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by Gary
White
Getting your website marketed
In this
article we will focus on marketing your website on the internet through
search engines and directories.
Marketing
a successful business or information site needs a targeted strategy.
Many people are under the misconception that if they build a website
they will immediately gain customers for their existing business. Building
an online presence should be used as part of an overall marketing plan
in conjunction with other means of advertising.
In large,
the internet is used for 2 purposes, Information and sales. If an individual
comes to your site for information they are researching, or to purchase
a product you are selling, they expect to find it quickly and easily.
This means, you as a designer or site owner must have a clear and concise
navigation system. The navigation must be positioned in a familiar place
on the page and not hidden so the visitor has to hunt for it. The information
must also be relevant to the key words the visitor has typed into the
search engine. This is where seo or search engine optimization comes
in. In order for the search engine to index your site correctly you
must have a relivant title, a key word meta tag in the head of the html
document, and the proper density of key words within the body copy of
your page that flows naturally.
Getting
your site indexed is a timely process. In the beginning it may take
up to 8 weeks for a search engine to initially crawl your site. Submission
to the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and directories
such as dmoz, an open directory, should take place only after you have
properly optimized your site. Because this initial crawl can take a
long period of time, you want the information contained in the page
to be relevant and listed correctly the first time. Directories such
as dmoz are not crawled. They are actually looked at and read through
by human beings that determine if the information contained in the pages
is relevant.
Adding
information to your site on a regular basis is also ctitical to your
visitors and the search engines. Fresh reliable information will keep
visitors and search engine crawlers (also called robots) coming back.
The lager the amount of relivant information contained in the pages,
the more likely it will be your site moves up in the search engine listings.
In our
next article we will continue with this subject and explore other avenues
of marketing your website throgh a link exchange program.
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