When people look to submit their sites to the major search engines, there are some key mistakes that should be avoided for successful promotion.
Spam
The surefire way of getting your site blacklisted from the major search engines. Many people see creating thousands of cloaked or doorway pages with hidden text as the quick route to ranking success. It isn't.
Untargeted Traffic
It's one thing to generate lots of new traffic to your site, but is it the right traffic? If you're selling DVD's for example, you want potential buyers to visit, not people who are searching for pictures of a certain movie star. Best to make it clear in your meta information exactly what your site does, then you'll get the type of clientele you're after!
Single Keywords
Unless you're in some incredible niche marketplace where a single word can only be identified with your product with few competitors, single keywords aren't going to hit the bullseye in a traffic sense. Multiple word keyword phrases are the key to traffic success. Instead of going for "books", go for "thai recipe books" or whatever your target market is. You'll have far less competition for that keyword phrase than just a single word. Believe us, we've worked on a bookseller's site.
Poor Design
There's no way around this one. You can have the best rankings in the world, but if your site looks bad, you'll lose that traffic as soon as it arrives. Good, simple, clean design always wins - sloppy design and gimmicks don't!
I Don't Need Links
Oh yes you do. Links are crucial to the traffic building game. Without links to your site from others (if they're competitors, even better), good meta information won't be enough. Most search engines will rank your webpage according to its popularity with its peers. if a lot of sites link to yours, it must be good, so Google & Co. will boost your rating (link popularity algorithms). Read our dedicated article here.
Messy Meta Tags
It's worth spending a bit of time getting your meta tags in order - they tell search engines what your site's about, and act as a basic marketing tool to attract visitors to your site. Check the spelling and make them relevant and you'll be off to a flyer. Read our dedicated article here.
Stickiness
Page design and marketing are inseperable. Once you've attracted your visitors, your traffic building exercise has gone well and your site looks good, what are you offering which will encourage return visits? Regular site updates are very useful since your site will appear active and worth revisiting. The most successful sites we've worked on have been regularly updated. After all the effort you've gone to in gaining traffic, it's worth considering how to hang on to it.
Messy Code
After the search engine robots have visited your site, they'll see the meta information first, then they'll scan your page for the first chunk of relevant text. A large number of sites have cluttered code (Javascript usually) after the meta tags. This will not help your search engine ranking since the relevant text will be too far down the page. Try hiving the Javascript code (or similar) into another file and refer to it from the HTML.
Beware of Rogue "Experts"
Before handing your hard earned money over to "Site Submission Experts", be sure to find out exactly what you're getting. They may claim to be able to submit your site to "30,000 engines", but let's be honest, there's only a handful which create almost all the search traffic on the web, so you can submit yourself. Some firms claim to guarantee you a Top 20 ranked page - yes, if your search phrase is 8 words long. It's not that easy in reality. Reputable firms can help you optimize your pages, and advise you on how best to market your site to your target audience, so best to do some homework first.
Patience
Building traffic is an ongoing activity. After your initial hard work, you should check your pages on the engines and "tweak" them if the results aren't as you expected. Traffic is the oxygen of the Internet and your site is dead without it, so regularly give your code a tune-up and resubmit if necessary. Don't oversubmit though. If you look at your server logs, you'll see the major engine robots visiting on a regular basis, they'll pick up your changes soon enough if you can afford to wait a week or so.
All the best with your traffic building efforts!
About The Author
James Leckie is editor of http://www.bytestart.co.uk - the small business portal and http://www.bytestart.co.uk - the web promotion portal.
one time home cleaning Highland Park ..The results of the social bookmarking experiment I have been... Read More
Qualified traffic is the lifeblood of any web site today,... Read More
We all need traffic. It's the life-blood of an online... Read More
I don't know about you, but when I built my... Read More
What is cross promotion?Cross promoting is when two or more... Read More
Increasing your online business hinges on your ability to optimize... Read More
Link Exchanges also known as "Reciprocal Links" are an arrangement... Read More
It's all about location, location, location!In the past...back in the... Read More
Wouldn't it be great if your website was listed on... Read More
It's a common story. Someone builds a great site, populates... Read More
Everything being equal, more traffic to your website translates into... Read More
For many months after I put up my new website,... Read More
Well, an effective link building strategy is not building some... Read More
Reciprocal linking is an effective, free way to get more... Read More
Large companies tend to spend huge amount of money on... Read More
There is a new tool available that promise to do... Read More
1: Original and Fresh Content Present your visitors content they... Read More
To increase targeted traffic is one of the foremost wish... Read More
You get a flash of inspiration and an interesting topic... Read More
1. Vary the keywords in your link 'anchor' textUnless you... Read More
There are 1001 ways to drive traffic to your websites.I... Read More
To improve our website ranking and internet presence we need... Read More
When you work with web site traffic, you must have... Read More
Link popularity is becoming the latest "in-thing" to get your... Read More
If you are only looking at Search Engines too send... Read More
licensed cleaning services Park Ridge ..Viral Marketing DefinedIt is allowing others to giveaway and use... Read More
When you are building links to increase your link popularity,... Read More
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking... Read More
Everything being equal, more traffic to your website translates into... Read More
There are many "offsite" promotion tactics that work well to... Read More
Having a website is great but, if the site doesn't... Read More
The keyword marketing guide to a linking strategy that packs... Read More
Web site traffic refers to the number of times your... Read More
It's no secret, the lifeblood of any website is the... Read More
In the old days of the internet, links were the... Read More
"Submit to 10,000 Search Engines" or "Submit to over 200,000... Read More
Most people have the notion that generating traffic is a... Read More
Part 27. Ezine Ads - create an ad for your... Read More
Need more traffic? There's a lot you can learn from... Read More
Website link popularity is used to indicate how many other... Read More
Do you want to generate more orders at your website?Here... Read More
Every webmaster who has personally tried promoting his or her... Read More
We will begin this topic with one assumption, that our... Read More
There will be a lot of people unhappy about what... Read More
Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this topic outlined some... Read More
Every webmaster knows the importance of incoming links to a... Read More
1. Hunt for Catchy Domain Names and Get a Quality... Read More
Just launched your website? Now what?You are finally ready with... Read More
Writing LinksIn the first part of this article we learned... Read More
To increase web site traffic, you first need determination, a... Read More
Traffic Building |