Getting a site on the web is only half the battle. The "Build it and they will come" adage may have worked a few years ago, but now it is almost a waste of time. There is so much on the web that the odds are minuscule that anybody will ever find the site. There are, however, a number of methods that can be employed to boost traffic to your site.
SEARCH ENGINES AND DIRECTORIES
The Search Enngines are a primary source
for getting viewers, however the search engines and directories return
so many matches that they might not help your site a whole lot. For example,
if you are trying to sell an anatomy chart on the web, a search on the
word anatomy in a major search engine will return more than a million selections!
The Search Engines and Directories display a list of sites that contain
whatever key word the user has input for the search. This display usually
shows roughly 12 selections per screen page - so it is clear that the odds
are pretty much against your site appearing in the first five pages, and
generally speaking people won’t go more than five pages deep if they find
what they are looking for in those first five pages. It takes too long.
Nonetheless, you need to know how the search engines work, what tricks to use in the code, (and what tricks to avoid!), that will legitimately increase the chances of your site being found. You also need to understand the submission process for Search Engines and Directories (Yahoo is NOT a search engine). You need to understand and use the <META TAGS> for description= and keywords= .
With over a hundred Search Engines and Directories on the Internet, the decision about which ones to submit to becomes pretty important. If you really understand your business goal, the purpose of the site, and the target group, you will have taken a big step in solving this part of the problem as well. If you have that information well in hand, you should be able to derive the description and keywords fairly easily.
If you hire a designer, be certain that you discuss these issues with them. Ask questions about their use of <META TAGS> for both Description and Keywords. I highly recommend that anyone who is considering a web site take the time to visit www.calafia.com and learn at least the basics. Understanding this aspect of the Internet is absolutely crucial to a successful page.
Also, it is important to understand that currently most of the major search engines and directories take up to 6 to 8 weeks to process a submission. If part of your business strategy is high placement and your designer guarantees it then perhaps your contract should reflect that. In other words, you should both know going in that part of the payment is contingent upon search engine ranking and that it might take 8 weeks for the verification of that part of the project to be made.
NEWS GROUPS
There are thousands of User News Groups dedicated
to an incredibly wide variety of interests that are used by millions of
people on a very regular basis. Many of the News Groups allow some kind
of advertising and since they are free (except for the time it takes to
update them regularly) they are a valuable vehicle for promoting your site.
Even if the News Groups which are related to the product or service you
offer does not allow "advertising", you can, with some time,
some thought, and some effort make your sites presence known in them.
Email
Email has become the "junk mail" vehicle
of the decade. You can purchase email lists and the software to send mass
email across the WWW. This may change in the near future as many people
are understandably annoyed at the time they have to spend filtering through
the "junk" that arrives on their system to get to the messages
they actually want. You risk offending people by doing this, but it is,
currently, a legitimate method. There are some email advertising services
available that are less invasive than others.
RELATED WEB SITES
You may find that there are a number of sites
that are willing to include a link to your own site as a convenience to
their own audience. Of course, it makes more sense to take advantage of
this if their site is somehow related to your own product or service. Sometimes
they will want a reciprocal link on your site and sometimes that is not
required. A large number of sites are basically "Link Content Sites"
and those sites rely almost exclusively on their list of sites to build
traffic and garner advertising dollars for their own site. Be careful with
these kinds of sites. While they might generate some traffic to your site,
they almost always require a reciprocal link to their own and it is easy
for your viewer to start wandering through their list of sites, and "forget"
to return to yours! Others that can be advantageous are "categorized
business listings" sites such as USA
Online. These sites encourage businesses to add links to their
site. A major advantage to these types of sites is that they are promoted
nationally, and they categorize the links by region and type of business.
WEB RINGS
Web Rings are sites that belong to a "club"
that shares similar interests. Where the Use News gorups provide a way
for people to share news about a subject, the web rings allow people to,
in effect, share sites about a subject.
BANNERS
Banners have become a popular method of cross
advertising - but do they work? Lots of people ignore them altogether.
How often do you click on a banner? They have some drawbacks as well. If
I have designed a really nice page for a client, do I want it cluttered
with somebody else’s artwork? Some of it can be really terrible (e.g. Comic
Banners). Where do I put it on a page? At the top? Won’t that severely
detract from the page’s primary purpose - which is to promote my clients
product or service? At the bottom? Is it even worth the effort? What if
(worse yet) the banner is so seductive it takes people away from my client’s
page too quickly?
If you decide that banners are a viable way to promote the site how do you decide which banner company to use? How do you determine if you made the right choice? Often, if I have a multiple page site, I look for a page that can easily support a banner without being too disruptive. I will put a banner on that page for a couple of weeks and regularly review that page for traffic increases. If there is no significant traffic increase I will try again with another Banner company. This is, however, very time consuming.
An excellent place to begin studying banners is Link Exchange.
CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS
Some sites are naturally suited to using contests
of one kind or another to draw people to their site. If you, then do make
sure that a separate page is devoted to the contest so you can make maximum
use of keywords and descriptions for the search engines and directories.
Try to design the contest so that people have to look at all of the pages in your site. And try to offer a prize that would be of use or interest to people in your target group. There isn’t much point in a contest that draws only people who have no interest in the product or service you are offering.
Always try to give something to your viewers. It can be a laugh, a list of interesting sites, information specific to your product that is not generally known. Remember that viewers are people first and customers second. DO NOT offer free catalogs or brochures - or anything else that has a mailing or manufacturing cost. What if you get requests from 50,000 people for your 3 page brochure? You would have a $17,000 mailing cost alone. If people are going to buy your product via the Internet let them buy it using the Internet. Sure, send a brochure or catalog to everyone who buys - they are legitimate customers. The others are maybes. I know of several companies that had to renege on their offer of a free catalog - that made them look pretty bad.
PROMOTING THE SITE VIA OTHER MEDIA
It may seem strange that we should have to use
advertising to promote what seems at first glance to be advertising. Yet
we do. If you think about it however, a Web site can do a number of things
that no other form of advertising can do. It can reach millions of people
for a ridiculously low cost. It can make an immediate sale. It can generate
immediate leads. It can build a mailing list of interested potential customers.
It is a fantastically effective tool when done properly.
But as I said before there is so much on the Web now that it is not enough simply to build a site. You MUST promote it. The site address belongs on EVERY other piece of advertising that you do. Business cards, stationery, brochures, flyers, yellow pages, pens, everything. If you typically advertise in the local paper, on the radio, or TV be sure your site address is included. People WANT to visit sites. Make it easy for them to visit yours. And make it worthwhile.
Many local television and radio stations, as well as newspapers now have people on staff who review and report on Internet sites. This is yet another vehicle for promoting the client’s site. Be sure the site is correct in all ways before submitting it to people in the news arena. These people are professionals in advertising and reporting. A site that is rife with errors or poorly designed is not going to garner any praise or publicity.
AWARDS
There are a number of companies on the Web that
review sites and give awards to those which they feel merit them. As a
designer you should know about those companies. If a site wins an award
not only can you display the award graphic on the site, but your client
can legitimately use "Award Winning Site" in advertising the
site. It can be used to lend impact to the description <META TAG>
and in submitting to search engines and directories. Every little bit helps!
