Having My Own Website: a free guide to setting up your own website

[Publicize offline] [Publicize online -- advertise] [Viral marketing]

Optimize Your Pages

There are now people who make their living doing Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short. Here are some basics.

Before you start submitting your site to search engines and directories, make sure your pages are search engine friendly. You need to make sure the <head> of each page has a title tag and metatags for description and keywords. Metatags are tags embedded in web pages, not visible to the visitor, that some search engines use to categorize your site. Not all search engines use these metatags, but enough do to make it worth your while. Here's a brief tutorial on creating metatags. A good, free tool for testing how well your page is optimized is instantposition.com. For help generating metatags go to Meta Tag Help at Scrub the Web.

Then make sure your pages really talk about what you want to be listed under. For example, this site is about setting up a website. The phrase appears several times on the home page -- not in a spammy way, just embedded in the text. SEO Chat, Scrub the Web and IWebTool have free keyword density analyzer tools that show you how often a word or phrase appears on your page.

If you need help in accomplishing this and other SEO tasks, you may wish to sign up with a Search Engine Optimization Firm

Submit your site to Directories

You don't have to submit your site to the major search engines like Google. They'll find your site if you do everything else right. In fact, you can be deleted from a search engine by using some of the "we'll submit you every minute to 9000 search engines" companies out there. Search engines don't like to be bombarded any more than you do. Several such submissions will get you classified as a spammer.

There are several directories that are human-administered. Some of the important ones to which you should submit your URL are: Yahoo, the Open Directory Project, or DMOZ, which is used by many other search engines, Skaffe, searchit.com, Josh's Sanctum, Illumirate, Net-crawler, The Poddys Directory and JoeAnt. They're all free, but since they're run by humans, it will take a while to get your site approved. Commercial sites should submit to Jayde and Thomas Regional. Gimpsy has a free submission option, but charge $40 to list you within 72 hours. GO AIO has both free and paid submissions. Again, if you're willing to pay, you get listed sooner. Hedir (short for Human Edited Directory) is free but they're fussy about which sites they list. They are GREAT for helping get the kinks out of a site, but don't expect the process to be easy!

If you're really ambitious, Top Web Site Tips has a list of over 500 directories to which you can submit your site.

There are hundreds of search engines that will list you in return for a reciprocal link, such as Homerweb Search and SurfGopher. Some search engines, like Arielis and GoAio charge you to be listed. You may feel it's worth buying a link for $25 or $30.

Finally, you can pay to buy keywords or preferred placement in search engines. Google^TM, of course, is the premier Search Engine. Advertising with them gives you numerous targeted hits. They let you set your own ad budget, which can be as little as $1.00 a day. Kanooodle^TM is one of the biggest reasonably priced search engines. Both Google and Kanoodle offer a free "search the web" box to put on your web pages.

Publicize offline

Add your URL to all your preprinted materials, including

billing statements
letterhead
business cards
brochures

fliers
print newsletters
print, radio or TV ads

Send out announcements

A new or revamped website is a good excuse to send a mailing to customers and prospects. Mail out a postcard or flyer announcing your URL. Offer special incentives to people who go to the site.

Send out "internet only" special sale mailings

Or offer a free item, such as a pen or a Tshirt to people who visit the site.

Talk about your website.

Let people know it's there. Frequently, it's easier to remember a URL than a phone number. Tell people they can find your address or phone number on the website (and make sure it's there!) Use it in your ads. Instead of repeating your phone number three times and hoping people listening to your radio ad will memorize it, give your URL.

Advertise

For as little as $1 a day, Google will put your ad in the right hand column of their search results. It takes a bit of effort to learn how to set up an ad campaign, but they provide online help and you can refine as you go along. You set your daily budget and the amount you are willing to pay for each "click", that is, each time a visitor to Google actually clicks on your ad. The hardest part is writing the ad -- they allow you only 95 characters for the whole ad (not counting your URL.) Google isn't the only search engine that sells ads. Yahoo! Sponsored Search lists your business on Yahoo!, AltaVista and CNN. Sign up and get a $25 credit.

Email, articles and ezines

There are techniques called viral marketing that enable you to use the web-like features of the internet to get friends to refer friends or webmasters to refer visitors. For example, you can join forums. Most permit you to put a link to another website into the body of messages you post. (Just click on the little link symbol. It should walk you through it.) Not only is it a free link, but if the forum is related to your site, people may follow the link to visit your site.

You can also write articles related to the subject of your website. Article sites allow links in the article, and if it's a good piece, other webmasters will put it on their websites. For example, take a look at this excellent article on viral marketing which was copied from a site that offers articles for inclusion in websites.