Promoting your Web site

Promoting any aspect of your business requires a range of skills and tactics, and these may also be required to promote your Web site in the conventional sense (offline). To promote your site on the Internet here are some specific points to consider:

promote your Internet presence as a whole using the techniques identified in the introduction to business on the Internet and e-commerce modules

put relevant and useful content on your Web site - and think about the words people will search for

register your site with online directories

consider an online advertising scheme (paid or free scheme)

get links from other Web sites

get your Web pages search engine ready and register with search engines

consider the support of an expert - a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing

Online directories are a good place to promote your Web site. Many offer free entries and some provide the additional opportunity to advertise on their site to promote your site better. Here is a limited list (not necessarily recommended by Acro Logic) out of a huge amount of growing choice:

There are opportunities to advertise on the Internet without spending a penny! - it just requires a little time to set it up.

Banner Exchange Schemes

This can be achieved using a banner exchange scheme. These are based on the philosophy of if you show mine (advert) I will show yours. For example, if you show two "exposures" on your Web site of adverts belonging to others in the scheme, then your advert will be shown on someone else's Web site in the scheme. Of course, all of this is computerised and done automatically - once set up.

You need to register your Web site with the top (popular) search engines to attract visitors to your Web site. Before you do this your Web pages need to be ready to make the most of how search engines work. The steps you need to consider are:

the content (words) that people will be interested in and will search for

the title of your Web page

the meta tags for keywords and description

the content of your first paragraph

the content of the rest of your page

Clearly the most important thing is thinking carefully about the content of your Web pages and the sort of information your potential audience will be searching for. Then you need to consider how search engines work - and unfortunately they each use (slightly) different methods. Some ask for the keywords when you register with the search engine, and others extract these automatically from your Web pages. For some of the search engines that automatically extract information from your Web pages you need to realise that the important words need to be put into the Web page title, the meta keywords tag, and the visible content of your Web page (the first paragraph may be rated more importantly than following paragraphs). The meta description tag can be used to control what the search engine displays when it shows a link to your site. Read the help for the search engines you plan to submit to, so that you can establish what there criteria are and how their search algorithms rate the importance of various parts of a Web page.

There are several hundred search engines on the Internet, each helping users to find the information that they are looking for. Many of these allow you to submit your details to their database - often indicated by the phrase "add URL". Here's a list of some popular ones (though remember there are lots and new ones emerging):