Prep
Work: Getting ready for site promotion
Whether you are link building for your
own site or for multiple sites for your clients, you will want to create
a text file that contains your key Web site information. This file can
be created in any Word processor or other program that allows you to easily
cut-and-paste into submission forms. Some submission software and services
will store this information for you. More on that later.
1). Company Name
2). Company Address
3). Company Phone / Fax
4). Title of your Web site
5). URL of your Web site's
homepage, and the URLs for the key sub pages as well
6). Contact Person Name
7). E-mail Addrsss for that
person
8). PHONE #
9). Keywords for your Web site
- discuss...
10). Category headings for
your site
11). 15, 25, 50, and 70
WORD description of your Web site
12). A list of the special technical
features (Java, Shockwave, VRML), with URLs
13). News Release for sending
to the Internet Media folks
Once we have this file ready,
we can begin some URL submissions,
and we have our first major decision
to make:
Q?...For the search engines
and directory submissions, do we...
1). Do it yourself, manually, one submission
at a time
2). Do it yourself, using an autosubmission
tool
3). Outsource the task to a third
party who uses an autosubmission tool
4). Outsource the task to a third
party who will do it manually
A: #1 For
now, let's go on the assumption that we are going the
do-it-yourself route.
Why?
My experience has been that submissions
to hundreds of untargeted
general directories and search
engines *DOES NOT* automatically
result in regular high traffic at
your site, and there is no correlation
between numbers of search engines
submitted to and traffic generated.
What the heck does that mean in human
terms?
More submissions is not automatically
better.
Since a good portion your site's traffic
will come from the biggest 10-15 general search
engines and directories, you should
be sure to submit your URL to them, and then get
more focused and topic specific, submitting
to resources that make sense for your site only.
-
Finding link Building
Resources To Promote Your Site, Online and Offline
-
-
Remember that your Web site's homepage
is not the only page you have to promote, and
is not the only page othewrs can link
to. There may well be features within your site that also
offer opportunities for promotion
and links. The classic example is the mailing list. More later.
-
Online promotion outlets for the overall
site should include...
Announce Sites -
-
High
end example:Netscape's
What's New - http://guide.netscape.com/guide/whats_new.html
Other examples: What's New
Too , WhatsNew.Com
-
To
find others, look at Yahoo's
list of announcement sites & services
Search Engines -
-
"The
Big Seven" Infoseek,
AltaVista,
Lycos
, Webcrawler,
Excite,
HotBot,
OpenText
-
Others:
PlanetSearch
, NorthernLight , Anzers(AU/US)
-
To find others, look at Yahoo
list of Search Engines
Directories -
-
Examples
include: Yahoo,
Magellan,
MiningCo,
Encyclopedia
Brittanica Online
To find others, start at Yahoo's
Directory List.
(Note: Over time my hunch is that
there will be hundreds of attempts made to create web
directories, but the best ones will
always be those that are highly focused on a specific
topic and created by a person/organization
that knows that topic best)
Web-Zines -
-
Examples
include: WebVantage,
Netsurfer
Digest
-
To
find others, start at a good Web-Zine directory like The
ZineRack (http://www.zinerack.com)
and do a search
E-Zines/E-newsletters -
-
Examples
include: Cowles
Media Central Digest
-
To
find others, start at John
Labovitz's E-ZINE-LIST (
http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/
)
Mailing Lists / Newsletters -
Examples include: Net-Happenings,
-
To
find others, start at either of the below, each of which has thousands
by subject
PAML--
P-ublically A-ccessable M-ailing L-ists http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/
The
Liszt -- http://www.liszt.com/
Yahoo
Newsletter Section -- http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Newsletters/
Special Selection Sites -
Examples include: Cool Site Of
The Day,
WebScout
-
There
are literally hundreds of "site of the day" awards sites, and
they vary tremendously in their value. To find others, start at (you guessed
it)
-
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_W
eb/
Best_of_the_Web/Sites_of_the___/
Web News Services -
Examples include: WIRED News,
InternetNews.com,
Newslinx,
Internet-Watch
USENET Newsgroups -
A dying resource?
Migrating to moderated mailing lists
Newsgroups often have just the niche
you'd like to reach, however not all accept blatant
commercial posts. Also, the specific
groups available will vary by service provider.
The best way to approach them? Begin
by reading the newsgroup charters, and
by actually participating...
