How to Succeed on the Net - A Free Guide

Part 3

9. Optimize your Website

I saw once a statement that I find so true and the pitfall of many first time web entrepreneurs… It read “Now you have a web site, great content, a reasonably priced ISP… Congratulations! Now What??? (I read in the “Now What” something even more true “So What – Who Cares”

The reality is that having a great website on the web does not in itself achieve anything… It’s like opening a great looking store in the desert. No matter how great it looks no one will now about it. Hence comes the “fun” part, promoting your site. This is the area where gurus will charge you a fortune for telling you what is readily available on the Net, and, if you decide to go the SEM route (Search Engine Marketing – pay per click type of traffic), the folks at Google Adwords are waiting for you with a big (and I mean BIG) smile.

But before you get there, you should make sure that you do some home work and insure that your web site is optimized and will be “seen” as it should be “seen” (not as you intended it to be seen) by search engines.

A very short pause here to explain what the “seen” mean in case you do not know. Search engines index websites by sending a crawler that “read your pages” and then use the result of this crawler as well as all kinds of criteria to decide how high (or low) on your position. Assuming that you’ve selected a dozen keywords that really represent your business as discussed in part 2, you can simply enter one key word (or key term) at the time on the Google search engine and see how many websites that feature this keyword are listed (often the number is staggering but not to worry). The idea in optimizing your site is to insure that when a crawler visits your site you will be ready for it.

Two things are critical in my view for crawlers (assuming that you have already developed your content) and they include the Meta Tags and the HTML Validation.

Meta Tags

These are a set of information about your web site that is created to inform crawlers on what your site is all about, including title, description, as well as language, http type, etc. Here is an example of my website Meta Tags:

These Meta Tags are typically placed right after the start of the header <head> but before then end of the header </head>

I invite you to use the Meta Tags sample and replace my information with yours. If you did not the search engine would think you’re my site.

HTML Validation

Once this is done then you must run the HTML Validation to insure that your website satisfies W3C specification for your type of website. Ideally you want to get a perfect score but it is sometimes hard to do and the idea is to eliminate the most obvious errors. The validation tool allows you to get a corrected version of the code and if you do I suggest that you first test it by saving it as index1.html or php or whatever.

Other Optimization Steps

Other obvious optimization steps that you will need to do include giving and alternate name to the images on your website.

Here is an example <img src="images/sample.gif" alt="sample image" class="right" /> where “sample image” should be replaced by something that describe your image and hopefully contains a keyword. In my case I would put something like “jean touboul consulting picture” to illustrate my own photograph.

In case you are not familiar with code (and I strongly suggest that you do familiarize yourself), tools like Dreamweaver allow you to point on an image (any image on your site) and see its values at the bottom of the screen. One of the values that you will see is the alternate name (Alt). Alt is used to show something should the image not display. Simply write something that correspond to your image and try to include a keyword.

Finally, one thing that I recommend is to create a site map that will list all the pages on your site and be contained on a simple page directly linked to your home page. Depending on the complexity of your site you may want to simply create one yourself or use site map tools.

Resources: Meta Tags Generators and related

http://www.optimization-services.com/meta.asp?ID=4 (free generator for those who want have a piece of software create it for them).

Resources: HTML Validation (W3C Validation)

http://validator.w3.org/

There are other things that you could do such as checking the keyword density or simulating a crawler from Google or one from Yahoo, etc. and optimize for optimum results but I would suggest that you optimize for Google to begin with. You will always have the opportunity to tweak later on.

Here are some resources in case you want to check it out:

http://www.seobench.com/keyword-density-analyzer/ This is a keyword Density Analyzer that will check your keywords count – Make sure that your keywords are what appear on top of the list. It does not have to be perfect).

http://www.dead-links.com/ This is a link crawler and link checker that will list all your pages and let you know if you have broken links.
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/site-link-analyzer/ Same as dead-links.com but check out the other tools that they have. They may find something that may be good for you.

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ This will help you create a site-map and even allow you to download an almost ready to go html page.

There are another number of things that can be done such as creating a “robot text”, assigning a Google validation number, etc. but this can wait as things are already getting overwhelming I am sure.

Once this is done it is time to submit to the main search engines and they include Google, Yahoo, MSN, as well as other (list provided below)

Be very careful to do all this right or have the right people do it for you. Do not be tempted by the cheap guarantees out there that promise optimization and submission to thousands of search engines. Not only is it a waste of time in most instances, it may be harmful to your campaign and overall success. And one the damage is done it takes months to correct.

For the “do-it-yourself” crowd I suggest the IBP software that does all of the above and more. Check it out at http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/

10. Write a Press Release and distribute

You simply cannot launch a business or website, let alone both without broadcasting that event, and the best way to do that is via press releases.

Write one or more press releases about your site, product, or any aspects of your business or venture that could be interesting to a reader and submit them to press release distribution services. Also do not forget to make available on your site via a “press” or similar button.

Finally make sure that you have a link to your website on the press release. It should not only mention the name but also include a link to your home page (and if it make sense additional pages as well but don’t over-do-it.

