I can't tell you how many times people have asked me, "How to do I get my site to come up in the top ten of the search engines so I can get hits and sell my product?" What they really want to know is, "How can I get people to show up to my website without spending any money on advertising my site!" answer Search Engine Promotion
People usually don't like my answer because accomplishing a "top ten ranking" on any search engine always requires careful thought along with a significant amount of work.
Three types of "Search engines" abound on the Internet. They include true search engines, directories, and links pages. At last count approximately 10,000 sites referred to themselves as search engines, though only about a dozen sites rate your attention since they drive 97% of the Internet's search traffic.
These sites include Google, Yahoo!, Overture, MSN, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Lycos, DMOZ, and a few others. When a visitor logs onto a search engine looking for information, they enter "keywords" about the subject in hopes of obtaining a list of relevant websites.
Each search engine or directory operates with its own rules
about judging a site's relevancy to a keyword search.
They look at text on the web page (body text) as well as words you can't see which reside in the actual code of the web pages. This code includes such things as alt tags, title tags, and others.
Depending on the search engine, what you can't see may represent a far more important part of ranking well than the words appearing on the page.
Search engines look at how many times a keyword shows up in the various parts of your website as well as actual location on the page. Assuming that an important subject for your pages would
appear at the beginning of a page, those web pages starting with the keyword should rank better than those that don't.
Also, in many cases, the more websites linking to your site will drastically impact your rankings. Entire books and websites exist to teach eager website owners how to pump up their rankings on all the various search engines, however these promotion tips will serve you well in your quest for the "Top Ten!"
** See what others have done for maximum exposure!
Go to the various search engines and perform a search under which you would like to appear.
Dissect those pages to find the common elements that make them show up.
~ How often and where do the keywords appear on the page?
~ How many words on the page in total?
~ Do they put keywords in their hypertext links?
~ How many other sites link to them and could you easily get
a link from those sites too?
** Beware of registration vs. promotion
Plenty of companies will "register" your website with thousands of search engines for about $50-$100.
But simply submitting to the search engines won't do much fr you. Without the proper structure in your website, only sheer luck will cause your site to pop up in the top ten! |
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An exchange of links, also known as reciprocal linking, is simply swapping links with another site. In return for another site posting your link, you post their link on yours. You can trade different types of links, including banners, text links, buttons, etc.
One of the best ways to get traffic while waiting to be listed by search engines is through link exchanges with other quality sites. This will also help you to get better search engine rankings.
You can easily go after your target market by trading links with sites that relate to your offer. How do you find sites willing to trade links? You can go directly to sites that interest you and see if they offer reciprocal linking. Review the site and contact the site owner or administrator by email and asking.
You can also conduct a search using "directory of link exchanges", "reciprocal linking", "banner exchanges" etc., to find sites that might be willing to trade links themselves, or provide a list of other willing sites.
Many of your requests for a link will probably meet with a negative or no response. The reason why is simple. It's back to the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) principle, the most basic of motivators in the human psyche. If you approach a well established site to link to you, there has to be a good reason for them to do so.
I have received a number of emails simply stating "link to me - http://www.somewebsite.com". That kind of promotional strategy gets you nowhere.
Here are a few hints and tips for site owners as to how you can persuade an established site to link to yours.
1. Most Important! Be Polite.
When you send your email for a linking request, make sure that the tone of it is extremely courteous and not demanding.
If English is your second language, run your request note by someone who is familiar with the complexities of the language. The way you word your note is the most important factor as to whether another web master will even bother with taking the time to take a look at your site.
2. Grammar and Spelling
Your request note is your official representation. If you don't take the time to spell correctly, other web masters may believe that your site will be of the same quality, and discard your request immediately.
3. Ensure your site is complete.
No one will link to a half finished site.
4. Respect that many web masters are busy people
Don't expect an answer straight away and harass the site owner with countless follow up emails. Leave it for at least two weeks before your second contact and ensure that the second note is equally as polite as the first.
5. Read the site
Ensure you take a good look over the site you wish to link to you. Be familiar with it's content and mention some of the content in your request for linkage. Identify the common theme between the sites. If the site has a "Submit your URL" page, use it. Be sure to read the guidelines for submission carefully.
6. Appeal to the web masters WIIFM (What's In It For Me) motivator.
Experienced site owners can pick a new web master or site a mile off, so don't misrepresent your site or it's traffic levels if you propose a reciprocal (swap) links agreement. Point the web master to a section of your site where you provide content or tools that are original and would be of use to their site's visitors.
If you have a banner rotator, you could offer the site owner a few thousand impressions as a sweetener for him in linking to you. Very few web masters will give you a link if they receive nothing in return, especially if they are earning money or gaining traffic from the links they already have in place. Even just making an offer of an exchange of services, no matter how small, will motivate the web master to at least consider a link.
The link request note.
There are a number of examples of link request emails on the Internet, but my advice is that if you are going to use them, make sure you modify them each time they are sent to different sites so they at least appear original. I receive a certain template note regularly and disregard it, as it appears to me that the person sending it has not reviewed my site properly and really doesn't take the process seriously. If another web master points towards a certain article or section of my site, it motivates me to review what the web master has to offer my site visitors.
Be prepared for rejection.
Don't get too upset if you are officially denied a link, even if the response is rude, as they sometimes can be. If you do receive a nasty email back, be happy in the fact that you went about the request in the right way, and perhaps that web master was having a really bad day as we all do at times. Leave it for a few months, then try again, outlining some of the improvements you have made in your site that are relevant.
The promotion strategies you put into action from the outset define your standing in the online community and in the time ahead, so don't blow it. Be careful in using the hype marketing techniques offered by some, they may have worked for them, but they may not work for you.
Market leap Link Popularity Analysis Tool
Link Popularity is simply a way to measure the total number of links that a search engine has found for your website.
is getting more important all the time. With so many websites optimized to any keyword or phrase the number of websites containing links to your website is another factor search engines use in determining your ranking. In short the more popular you are the higher your placement. |
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