Web Sites: Web Site Promotion

Location: Articles > Web Sites > Here
Written By: Site Admin
Date: 11 Jun 2005
Level: 2 (Novice)

With billions of pages listed in the leading search engines and many more, it is extremely difficult to get your site popular. You may have a great site with lots of original content but no one goes to it. The reason is that with all these pages, there are many that are similar. For example, this site is a web development resource, there are many of these and you can find a lot by searching in a search engine such as Google. You have to realise that you will be competing with lots of other sites and these may be established sites which have been there for years and have excellent page ranks and score really in search engines. This guide to site promotion aims to give you lots of tips and tricks to get your site amongst the top results.

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. A functional site
  3. Not annoying your users
  4. Content
  5. Meta tags
  6. Search Engines

Overview

I should start off by saying that getting your site promoted well doesn't happen quickly, it takes months of patience before you start getting lots of visitors and that goes back to what I was saying before, competition. There is no quick and easy way to get your site popular; otherwise you would get searches filled with excessive amounts of junk. Therefore, don't bother reading this entire page today and completing everything right away, its better off to take it easy and make a quality job out of it so when the time comes, your site will boom.

Here's a list of what I believe to be the most important factors for a great site.

A functional site

I know and lots of other web surfers know that it is annoying to go to a page and find the words "Under construction" or even worse, the reason I say the graphic is worse is because they should be spending the time getting the site finished instead of making a fancy picture for an unfinished site. Also, a site should not have broken links and images (links to pages or images that don't exist), just don't have the link to the non-existent site until you finish it.

Not annoying your users!

I have an extensive list of site annoyances and how to avoid them which you can have a look at. Basically, don't have a site where your users will close the browser because it takes ages to load, don't put music and if you absolutely must, let them choose to have it. Other annoyances include mouse pointer trails, blinking text, uncompressed images, and broken links and so on. I tend to solve these problems rather than whinge so the link above will not only provide a list of many annoyances but give solutions and alternatives.

Content

Almost everyone goes to sites looking for something useful - that is something that's informing, persuading, entertaining or educating. I've seen many sites that look good and the authors can be congratulated on that but shockingly, there is hardly any content, they went to all that effort to make a good looking site but unfortunately there is no use for it! Content is arguably the most important part and works hand in hand with a functional site.

Meta tags

For those that do not what these are, they are bits of code that go inside the <head> part of an HTML page. Those new to HTML may want to look at the beginner's guide to web sites. Meta tags contain data about the site including keywords and a description of the site. Search engines look for the keywords that people search for use and find these in your meta tags and page. Therefore it is important to add keywords that you think people would use to search for your site. It may also be a hint to remember that you shouldn't add too many keywords or else search engines may ignore the rest and think you are trying to cheat the search engines. This is what the code looks like, insert this between the <head> and </head> of an HTML page.

<meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, etc, etc" />
<meta name="description" content="A site where you can find great information on..." />

More information about meta tags.

Search engines

This is one of the most important site promotion tools to reach out to the whole world. Lots of people find what they're looking for by going into a major search engine such as Google and that finds what they want. Add your site to the list and you can enjoy the traffic generated from these. The benefit is that these visitors to your site came to your site intentionally meaning they may be interested in what you are trying to give or perhaps, sell. Learn how to submit your site to search engines and indexes.