For work. What is the best way to promote a website and get hits? Is it just getting down to paying google? I understand that is getting very expensive. Can you use meta tags effectively? Are there any really good consultants or services in the area of web promotion that do more than run a simple program to try to get you noticed by serach engines? Anybody on the bbs have expertise or can point me in the right direction?
First things first, I would scour the web for your keywords using google, yahoo etc. That gives you an idea of where you stand against the competition. A lot of people buy keywords using Overture.com or similar sites. Google sells keywords directly. There are also sites/companies that will submit your sites with good results. I personally don't have a recommendation. Be careful, because there are lots of sites that will charge you a monthly fee for submitting to search engines, when you could have done it yourself for free.
One thing about Google... your site will move higher in the search-results list based on how many other sites link to yours. The theory being that if other people find your site worthwhile, then Google searchers may also. So, if you can figure out a way to get other sites (offering similar content) to link to your site, you should (theoretically) move up on the list. I don't think I would pay any search engine to list my site as they already do that for free.
I am going to be facing the same issue. But, the best way to get traffic is word of mouth! What is the site?
glynch: drop me an email if you like. I spend about half my damn life building and promoting websites. Maybe I can give you a little advice.
I did this few month back to one of my friend's website, but I don't know if it still works or not since google has changed alot of stuffs within these month, but anyhow, here is what I did: I found this site with all the most popular search words, like porns, Bush, 911, movies, Pairs Hilton, etc. And I put them all on several html pages, and I put the redirection codes onto these pages, so whenever a visitor went to the page by using the search results from google, they will be redirect to my friend's main website. I know it's a pretty annoying trick, that's why I stopped doing it, but my friend told me it was really efficient.
That is actually a really good way to get yourself de-listed from all the major search engines. The minute they see that you are doing it - and they have staffs of people looking for that - they'll de-list you and it will take a LOT of persuading to get back on.
I use META tags religiously. My personal website www.robertsnyder.net is listed very high on some Google searches. Also, content is a big thing as well. If you go to www.google.com and type in "NBA Radio" in the search box without the quotes, you will see my site listed number 1 on the whole freaking Internet!!! That's pretty cool.
Subservient Chicken It's called "viral marketing" -as in a virus-like spreading- basically it's souped up word of mouth. BurgerKing did it with this for its new chicken sandwich, by only sending the initial e-mail or fliers out to 20 people. I heard of it through word of mouth. So I guess it works. It's just a matter of telling the right 20 people.
That's the site where I got a few audio links for the Rockets during the season. Thanks, I appreciated it and I know a lot of people in the G.A.R.M. do too.
One thing to note is that Google is going away from META tags as a primary ranking tool. They tend to place value on the following and pretty much in this order: Links to you from other websites Page Titles Content of Pages Variety of Pages META Tags Rob, in your case, you've been there for quite some time and have developed quite a few recipricol links. As a result, your ranking has gone up in certain areas. Of course, Google is tweaking their search algorithm all the time. They treat that thing like it is the codes to America's nuclear silos.
Does mean the content in the html? If your info is in a image does it not get included? Is there a way around that?
That means actual text in the code. If the text is in an image or Flash animation, search engines cannot read it. You can add descriptions to your photo images but that isn't nearly as effective as actual text. Also, if you can, you want that text to be as close to the top of the code as possible, meaning if you use something like layers, you should put that code up near the top and not further down into the code. There is a balance between design and content, though, that is just as important as rankings. You could have the most highly ranked piece of crap website ever, but who will care if it is a piece of crap.
That sucks. I have been making some sites with all the text as an image. I wonder if engines will read text in hidden layers?
They can't. There would be no way for them to determine text in an image which is why so many places show you and image and make you enter the word in the image to continue registering or looking something up. It is a way of keeping the search engines out. Why would you make all your text an image in the first place?
it was an easy way out, and I was just making it for a friend for free. I didn't know the consequences would be that bad, I was going to rely on the meta tags. But I do want help her market it, any suggestions? (I know the page titles are wrong) http://www.rubyart.net/
A couple things... Change the titles to reflect the company. Go look at some competitor sites to see what they are doing. Just do a Google search and see who's out there. Place the links to the various pages at the bottom of the page in text format: Home | Orders | Gallery | Contact Us etc. By putting them at the bottom with text links, you ensure that search engines can spider through the pages. Some can have a difficult time reading image-based links. Change the images of text to actual text. I know it is a pain, but you can get it to look right using CSS and, in the long run, it is just the best way to go. With no text on the pages, there is a good chance some of the search engines will simply ignore the entire site. Sometimes, when they don't see text content on the page, they assume there is nothing there an move on. You don't want that.
