3:42:00 PM
Posted by
WoWeb
Getting people to visit your Web site can often be a difficult task,
especially if your Web site is small. There are several main things you
need to consider, and things you need to do, if you are hoping to get
some traffic to your Web site. These are not the only things you can do
to get traffic to your Web site, but they are a good start.
- Keywords
- Every page needs a keyword or keyword phrase. It's best to choose
that keyword or keyword phrase before you start writing the page. Decide
what your page is going to be about and write the page around that
keyword or keyword phrase. If your page is going to be about cat
collars, then make sure you use the phrase "cat collars" several times
while writing the page, especially in the first couple paragraphs.
- Title & Meta Tags
- When considering a title for your page make sure to use the keyword
or key phrase of your page in the title. If you are using HTML, then you
need to be concerned with meta tags. Make sure to use your keywords in
the meta description several times, and the title tags at the top of
your HTML at least twice, and put the keyword in the meta keyword area
too. Meta tags for a page that is about cat collars would look something
like this:
<title>Cat Collars - Cat Collars for your Precious Kitty</title>
<head>
<meta name="keywords" content="cat collars, collars, cats">
<meta
name="description" content="Cat collars for your cat. Your cat will
really love these cat collars. My cat tried these cat collars and really
loved them.">
</head>
- Good Content
- If your page is about something important, is written well, and
includes the right keywords it will probably do well in the search
engines. On top of search engines, other sites will also link to your
page if it is well written.
- Search Engines - Submit your pages to the most popular search engines. Go to each of the search engines and submit your pages to them individually.
- Similar Web Sites
- Find Web sites that are similar to yours and offer to link to their
site in exchange for a link back to your site. If they have a page for
links they will probably do it.
- Forums & Message Boards
- Go to forums and message boards that are about your site and answer
questions or offer advice or even ask questions. Create a signature
under your name for your message posts that links back to your site. If
people like what you wrote on the forum, they may click on your link and
visit your site.
- Update Regularly - If you don't
add content to your site, then why should someone keep coming back.
Update your site regularly with new content and watch your traffic grow.
11:41:00 AM
Posted by
WoWeb
Internet search engines are a place online where you can go to find out
what else is online. When you need to know something or want to look
something up, the best way to do it online is by going to an Internet
search engine. There are many search engines to choose from on the
Internet, and they all work in different ways.
Some Internet search engines are updated manually, that is pages are added by people
who decide what belongs on that particular search engine. Others are
updated automatically, someone programs the search engine to find pages
on the Internet and add them to the search engine. Some Internet search
engines, like Netscape's, are powered by other Internet search engines.
Say
you have need to find out what you should feed your new Siamese cat.
Go to a search engine and type in "siamese cat food" (without the
quotes) and you will get results telling you what your new Siamese cat
needs to eat to be healthy. Maybe you know someone with Cancer and you
want to know about the different remedies out there for Cancer. Go to
the search engine and type in something like "cancer cures" or "cancer
symptom remedy".
All Internet search engines have their own way
of deciding which Web pages show up in a search when someone types a
keyword into their search engine. Be careful when searching on a search
engine that you are fairly specific. If you type in the word "cat" you
may get results on the animal, the play, cat grooming, cat food or a
number of other things with the word "cat" in it.
Here are a few of the most popular Internet search engines:
12:26:00 PM
Posted by
WoWeb
I found another great resource a few months back. It's called Links 2 You and it does exactly that. By adding your site to the list, you get lots and lots of links back to your site.
So what, you ask? Well, some search engines improve your ranking depending upon how many links there are back to your site. This is good because it means you are more likely to show up close to the top of a search, which means your site may be visited more often.
What Links To You does is create a series of pages which contain links to all of the sites who have signed up for the service. You download these pages to your site and include a link to them. Now when your site is spidered by the search engines the links to all of the other sites get recorded.
Since every other site in the list is doing the same thing, what happens is you wind up getting a whole lot of links back to your site very quickly.