Resources:

http://www.prweb.com
http://www.clickpress.com
http://www.webwire.com/
http://www.emediawire.com
http://www.businesswire.com
http://www.prwebdirect.com -
http://www.theopenpress.com
http://www.free-press-release.com
http://www.pressbox.co.uk
http://www.i-newswire.com/
http://www.pr9.net
http://www.pr-inside.com
http://www.newswire.ca/
http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com
http://www.marketwire.com
http://www.urlwire.com/
http://www.prurgent.com
http://www.prleap.com -
http://www.prnewswire.com
http://www.prfree.com/
http://www.openpress.com/
http://www.softpressrelease.com

Bottom line on Press Releases is that if there is only one thing that you could do after launching a website it would be the publishing of a press release across the Internet and to newspapers and magazines that specialize in your space.

While there are no guarantee (and there none for anything on the web no matter what anyone tells you, this is by far the most effective and inexpensive way to get noticed.

11. Social Media

Social media and social bookmarking are the way to market your product, service and website and it is worth looking into it or paying someone to do it for you..

To be successful in the social media you must spend a good amount of time writing, updating and maintaining your blogs and articles.

For social bookmarking you’ll have create, offer and store lists of Internet resources and make it accessible to people.

Resources: Social Media

http://www.twitter.com
http://www.blogs.com
http://www.blogger.com
http://www.linkin.com
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.myspace.com

Resources: Book Marking

http://del.icio.us/
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.blinklist.com/
http://ma.gnolia.com/
http://www.furl.net/
http://www.diigo.com/
http://www.complore.com/
http://gamingtags.com/
http://indiagram.com/index.php
http://www.goesby.com/
http://teachershare.org/openig/
http://www.chaamp.com/
http://www.a1-webmarks.com/
http://www.tektag.com/
http://www.bookmark.it/
http://www.wirefan.com/
http://www.linkatopia.com/
http://www.optimiz.us/
http://www.web20toolbar.com/
http://www.tallstreet.com/

Additional Resources: Social Media Profiles

http://www.meetup.com
http://www.tribe.com
http://www.ryze.com/
http://www.livejournal.com
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.friendster.com/

Make sure that you mention your site and give anecdotes, updates or write about events, news, new articles (see Write Articles for eZines and Blogs below) every time you have the opportunity to do that.

12. Write Articles for eZines, Blogs and other Posting Websites

Regardless of what people say the idea for a web site owner trying to get some traction is to write things like articles, comments, reviews, opinions, etc. in as many places as possible. Once your blog is well provided with content, postings, etc., then it will be time to list it on the search engines (this will be covered later). Critical here is to have one or more links to your website in anything that you publish.

Once you have written a few articles or have three or four post then submit your post address to the search engines. It's that simple. Of course if you can get people within the web-blog to read what you have it is even better so pay particular attention to your post title and short description.

Resources:

13. Paid and Free Listings

Some people may tell you that it is worth listing yourself in the Yahoo Directory, Yellow Pages, or one of the directories that charge a fee for listing your website. I frankly am not a fan of these directories but I must admit that you could get some traction from something like the Yahoo Directory for example and, as a result, this is the only pay directory that I always consider when listing a website. It’s not cheap at close to $300.00 per year but it may be worth it the first year or a launch.

Aside from paid directories there is one directory that you must submit to and that is dmoz. Dmoz is managed by human who are supposed to review and select the best site within a category. Unfortunately, it’s been reported that from time to time editor give preferential treatment to their buddies to the expense of others. I am not sure how wide spread this is but I still think the dmoz is one of the best listing you can get. Make sure that you find the right category and sub-category since dmoz is a maze.

As far as free listings, there are thousands of directories some legitimates some not so legitimate since they are designed to sell you something (they should not be confused with FFA or Free For All). Regardless, these directories have their value and there are services out there that offer to list your site to as many as 2500 or 3000 directories for as little as $50.00 or$60.00. The submissions are legitimate (I offer such a service and send submission reports) and the results vary greatly depending on time of submission vis-à-vis submissions to search engines.

Resources:

Listings on Paid Directories

http://dir.yahoo.com/ ($299.00)
http://botw.org/ ($99.95)
http://www.goguides.org ($69.00)
http://www.yellowpages.com/
http://www.business.com/
http://www.joeant.com/
http://www.jayde.com/ (also free listing)

Listings for all other directories: A sample list

http://www.dmoz.org
http://www.femina.com
http://www.gogreece.com
http://www.worldhot.com/
http://www.123india.com
http://www.elib.org
http://www.ezilon.com
http://www.epooch.com
http://www.christiansunite.com
http://www.toronto1.biz
http://www.canadianeh.com
http://www.aardvark.co.za
http://www.nzs.com/
http://www.aigam.com
http://www.lii.org/pub/htdocs/home.htm
http://www.sacentral.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm

There are too many to list (around 3,000 as mentioned above) so if you need a referral or help with this send me an email and I ’ll give you a list or help you submit to those free directories.

Ready to continue? Click Here to read Part 4, Topics 14-17

Next topics will include the following:

Part 4

14. Advertising and Banner Exchange

15. Classified Ads

16. Link Exchanges

17. FFAs

Published articles

Web Package Explained

For a Free Web Site Review and Consultation click here

To contact ExecFocus.Net call 561-306-8300 or send us an e-mail at information@execfocus.net

How to Succeed on the Net - A Free Guide Part 3

How to Succeed on the Net - A Free Guide

Part 3