Articles: Web Site Promotion

This article is about search engine optimization and web site promotion. You make sites so people can visit them, so of course you want as many visitors as possible, right? Hits definitely shouldn't be the only or the top thing you're concerned about, but when people do notice and say nice things about your work, it should make you feel nice! If you really want hits, there's always ways you can pay for it and to get other people to advertise your site. It's an easy solution, really. Most of us prefer not to do that, though. Here are some tips on how to promote your site for free and make it a little more popular.

Be Nice. Don't be an arse. I don't want to visit your site or have anything to do with you if you're a terrible person. People may overlook it at first when they find your site, but it matters a lot in the long run.
Have a Good Site. Read my other article on what constitutes a good site. No matter how much you promote, if your site just isn't very good, then people aren't going to keep going back to it or tell others about it, and your traffic will suffer.
Submit Your Site to Search Engines. I think most people just use Google nowadays, but it definitely wouldn't hurt to submit your site everywhere else, too. You can use sites such as Submit Express, FastSubmit, Free Web Submission, or Add Me. There's others out there and you can easily find them. I would also do this regularly - every few months or so.
Use Meta Tags. You can read my meta tags article/tutorial to find out how to do that. Short story is, it helps search engines to find you and classify you, so you definitely want to include them and you want to be wise about how you use them.
User Header Tags. Put relevant information in your header tags (such as <h1> and <h2>), and use them! This helps search engines to classify your content. Read more about customizing header tags in my tutorial.
Join Things! There's tons of cliques, rings, fanlistings, button rotations, topsites, and whatever out there that you can join, and in most cases you'll get a link back. It's not just about hits, so whatever you join should really represent you as well.
Link Back Content. Have content that requires the visitors to link back to your site - for example, pixels to adopt, graphics, and other fun things.
Be Active in Forums. Place your website in your profile and in your signature. If you're active enough, people will find it or click on it. But, don't just do this to get hits for your site and don't join every forum ever, please. If all you do is plug yourself, you'll get very annoying, very quickly.
Exchange Links. Exchange links with other people; you link them, they link you - easy concept.
Affiliations. Affiliates are special links that are emphasized in your website. You can ask other people to affiliate with you, as visitors tend to click that more than regular links. Of course, you should treat your affiliates as more than a regular link, too.
Sign Guestbooks/Tagboards. If you see a site you like, tell the webmaster! Not only does that make the owner of the site happy and warm and fuzzy, they'll probably visit your site in return. Don't just sign every guestbook you see with "Nice site" or "Plz visit me" though.

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Articles: Web Site Promotion

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