It's easy and I think it's pretty cool.
12:46:00 PM
Posted by
WoWeb
Think about New Years Eve, midnight. Think about billions of bits of confetti falling from the sky. Now, write an ad on a few dozen or hundred or thousand pieces of paper and throw them into the air with the rest. That's what it's like to advertise on the internet.
Trying to make your product, service or web site known to the rest of the internet community can be very, very frustrating. Not only making it known, but getting visitors to actually visit the site can be downright annoying.
When advertising on the internet, I have several quick rules of thumb. These are not cast in concrete, but they seem to serve me very well.
Rule number one is "people use search engines, and to get them to your site you MUST show up in the top 50 or so listings for your keywords in a search engine". Period. Nothing else will build traffic faster than getting listed in a search engine.
Rule number two is "concentrate a lot of steady effort on getting other sites to exchange links with you". This is an excellent, although very time consuming, way to build steady, permanent increases in traffic.
My third rule of thumb is "start free and stay free unless you've got a very good reason to pay for advertising". There are many, many ways to get free advertising on the web. I've found very little reason to pay for submission services, email lists, banner exchanges or anything else to advertise my site.
There are many ways to get traffic to your site, and it's more-or-less worthwhile to pursue all of them. You can explore some of the following.
* FFAs - generally not very worthwhile as your links fall off the lists too quickly. Use an automated submission program or service - don't waste a second with manual submissions. It's also critical to remember to never, ever use your primary email account to submit to these. Your email box will be flooded with so many messages you will want to scream.
* Creating FFA pages - This allows you to send confirmation emails to people who add links. A very poor way to build traffic as anyone with a brain sends these messages to an email account which is just ignored.
* exchanging links - very good way to build traffic but takes a lot of time and effort. If you can get a lot of links all over the net you can build as much traffic as the major search engines.
* banner programs - I've found these to be virtually worthless. Sometimes a very well designed or targeted banner can cause some traffic, but be careful spending any money here.
* Webrings - you should join many of these to build decent traffic. They do not create huge amounts of traffic, but once set up they continue to drive visitors to your site day after day. Put the web code on pages all over your site - generally do not put them on your home page or on a webring page.
* Major Search Engines - excellent way to build traffic fast but tend to be fickle. I've had sites appear overnight only to disappear a week later. You must continually monitor your listings in these engines.
* Directories - Get you site listed in as many as possible. Some are difficult to get listed (like Yahoo) and some are easy, but all require little maintenance once your listing appears.
* Minor search engines - Get listed in them all if you can. Use an automated submission technique but DO NOT submit multiple times to the major engines as this may get you removed for spamming. Traffic is minor but steady.
* Email lists - very good for building traffic. You should always have a list for your site so visitors get a constant reminder to come back. Also if you can add articles to other email newsletters in exchange for your link appearing than do so as this can create traffic quickly.
* Newsgroups - Don't explicitly advertise as this is spamming. There are newsgroups for advertising but the return tends to be low. What you can do is make a signature (4 lines or so) and post useful messages and replies. I've found this does create some traffic, although it's not huge and it's limited in duration.
* Email - Careful here as spam is on everyone's mind. Can build some traffic. Your own newsletter is a great way to go, as are email lists.
* Awards - Apply for as many as you can for your site. You will win some. The bigger ones will generate lots of traffic. The smaller ones will cause an occasional hit but are a good ego boost at least.
* All of the "mulit-million hits" and similar pages - generally worthless. Set one up just for the heck of it since it's easy, but don't count on any real traffic. By the way, don't ever pay for one of these things.
My basic operating procedure is (a) examine statistics, (b) try something and then (c) reexamine statistics. For example, let's say you want to add your site to a webring. Record your statistics for a couple of days. Add the site. Then compare. In this case, you'll also want to look at the statistics for referring sites to see if the webring shows up. If it worked, great. If not, that's okay also. You just want to get a feel for what's working and what's not so you know where to put your time, effort and possibly money.