Usenet Charters- http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/by_group.index.html
OFF-LINE Awareness Building -
Off-line isn't always offline. Print publications
now typically have an
online counterpart, with different or more frequently
updated content
Print Magazines focusing
on the Internet - Internet
WORLD, Web Magazine
Books & Book/CD Rom
combo's - Rough Guides To The
Internet
Other Guides, Encyclopedias,
etc. - Yahoo
Unplugged
Do newspapers, TV and radio stations
really care?
Next, and
just as important as ALL of the above categories is...
Subject specific link building
What is the subject of your Web
site? The chances are very good there are specialized directories and other
net-based resources that someone or some group has created just to help
people locate sites in that subject area.
An example for non-profit groups
is GuideStar
An excellent place to look for others
is DirectoryGuide, which lists
about 400 directories and search engines in 15 categories
Appropriate methods
for leveraging the search engines today...
The secret battle for number 1...
Every search engine has its own
quirks and ranks search results differently.
The key point is that a search
engine visits your site and indexes its content,
based on a criteria that
is a little different for each search engine.
The primary areas they look at are:
Opportunities
exist just for non-profits
A whole new opportunity, and paradigm
A new genre of media and editorial publications & contacts
Standard services like PRNewswire must be augmented to reach
the right online media contacts
Make sure you find the right editors for your
your
subject
Subtleties of the Email News-release
Understand the differences between the many Email
news-release services -
Here's a Comparitive
Feature Chart for the better known Email
news release services. Use it to help decide which servie is best for you.
For Web site launches, events, and Web products, a service like URLwire
For tech products, a more general service like GINA,
or BizWire
Automated vs. Non Automated - a different worry...
Using
Automatic & Commercial Services For URL Submissions
A number of services exist, both free
and fee-based, that can submit your site
to many Search Engines at once.
There is a crucial difference that
needs to be understood
Automatic- done by a machine,
software, and scripts
Individual- submissions performed
by a human. Both have pros and cons.
2 key points to remember about such
automated services:
1). You are using the auto-submitter's
submission form, not the actual search engine's form. This means that you
are depending on whoever created the automatic submitter to create a perfect
"mirror image" of the "real" submission form for every search engine. My
experience has proven to me that they fail more often than they work.
2). They completely miss most powerful
outlets that you need to be reaching, because they only submit to the the
most basic and "automate-able" outlets. They totally miss the "people"
outlets.
How
do the search engines themselves feel about autosubmitters?
After 4 years of experience making
submissions individually, and hearing the horror stories from clients who
tried to use an automated tool and had terrible results, I do
not recommend the use of "auto-submission" services. If you
do choose to use an automated tool, I feel that Scott Bannister's "Submit-It"
(Web or New Desktop Software) will cause you the least pain and suffering.
Note however, that these services themselves
hedge and disclaim.
Submit-it
disclaimer
One last thought on the human factor and missed
opportunites
Some personal
observations and recommendations for maintaining your presence over time
Search engines and directories represent
just one part of the awareness-building process. Search engines and directories
are a good starting point, but you are missing an enormous number of other
resources if they are all you submit to. What I recommend you do is accept
that YOU must WORK at it regularly, even if you do outsource parts of the
process to a third party service.
Holistic Site Promotion:
About outsourcing...
Outsourcing Link Building or other
awareness-building activities to a third party makes sense if you have
few staff and if your time is at a premium.
*** If you do outsource, never
select a service based only on the number of submissions they make for
you, because numbers are meaningless. Why? Because not all submission sites
are equal in their value, and some submission sites aren't legitimate.
They are "fronts" for other businesses, and not really in the directory
business at all. Anyone can submit your site to 500 of them, but those
500 submissions might be totally worthless, too.
To find some high quality, proven companies
that specialize in awareness building for Web sites, use the following:
Paid
Promotion Resources
http://www.olympus.net/okeefe/Pubnet/ResPaid.html
When opting for a 3rd party submission
service, the cost can vary wildly, depending on who's doing the submissions
and how deeply they are customizing the campaign for your site.
A quality site launch submission campaign should cost about $1,500 or less
for a one-time service. For ongoing services, prices are typically negotiable.
Of Interest
Ten
Things to ask any Web Site Promotion Company Before Hiring Them
http://www.ericward.com/tentoask.html
LinkMoses:
Writings on the art and insanity of Web site promotion
http://www.ericward.com/articles
|
