want a list of between ten and fifteen words. Since these keywords will be used in a variety of ways, it is important that you take some time selecting them. Keywords are important because they are possibly the most important thing that a search engine uses to determine whether a page is included in the search results. Even although different search engines use keywords in different ways, most experts agree that the frequency and position of your keywords is an important factor. * Select keywords to describe your site. * Choose 10 – 15 keywords. * Take your time picking keywords – they are extremely important. Pick a Good Title for your Web Page When you write a web page, there is always a tag. This goes into the < head> section of your web page. The tag is what is shown at the top of your web page when it is displayed in a web browser. Search engines, however, often use the tag as the title of the listing in the results. The tag looks like this The name of my Web Page Not only is it good practice to make your tag have a good description of the content of the page, but if you can manage to work into it some of your keywords, so much the better. Why you should use Meta Tags? What are meta tags? Meta tags are a special type of HTML code that goes into the section of a web page. Site visitors do not normally see them, but search engine spiders do. Just as some HTML tags have an attribute with a value, so too do meta tags. As far as optimizing your web page for search engines is concerned, the most important meta tags are keywords and description. The syntax for the keyword < meta > tag is as follows: The description < meta > tag is as follows: Unlike some HTML tags, it is not strictly necessary to have the meta tag closed, but if you want to have valid XHTML, then you do need to close all your tags. Consider your URL Since we are discussing matters that will influence how a page appears, it is worth considering the actual URL of the page itself. Since the URL that appears in your browser reflects the file path for the page, it makes good sense to have the file name reflect the navigation of the site. You can see at a glance that this page refers to the Lower Square, which is part of the Castle, which in turn is part of Stirling. Not only does this meaningful URL impart information to the visitor, but for the web designer it makes sense to have the separate files arranged in a logical manner. This will only apply to pages that have not been dynamically created by a database program, of course. * Choose a meaningful title for your page. * Put your keywords into the Self - Healing and Cancer : Who Heals The Cancer Patient? From the office of Dr. Laurence Magne, author of Cancer Free For Life The cancer patient is unique, in many ways, from most other medical patients. For instance, if you break your leg and seek treatment, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you believe your leg will heal or not, once it is set it will heal. As we’ll discover, this is a natural facet of our healing selves and applies equally to self-healing and cancer. Cancer, like some other terminal illnesses, does depend a great deal on the attitude and beliefs of the patient. Realistically, any recovery from any illness or harm is likely to be a result of your attitude. The difference is that you’ve been told from birth that a broken leg will mend while you’ve been told that cancer is terminal and incurable. If you are diagnosed with cancer and decide, at that point, that you’ve been handed a death sentence then you are very likely right. That belief is so strong as to be nearly unshakable. Again, this is what you’ve heard from birth and witnessed time and time again. The biggest advance in cancer treatment will occur when people no longer believe in its incurability. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, but knows they will recover as surely as someone knows their broken leg will heal, then they will prove themselves correct. To learn how you can stop cancer in your body, read Cancer Free For Life. This is because, ultimately, the patient does the healing. They may do it using the tools provided by a doctor, the tools provided by a homeopathic practitioner or the tools provided by their own consciousness. Regardless of the tools, however, it is the patient who uses them. We haven’t necessarily been brought up with this theory in mind, so it’s difficult for some people to embrace fully. Most doctors will agree, if pressed, that all healing occurs because of the patient, not because of the doctor or the drug. When a chemical drug is introduced to the body, it’s has to join with the cells in our body through receptor sites. Once planted in the receptor site, the cell proceeds to heal the body, not the drug. Every drug that has been created by man has an equal, and superior, partner in the human body. We create these drugs and send them out with more precision than the finest doctor in the world. Some people may point to the fact that we do get sick and try to dispel this theory. However, the very fact that we spend the majority of our lives healthy despite the constant presence and attack of viruses and bacteria proves it. Succinctly put, we get sick when we are living in unnatural ways. We have introduced practices, activities, beliefs and thoughts into our bodies that nature never intended for us do. When this happens, our internal biochemistry is adversely affected and we go to a doctor. The doctor prescribes a facsimile of the chemical our body could produce on its own and we get better. The most effective therapy would be one that induces the body to create the chemicals necessary for its own healing. Of course, the path of least resistance would be to simply adopt a lifestyle that allows our body to behave as naturally intended. The existence of even one case of “spontaneous remission” indicates that the human body contains the ability and capacity to heal itself of cancer. As it stands, there are a great number of spontaneous remission cases. While the prevalent trend is to view these cases as