Saturday, September 15, 2012

How to Promote Your Website?

1. Search Engines Submission

Place your website link (URL) on major search engines as majority of traffic that a website received are came from them. You don't really need to submit your website to all hundred thousands of search engines, because over 90% of search engines referrals come from the top three search engines. They are Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

However, it doesn't help much if your website link only shows on next 20th page of search result. Therefore, before submitting, make sure that your website is optimized for the best possible search ranking. Do refer "SEO" to guide you how to optimize your website search ranking.

The only disadvantage of free search engine submission is the process of submission is not immediate; it could take several weeks or months to display your website on their list.

2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Pay-per-click is one of the most cost-effective advertising programs available today. It allows you to bid on keywords relevant to your website. When those keywords are searched on, the search engines would display your ad on the results page along with non-paid search results. For example, if you search a keyword on Google, the non-paid results will display on the left column while paid ads on the right. Advertisers are charged only when their ads are clicked on.

The major search engines that offering pay per click program are Google AdWords and Yahoo Overture. Started bid rate is USD$0.05 per click per keyword. The more popular keyword you bid on, the more advertiser compete with, simultaneously the higher rate you bid on a keyword, the better position your ad will be placed in search results for the keyword.

The advantage of this program is allow your website to appear in search results almost immediately, unlike the usual URL submission process which could take several weeks or months for your website to be listed, This program could help your website bring in traffic instantly while waiting for the search engines to index it.

3. Forum
Participating in message boards (forums) is one of effective way to promote your website. It is an excellent place to ask questions, share knowledge, and of course, bring publicity to your website.
One way that posting in a forum can help bring visitors to your site through direct referrals from your signature. For eg, my company signature might be as follows:

NewMedia Express - Singapore Web Hosting Provider
Services: Domain Name, Web Hosting, Server, Colocation, Dedicated Server
Another way that participating in a forum can help drive traffic to your website is through search engine exposure. Many search engines index threads from forum. If you were a contributor to a thread that had been indexed by a search engine, the thread will have contained a link to your site via your signature. The URL pointing to the thread will have counted as a page linking to your site, adding to your link popularity and search ranking. Plus, when visitors click on the URL, they will read your post and possibly follow the links in your signature.

4. Link Exchange
Exchange link with your partner to increase traffic to your website. Since many search engines factor link popularity heavily into their ranking algorithms, it would be good to have as many sites link to yours as possible. However, not just any link will do. When it comes to link popularity, the search engines are smart enough to know chink links are relevant and which are not.

Therefore, you need exchange links with those website contents are similar to yours. For example, a computer software solution provider may offer link exchange with Internet solution providers.

Take note, before placing their link, do ask for permission.

5. Search Engines Optimization (SEO)
SEO is essential to drive traffic to your website in the first place as over 80% of all website traffic comes from search engines. Therefore, you must know using the right META tags in your HTML code to optimize the search placement.

<TITLE> Tag
Keep your keyword present once in the tag. Use 5 - 8 words in the <TITLE> tag. The use of more words may be penalized by the search engines.
You can place your company name, product or service name. The title tag content may display in a search engine or appear when your site is bookmarked or placed in a favorite folder.
Do not spam the <TITLE> tag with your keyword. Some search engines penalize you for using all CAPS.

<META NAME="KEYWORDS"> Tag
Not all search engines support META keywords, but you should include them for those that do. These keywords should match the words that someone would enter in a search to find your website, such as your product/service name, company name. Do not repeat the same keyword more than five to six times. Doing so may be interpreted as spam. Keep tag less than 1000 characters in length.

<META NAME="DESCRIPTION"> Tag
The META Description is not as important as it used to be; however many search engines display it as your page description in their results. Make sure your description is meaningful; if it doesn't make any sense, chances are, visitors won't click on your link. The meta description tag should incorporate your keywords into a meaningful sentence. Place your keywords closer to the beginning of your description to achieve better rankings. The length of your description should be between 150 and 250 characters. Do not repeat your keyword more than three to five times.

6. Write Articles
Sharing knowledge on the web can be a very powerful way to establish your online presence and credibility. You may write a thoughtful and informative article on a topic in your area of expertise and then publish on your website or others. Search engines may index your website shall any useful information is provided. If your article published on other website, do append your website link at the bottom of the articles.