promoting websites

[CoD]

I am building a website with dreamweaver and I'm trying to find the best ways of getting the site promoted

So what search engines pick up on meta tags straight off, and what good ones do I have to sumbit my site to?

Also is it good to strike deals with people, ie. Link to me and I'll link to you?

Anyother good tips/ideas?

Thanks

[Snurx]

Now, im no expert or anything, it's just the things I had done.

The link exchange is maybe a smart move, at least if you manage to switch links whit good sites. Also, getting a link to your Jessica Doll's site from a Diablo II clan or a porn site is maybe not good, but getting a link whit Doll Rewievs.com is

Banner ads. This also depending on site, but for example, a site about Anime whit banner ad's on AnimeForums . whatever would rock, but migth not just fit on housewifesareangryatanime.com.
(I would recomend SA banner ads, SA get's a lot of hits each day and has a pretty huge user-base)


The submit thing, i almost don't use search-engines anymore, but Google is the number one.

But, most important, word of mouth. Get a good site, and people will spread it, if you take the first faltering steps.

[Androme]

go to www.sitepoint.com for lotsa tips

[Dante Hicks]

Depends on what your site is or does. Is it likely to interest a certain internet community?

I wouldn't under-estimate low level promotion. For example, I have a link to a silly picture in my sig (have done for a couple of days). There's no advert asking people to click the link, nor have I mentioned it in any of my posts (except responding to a question). This is the only forum I've done this on (and we're pretty low on users). Yet according to my Apache logs over 40 individual IP's have accessed it in the last few days.

If I had a website on say, Buffy fan-fiction, I wouldn't spam the link everywhere (although yes, search enginers obviously are a must). But I would join every set of Buffy forums out there, put the link in my signature, and quietly post away trying to get some kind of "reputation". If someone asked directly a question which I could answer with a link, I would (always mention it's your site you're schilling though).

Obviously if your site is more general then you could always join Slashdot, Kuro5hin, etc, etc. If you know people who are already key users on other forums then ask them to carry the link in their sigs for a few days.

"Automated" promotion is a must (link exchange, banners, etc) but I think directed promotion is also pretty important. I'm pretty banner blind these days, but if a "recognised user" on these forums posts a link (or even mentions) I'll generally check out.

[cnaw]

Originally posted by Snurx
N
The submit thing, i almost don't use search-engines anymore, but Google is the number one.

submit your site to dmoz & yahoo as being listed in those directories might help with your google rankings.

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by Androme2
go to www.sitepoint.com for lotsa tips

yes, they rock, as do www.webmasterworld.com CoD, go to those and read. Most engines ignore meta-tags now, but sitepoint has a few great ones on how to Search Engine Optimize. Three easy things to do there: alt tags, name your files appropriately, good keyword-rich text. (don't pull any tricks like invisible or hidden text or keyword lists..they just hammer you for it)

Promotion To-do list:

First, Submit your site to google, yahoo, FAST, Inktomi, and pretty much any search engine you know about. It never hurts. Cnaw is correct. Google put lots of weight on DMOZ (www.dmoz.org) and Yahoo. Though less on yahoo pretty soon now that they've bought overture and alta vista.

Second, do NOT use the link exchange programs people keep recommending. Guys, if you bother to read the TOS of any search engine using a link popularity algorthm (Google to name just one) you'll find that link exchange is an express ticket to removal from their databases.

Third, find other sites that happen to have similar interests and request to trade links (this is not the same as a link exchange program).

Fourth, submit your site to publications (ezines, news sites) and special interest places. If you impress them, they'll give you a write-up and funnel traffic in your direction.

Theres sooo much more to be done...if it's commercial, check out www.marketingexperiments.com...we just did a report on Google PageRank and have tons of other stuff you might find interesting. (Shameless plug)(hey! My name is on that paper, so I'm proud!)


if you really serious, you might want to consider starting a very small pay-per-click campaign...just enough to grab some people in.

[CrashTester]

He are some good promotion tips for you;

1) Get porn images and stamp the name of your own website all over them, then pass the pics around to friends, family and anyone else you meet on IRC who wants to see them.

2) Send your mum out to the shopping mall with a sandwich board around her neck advertising your site.

3) Make stickers and stick them all over the tube and trains.

4) In the dead of night, get a ladder and paint and write in big letters on a road or train bridge the name of your website. Be sure to choose a bridge that is in full view of passers by.

5) Get a tattoo on your forehead with your site name.

6) Change your name by deed poll to www.<yoursitename>.com

7) Viciously beat people up and leave a calling card stating your site name and a little logo. The press will pick up on this and start advertising your site for free!

8) Choose a new product that everyone would like (for example, large sized LCT TV) and advertise in local classifieds and ebay that you are giving them away for free if they go to your website. This of course would be a lie, be sure to make that clear on the website to save law suits.

9) Pay a poor pakistani kid an extra quid per week to put in an additional label stating your web site name, in every pair of Nike trainers that he makes.

10) If you dont try any of the 9 steps above to increase traffic to your site, then you dont deserve to have a website.

Hope these help.

[CoD]

Thanks for the help

[Kumnaa]

put a link to your site in your sig for as many forums as possible !

[sayonara]

Register with Google and DMOZ as mentioned above.

Also go to www.addme.com and www.submit-it.com to be added to a lot more engines.

