|
|
How to Promote Your Websiteby Ben EllisUsing your website to refer visitors to merchant sites means that you need to find visitors in the first place. How do you get visitors to your site? Search EnginesThe most popular method of attracting new visitors is by ranking well in search engines such as Google, MSN or Yahoo!. Search engines use algorithms to automatically rank sites, these algorithms look at many different elements of a webpage such as meta tags, content and the number of other websites linking to your own. The most important step is to research the keyphrases that visitors will use to find sites like yours. You can find phrases that people are using by visiting the Overture keyword suggestion tool here - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, and by visiting Word Tracker here - http://our.affiliatetracking.net/wordtracker/a/9450. Simply brainstorm a list of every possible phrase that you think a searcher might use to find your site or the products you're promoting. Check your site logs too and see what users are already using. We have set up an Excel spreadsheet for you to download to make this easier. Go to - http://www.kolimbo.com/Search-Engine-Sheet.xls - and then save it to your desktop. Open it up and read the basic instructions of how to add your phrases to this sheet, then the numbers from Google and Overture, finally sort the data so the most effective terms are listed at the top. At the bottom of this Excel document are two more tabs. These contain the web addresses of search engines and directories that you can submit your website to. Be sure to read the guidelines of each site before submitting. You also need to add meta tags to each page on your website, if you haven't already. These meta tags go within the <head>here</head> section of your site and should look like this; <head> These are just the basics of optimizing your website for the search engines, but it's still a good start. The Kolimbo Training area has more links and articles where you can learn more about optimizing your site. DirectoriesThese are similar to search engines but instead of relying on automatic algorithms, directories have actual human beings checking websites! Yahoo!, The Open Directory Project and JoeAnt are all human edited directories. The Excel sheet - http://www.kolimbo.com/Search-Engine-Sheet.xls - has a list of directories that you can submit to. The main difference with directories over search engines is that directories only list the home page and the information they file for your site is either the information you give them via your submission, or a description written by a directory editor. The 2 most important directories to submit to are; Yahoo! - http://dir.yahoo.com/ (Costs $299 for commercial sites) DO NOT submit more than once during a 3 month period, and do not submit one website to multiple categories. Read the submission guidelines for each site if you're unsure about anything. The Excel sheet also has sites that have huge lists of specialist directories. These can be the source of lots of targeted traffic, eg. If you have a Tennis site then submit it to Sports directories and Tennis directories as well as the main general directories PPCPPC ads appear like search engine listings but are actually paid advertisements. The highest bidder gets the highest position. Yahoo, Google Adwords and Miva are all examples of PPC engines that you can join. The advantages are that you can get a Number 1 listing almost immediately, the disadvantage is that you have to pay for every click through. Google AdWords is not strictly a PPC Engine but it is usually lumped in with the others as you still have to pay for each click you receive. You can find loads of different Pay Per Click search engines here - http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com - infact, there's hundreds!! Exchanging LinksExchanging links with websites related to yours is a great method of attracting new traffic. You can find websites to exchange links with by carrying out searches on the keyphrases you've researched. Even if you don't rank No.1 for a phrase, you could always ask the website that does if they could put a link to your site on one of their pages. You can also do a Link Check (http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/) on your competitor sites and see who is linking to them, then all you do is email those sites and ask them if they could link to your site too. Doing this kind of link exchange research is also a great way to find out what other sites are out there and to see what they are doing differently to you - give you some ideas to improve and develop your own site. AdvertisingIf you've got a few pennies to spend then you may consider buying some advertising online - either within a newsletter or on a website. Before you do, ask for details about the target audience, number of visitors and if there is any kind of online reporting available so you can check click-through rates and performance. You need to research online the type of websites and newsletters you'd like to advertise on and then find websites that offer those kinds of advertising options. It's best to start of with a goal of what you want to achieve, set a budget of how much you can afford THEN go out and look for opportunities. Knowing what you want first makes the whole research process a lot easier. There are also a few advertising networks that make it easy for webmasters to place their ads on various other sites. AdEngage - allows advertisers to easily place ads on hundreds of websites. All the methods we've mentioned will help bring you more traffic, some cost money whilst others take more time and effort. Make sure you only go after traffic that is relevant to your site. There is no point advertising or buying PPC ads on a Tennis site if your site is about home decoration - the two subjects have nothing in common and you'll waste time and money. Only promote your site where you know your ideal visitor is likely to be found. Once you get that visitor to click through to your site then you have to make sure your site is set up to effectively sell them the products you're promoting. Author ---------------------------------------------- More Affiliate Revenue Resources 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Related Articles to improve Affiliate Programs income ---------------------------------------------- Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
---------------------------------------------- Address : Station Road, Behind Nagrik Stores,
Pandit House, Thane (W) - 400601 Maharashtra ( India ) ---------------------------------------------- Tips & Tutorials | How to determine the link popularity of a web page | Worldwide, Countrywide, Global & Local Major Search Engines | Learn How to Optimize Page to Get Top Rankings in Search Engines | How to Design Good Looking Website | Effective Web Site Promotion - Is An Art Learn How To Promote your Website | Sitemap |
|
Search Engines : Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Latin America, United Kingdom ( UK ), Gulf, Middle-East, Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vieatnam, Costa Rica, Chile, Turkey, Thailand, United States ( US ), Bangladesh, Nepal & Global