Position & optimize
your web site traffic with
search engines & directories
Site development to promote
visibility |
Site search engine promotion |
Monitoring traffic
Website
development
Identify your audience
Is your audience
local? regional? national? international?
professional? content driven?
Keep perspective on
developing your website:
you are not competing with Microsoft, the United Nations, or the
Library of Congress
Review your content
What in your content is valuable to your audience?
|
Recommendation: |
-
create intuitive and obvious navigation;
enable multiple topical "entry
points"
-
clearly present current content
-
published research and items of interest
-
establish credibility with the credentials
of authors and list awards
-
include a few items of personal interest
(humanize)
-
delete gimmicks or gratuitous technology or
distracting graphics that have no purpose to that of the
website
-
facilitate contacts and feedback:
make it simple!
|
Structure your content
for convenient and intuitive navigation
and access
Your audience should easily find what they are looking for
A web site of links has little value compared to search engines and directories
Positioning your web site for search engines,
directories, and portals
Do not promote a site that is not well-developed
First (bad) impressions will affect later positioning.
Content development:
-
Competitive landscape:
Compare your site to similar sites;
Determine critical keywords/search terms
-
Prioritize keyword density
Constructively and proactively use keywords in your home page content;
make sure it reflects the content
Metatags:
Metatags are located in the HTML source code of a web page
that detail administrative information about a web site/page. Some
information is also scanned by portals, directories, and search engines and
listed in the web site's description,
such as < title > and < description >
-
Title metatag
Displayed in the top line of a browser, and often
duplicated in listings of search engines, etc.
-
Description metatag:
Employs keywords well-reflective of content; duplicated in
Alta Vista's listings of your site
Should be consistent for all submissions: directories, search
engines, portals
Should be descriptive, not hyped: The Open Directory Project (ODP)
rejects sites with promotional descriptions.
-
Keyword metatag:
Generally obsolete but still necessary:
Google does not index the
metatag for "keywords"
-
Add metadata to images
with the < alt > tag and include/reinforce keywords
Open
Directory Project
"The
Open Directory Project (ODP) is the most
comprehensive human edited directory of the Web, compiled by a vast global
community of volunteer editors. The ODP powers core directory services
for some the most popular portals and search engines on the Web, including
AOL Search,
Netscape Search,
Google,
Lycos,
DirectHit, and
HotBot, and
hundreds of others."
Search engines:
Promoting your site
-
Is the Web site incorporated consistently into all
marketing plans?
Is the URL/address prominent in all print and media publications?
-
Are there professional e-newsletters, listservs, blogs,
etc. where the site can be promoted or referenced?
-
Do professional organizations list member Web sites?
-
Are you a part of any Webrings?
(An Internet site that links web sites that have the same
theme)
-
Do you encourage your personnel to refer to the site in
publications, speeches, etc.?
-
Do you monitor traffic on the site, especially its most
popular pages for opportune developments?
-
Have you reviewed all search engines, portals, directories
for positioning?
-
Do you submit your site for awards?
and post the kudos?
-
Do you exchange links with appropriate entities?
-
Develop associated resources: an electronic
newsletter, users group, events alert, blog, etc.
Tools to monitor
website
traffic and links to your site
See also:
Website overview: Since 1996 the
Study Guides and Strategies web site
has been researched, authored, maintained and supported by Joe Landsberger
as an international, learner-centric, educational public service. Permission is granted to freely copy, adapt,
and distribute individual Study Guides in print format in non-commercial educational settings that benefit learners. Please be aware that the Guides welcome, and are under, continuous review and revision. For that reason, reproduction of all content on the Internet
can only be with permission through a licensed
agreement. No request to link to the Web site is necessary.
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