abnormal, they are by design the most natural reaction to cancer. Curing cancer is as simple (and as complex) as discovering the mechanism which prompts these spontaneous remissions and figuring out how to replicate it. Doing such will ensure that we are free from the condition and allow you to do as nature intended: heal thyself. Visit www.alternative-health-ebooks.com for more information and FREE articles. This article is available for reprint for FREE for your website and newsletter, provided that you maintain its copyright integrity and include the signature. Dr Magne specializes in spontaneous healing of cancer. With 25 years of research, she compiled all her discoveries on the causes and origins and diseases and presented them in her book Cancer Free For Life to help you speed your healing of cancer. Visit www.Cancer-Free-For-Life.com today for a FREE report on the 10 Ways to Stop Cancer. Are you the next Internet Multi-Millionaire? When Silicon Valley awoke to a shudder, creak and a groan, followed at first by a distant rumbling and then the inevitable thunderless crash, people were left wondering what had happened to the companies that had promised so much, and more importantly what had happened to the shares they had purchased in those companies, whose dreams they had shared, the same companies who had paid no dividends, made no profit, and often even had no product. It is no wonder that the crash took place, in the preceding days before its fate was sealed it was like another large section of the Arctic, clinging on to its last desperate days of normality trying to elude its ultimate and eventual fate, in a world where miss information ultimately leads to disaster. Yes, that was the Internets first pull back from its roaring climb; full of promise and in all honesty no substance, the sharp decline of the Internet, was really a natural phase of e-volution, a forest waiting for the first lightening strike of the season, waiting almost in anticipation for the devastating fury which ensues to reap its full destruction, though after all the turmoil abates nature is still left standing, waiting to regenerate and grow, the strongest survivors remain and the next group of saplings begin anew, this time with a little more vigour and strength than those who stood before them. It is through the cycle of boom and bust especially in a new economy that the true nature of that economy can be formed and thus become a more credible and viable subset of the living and breathing greater economy, which it relies on for its life blood and source. Existing as a sub species without adhering to the laws that govern all things, to the laws of business and ultimately sense is what led to the initial rise and quick fall of the unwieldy beast that we know as the Internet. Funny really how quickly things move and also how quickly people forget, and yet it was only 2001 when the Internet and many other technology based businesses felt that intensive disaster begin to unfold. When the unstoppable chasm suddenly opened, sucking away almost everything in its path, deep down into its precipitous and cavernous depth those who had not built a solid foundation into the earth around which they stood, quickly perished. Of course, most had no foundation at all, those that remained did so on the skin of their teeth apart from a few inexorable giants that had grown so quick and so large that they had shrouded all around them, stealing most of their light in those rampant days of puberty, those giants still remain and have grown larger and stronger still. The days that followed the disaster were like the calm before a devastating storm, there was peace again, life continued, all be it somewhat different than before, well at least for a period of a time, but none the less like nature itself ever changing and growing the Internet did not go away, it regathered itself for its next burst of life, slowly bubbling away pondering the direction that it would take next, many channels that had allowed it to spring forth with such zeal and speed had now dried up and yet it was still twisting and moving, its life blood like a river searching for a new direction in which to flow, hurt and injured, though there was still life. It has been almost six years since the big bubble burst which in today’s technology driven world is almost a lifetime and the next set of eager entrepreneurs are waiting for their chance to climb the deep ravines, gorges and long unchartered waters looking for the next big strike, the next Google or YouTube is just beyond the next ‘silicon valley’. The new gold rush of the 21st century is certainly not forthcoming in the fields or valleys of this still wonderful planet, no; this gold rush is born from the armchair, the university halls, or in those quiet moments pondering your way out of your current job, complete with shackles and despair. With this new wave of expectant prospectors there will be new fortunes made and many small ones lost. Though like all great explorers the chase is what makes the treasure all the more alluring, if one can focus on the big picture and harbour the festering greed that is the peril of so many an expectant prospector then there may actually be gold over the next horizon. Unlike those early pioneers who were walking through unchartered territory the new prospector needs to learn from the past when looking expectantly in to the future and beyond. There are some important lessons to be learned and if one chooses the correct path then your chance of striking that next big thing or at least releasing yourself from those heavy shackles will be more of a certainty rather than a matter of complete chance. To ensure that you do not go out into the wilderness alone, hire an expert guide who can show you the secret path to success- Mark Dettmar is the Senior SEO Consultant for Traffic Blaster, Australia’s leading experts in SEO, SEM. Visit trafficblaster.com for more information on Organic SEO, Natural SEO, Copywriting and SEO Copywriting. |
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