Also remember that your site is more than just a homepage. In actuality, you have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of pages, each of which is a potential entry point. Make sure each one of them advertises your site, links back to the home page and is complete within themselves. You can also run multiple advertising experiments with your site by using the different pages.
One of the really great things about the internet is how automatic it all can be. Many of these advertising techniques are of the "set it up and forget it" variety. Add a site to a webring, then forget about it. Visitors will be drawn to your site from now on. Maybe not many, but you do not need to put in any more effort to get those visitors after your site is added.
Some things, however, require constant vigilance. Search engines top this list. You can easily fall off a search engine, so you must constantly (weekly perhaps) check your ranking in each of the major engines.
In a nutshell, use statistics. Monitor your progress. Set up as much automated advertising as you can. Initially concentrate at least half of your efforts on search engines, then once you are listed concentrate on setting up link exchanges with other similar sites. Don't forget the other avenues for advertising, though, as all of them have some kind of payoff.
10:30:00 PM
Posted by
WoWeb
In this article I'm going to give you a special secret - a secret and tip so powerful, so life-changing that you will never be the same. Read on and learn. The internet (which includes the world wide web, email, newsgroups, discussion lists and many other things) will change the world. I'll go even further - the internet is the biggest change to human society since the wheel was invented.
But wait a minute? The internet is just about surfing around, looking at stuff, chatting with people, and maybe buying something now and then. Isn't it? What's so special about that? I mean, couldn't we always talk to people, buy something and go to the mall and window shop? The internet doesn't change anything, right?
Wrong. Think about it for a minute. You are now connected to literally everyone (potentially at least) on the entire planet. Currently (and this statistic changes daily) you can directly communicate with over 300,000,000 people! In a few years this may top a billion, all available almost instantly!
Never before in human history have so many people had the opportunity to talk to one another.
It gets even better. The other day I surfed to a web site which was in another language. It was in Italian. Normally, say if this was a book, I would have moved on and read something else, but the site looked interesting. So I pulled up a dandy translation tool and within a few minutes I had a decent translation of the page! I could now communicate with someone with whom I didn't even share a common language. That's fantasic!
I needed to write an article on relationships and marriage and I wanted some data. Years ago this would have required going to a library, searching through magazines and books for articles that I wanted. Not these days. I put in my request to a search engine and, after a few tries to get the proper search, I had exactly the references that I needed to complete my article. What would have required perhaps days took less than ten minutes!
You need another example? I needed to buy a CD for my wife. The CD was not easy to find, and I dreaded the search. Using the proper search engines I was able to find what I wanted within minutes, and in less time than it takes me to heat a TV dinner I had the CD ordered and on it's way to my house.
In my field I often need expert consultants very quickly. A machine is down or our email system stops working and I need an answer NOW. Just a quick jump onto the internet, post to the right newsgroups and discussion lists, and in a short time I have exactly what I need.
Wow. I could go on and on. The internet gives you (and everyone) incredible power and control over your environment. And that's the incredible secret and the tip of a lifetime.
You can use the internet in any way that you see fit. You have at your fingertips such an incredible tool that there is, for the first time in history, almost nothing to stand in your way. You've got a product to sell, using the internet you can let people know (without spamming of course) and sell it for little or no cost. You've got an opinion which needs to be told, you can post it to a newsgroup.
You want to tell the entire world about what a great person you are, you can just create a web site and submit it to the search engines. You can even add pictures, sound and movies if you want!
Maybe you want to start a company! You can do it for very little cost without even renting an office on the internet. Maybe you've even got a closet full of old paperback books that you are never going to read - go to an auction site, post their descriptions, and most likely you will find someone who wants to buy them.
You like to talk? Find a chat room and have at it. You like to write poetry? You can easily find a hundred places that will publish it - and if you can't, you can publish it yourself.
For the first time in history, you can do anything that you want from your apartment or your house. Take advantage of this opportunity and the world is yours to enjoy.
