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A
well-designed, well-structured, well-managed Web site is no
guarantee that people will visit it. In order to be discovered,
your site, like any product, needs to be marketed.
Following
are ten components that I believe to be the foundation for
a successful and integrated Web marketing strategy. You can
find further explanation of these components at submit-it.com.
On
this page:
Following
page:
1.
Submit your Web Site to the Major Search Engines
and Directories
The prime piece of real estate everyone desires is a top ten
listing on one or all of the major search engines: Yahoo,
Infoseek, Lycos, Excite, Alta Vista, Hotbot, AOL Netfind,
Webcrawler, Northern Light.
Submitting your URL (your Web site address) to each search
engine is the first step to being listed. Some search engines
ask for your site's descriptions or keywords, but for the
most part all they ask is that you click a button that says
"add URL," type in your URL and then hit the submit button.
Where do you find the "add URL" button? Directions differ
slightly for each site, but let's take excite.com
as an example. Once on Excite, click through their directory
to find the category you would like to be listed on. For example,
if you are a continuing education program, you would click
on "education," then "continuing education." At the top of
the "continuing education" page will be a button that says
"add URL."
Does submitting your site mean you will be in each of the
top ten of each of the major search engines? Not necessarily.
To make this happen, your site should be developed with the
intent to achieve a top ten listing in the search engines.
There are a myriad of different strategies to accomplish this;
many depend upon technological expertise. Including key words
or descriptions that define your site in both your HTML <title>
and <meta> tags is an essential step.
Titles are everything. When the search engines come around
to index your site, the words in your <title> tags will
be the words people use to try to find you through the search
engines.
Meta tags allow you to describe your sites to the search engines
instead of allowing the search engines to index your page
according to their own definition. An excellent site to model
your <meta> and <title> tags is womanmotorist.com.
While on the womanmotorist homepage go into Netscape or Explorer
and click on "page source" or "source" under the View menu.
This allows you to see how their meta tags are structured.
There are many other techniques to put your site in the top
ten. For more information, check out searchenginewatch.com,
a site dedicated to helping you gain a top ten Web listing.
Be aware that there are hundreds of search engines, directories,
announcement sites, geographic sites, and specific-interest
sites that could be of value to you, in addition to the major
search engines.
2.
Advertise your Web Site through Press Releases
Begin your campaign by sending press releases about your site
to industry, local, and association publications. E-mailing
press releases saves the sender mailing costs and saves the
media time. They just have to cut and paste your press release
for publication.
Every time something "newsworthy" happens on your site, publicize
it.
3.
Announce Your Site in Newgroups
A newsgroup is an electronic bulletin board for like-minded
people who enjoy a common interest. According to submit-it.com
there are over 20,000 newsgroups on the Internet with millions
of daily participants.
Targeted newsgroups can be found by typing key words into
a search engine. When the page of related listings comes up,
most will have a link that says "Usenet." These are newsgroups.
Remember to post your announcements only to appropriate newsgroups;
they are not a place to "spam" (unsolicited e-mail) with advertising.
The best source for a newsgroup listing is www.dejanews.com.
4.
Purchase or Create E-mail Lists
E-mail advertising is the online equivalent of direct mail--without
the printing costs.
Many companies are now selling the e-mail addresses of their
customers. But these lists are not cheap. Most list brokers
are charging almost $250-$300 per 1,000 names, which does
not include e-mail charges.
One of the best and least expensive e-mail list brokers is
postmasterdirect.com.
However, you do have to search their wide range of targeted
categories and get the list counts yourself. This can sometimes
take all day if Postmasterdirect's database gets busy. To
avoid getting bogged down access their database early in the
morning.
E-mail lists are still in their infancy and counts are almost
nonexistent for smaller areas. In addition, e-mail list compilers
do not have access to scf or zip code information, so it is
difficult to target your list to a specific region.
A solution is to create a list of your current clients, allowing
you to stay in touch with your customers inexpensively and
update them with news about your products and services as
it happens.
Remember to always give potential customers the opportunity
to get off your e-mail list. Only spam-free lists should be
considered appropriate.
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