Before you do any of that, you should ensure that your META keyword and content tags are accurate and in place. A quick dally with google will get you info on how to optimise them. Although it has been suggested that search engines now ignore META tags, it would be moronic to leave them out as they are part of the W3C standard and still widely used by vast numbers of engines.

If you want to stop spiders and crawlers from searching certain files or directories, you need a robots.txt file in your site root folder - again, just put robots.txt into google and the first result that comes up is the one you want.

Using link exchange or traffic increase programmes is not generally recommended.

[CrashTester]

Originally posted by sayonara
lots of useful stuff

Thats all very well but what if you dont have a website in the firstplace? What would be the point then?

[sayonara]

Originally posted by CrashTester
Thats all very well but what if you dont have a website in the firstplace? What would be the point then?

Then the whithers, wheres and whyfores of promoting it would not bother you.

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by Kumnaa
put a link to your site in your sig for as many forums as possible !

most forums are dynamic, which makes this a non-issue since they can't be spidered.

Also, Google removed the counting of forum and guestbook links in their May update.

Sayonara: Most ARE ignoring META keywords. Yes, they're good to have, but they're not really that important anymore. Spammy bastards have gone and ruined it. However, META descriptions are still counted, since that's what will display in the SE description on a search.

[sayonara]

Originally posted by Sandsnake
most forums are dynamic, which makes this a non-issue since they can't be spidered.

They can be, and are. The problem is that this of course would put massive storage demands on search engine databases so the majority of dynamically generated links are dropped. I have observed this 'in action', as it were.

Sayonara: Most ARE ignoring META keywords. Yes, they're good to have, but they're not really that important anymore. Spammy bastards have gone and ruined it. However, META descriptions are still counted, since that's what will display in the SE description on a search.

Leaving off META information is a bit like taking the numbers off the front of your house because most people will probably e-mail you rather than write.
As long as it's a W3C standard, it should be included as part of the document. EOF.

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by sayonara
They can be, and are. The problem is that this of course would put massive storage demands on search engine databases so the majority of dynamically generated links are dropped. I have observed this 'in action', as it were.

Google so far has the best dynamic spider. Yes, many types can be. I should have been more specific though. You'll never find a vbb-style sql-db forum spidered, because the spiders simply aren't capable of doing it. Some forums are designed to be static however, so they do get spidered.

On the other hand, Google is getting better and can apparently spider phpbb. I believe that they intend to start a forums search engine once they have it down (something similar to their current blogger project).

Originally posted by sayonara
Leaving off META information is a bit like taking the numbers off the front of your house because most people will probably e-mail you rather than write.
As long as it's a W3C standard, it should be included as part of the document. EOF.

I was simply stating that it's not as important as it used to be, and responding to the initial question of SE's responding to META tags. Most don't, which was exactly what he was asking.

[sayonara]

Originally posted by Sandsnake
Google so far has the best dynamic spider. Yes, many types can be. I should have been more specific though. You'll never find a vbb-style sql-db forum spidered, because the spiders simply aren't capable of doing it. Some forums are designed to be static however, so they do get spidered.

vB board spidered:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rel...e=off&filter=0

I do have a better example but it would kind of be advertising another game if I posted it and 'we can't have that'. Since I can check the DNS look-ups for people using that board I can assure you there are google spiders checking it out every day.

On the other hand, Google is getting better and can apparently spider phpbb. I believe that they intend to start a forums search engine once they have it down (something similar to their current blogger project).

Google do indeed spider phpBB - I use that package for a couple of my websites and I have to say I'm surprised and please at how effectively they gather information. Inktomi do too.

I was simply stating that it's not as important as it used to be, and responding to the initial question of SE's responding to META tags. Most don't, which was exactly what he was asking.

Fair enough.

[Sandsnake]

Originally posted by sayonara
vB board spidered:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rel...f&filter=0</a>

I do have a better example but it would kind of be advertising another game if I posted it and 'we can't have that'. Since I can check the DNS look-ups for people using that board I can assure you there are google spiders checking it out every day.

woohoo! They'd said they were getting better...googlebot got a fairly hefty rebuild in the last few months (May/June?) I wonder if that's going to become consistently possible, or if it's still extremely luck of the draw.

[sayonara]

Originally posted by Sandsnake
I wonder if that's going to become consistently possible, or if it's still extremely luck of the draw.

I don't know - I'd hope it's a sign that GoogleLabs are earning their money!

[queball]

That Google shows the same threads twice shows that it is not being clever about it. We often deny Googlebot from spidering forums simply because of the load it would cause. It still follows dumb and simple spider rules as far as I can see.

[sayonara]

Originally posted by queball
That Google shows the same threads twice shows that it is not being clever about it. We often deny Googlebot from spidering forums simply because of the load it would cause. It still follows dumb and simple spider rules as far as I can see.

As far as the spider is concerned the showthread page and the printthread page are different. Well, actually, they are different documents.

It could be improved, and it does cause a load, but it's... well... existing, so things can only improve.

[/jinx]

[Sandsnake]

yeah, googlebot has a really hard time with session ID's...it's nowhere near as bad as some of the others though....

Google is working quite hard at making dynamic url's spiderable, but there are just too many damn ways to have a db create them...they need to standardize the various characters and URL layouts, so that the bots can just ignore all after ?....