All right, we're going to wrap this up. I now have a terrific
theme-based site, jam-paked with high value content and built to
feed those search engine spiders. However, my site is going to
just sit in web space if I don't do some work to promote it.
Fortunately, I'm well prepared. My site is optimized for listing
with the search engines. I have hundreds of keywords to use for
Pay-per- Click engines and my content is theme-focused and OVER-
delivers so directories should have no problem listing my site.
Let's take these one at a time.
Search Engines: The most important thing I need to do is submit
my pages to the major search engines. They will deliver, by far,
the most traffic to my site. I'll submit to AltaVista, Excite,
Google, HotBot, Lycos and NorthernLight. Each has it's own
policies, which I need to be sure to follow. Then I'll check my
site's log files, to see which of their spiders have visited,
and which pages they took back to the engine. If I don't see an
engine's spider within a certain amount of time after
submitting, I'll resubmit, according to each engine's acceptable
limits. Next, I'll watch for when each of my pages has been
indexed (listed by the engine). All this takes a lot of effort
and time, so I might consider a service like Position Agent ...
http://www.positionagent.com , although it's not cheap and not
all the engines are covered. Or I could try
AgentWebRankingSuite...
http://www.aadsoft.com/agentwebranking/ranks.htm , which is free
and runs on my computer. Or, if I've built my site with
SiteBuildIt!... http://buildit.sitesell.com/assist3.html , it
will do all the submitting, spider-spotting, index-checking and
rank- tracking for me.
I'll use this information to tweak my pages. I may adjust lower
ranking pages to be more like higher ranking ones. I'll probably
experiment a bit with changing keywords in META tags or playing
with keyword density, maybe increasing or decreasing content.
It's tedious, but I know that the engines will deliver the most
traffic to my site. I'll tweak until at least half my pages are
in the top ten on half the engines. Any more tweaking after that
is probably pointless because the engines will occationally
change their ranking formulas and things will move around,
usually evening out in the long run. I'm better off adding more
high-value content pages to my site than continually tweaking.
Pay-Per-Click Search Engines: I want to research and submit bids
for keyword placement at Overture, Bay9.com and Findwhat among
others. The most popular keywords can be expensive, but my
theme-based site is working a niche and I have hundreds of less
popular keywords I can bid on. Because I'm paying for clicks, I
want to be sure my title and description really relate to the
keyword I'm bidding on and are completely relevant to my site so
that they only attract highly targeted traffic.
Major Directories: Links to directories will bring some traffic
and help my link popularity. Directories don't use spiders. Real
people review the pages and decide what gets listed. Luckily
I've loaded my site with lots of great, single-theme-focused
content. To be listed at Yahoo I need to decide if it's worh the
$299 for my business listing. It's unlikely that I'll be able to
submit for free, as my site will be generating income. I can
submit to Open Directory for free and to Ask Jeeves by telling
them what question my web page answers. I'll automatically be
listed at AOL and Netscape when I submit to Open Directory.
Less effective but useful methods of promotion: First there's
"word of mouth", which I'm certainly going to get because I'm
delivering great content. Second, I'll eventually add a
newsletter subscription to my site. And I'll probably use some
of my great content as articles to submit to other people's
ezines. Perhaps I'll do some offline advertising as well.
Once I've done most of the above, I'll analize my traffic,
checking click-ins and click-throughs. I can create special
tracking links to measure the success of my efforts. I'll build
on what works and improve or get rid of what doesn't. I now see
the beneficial results of building a theme-based site. I'm
working a niche and getting highly targeted traffic. I offer my
visitors valuable content and deliver them to my merchants in a
ready-to-buy state of mind. My site scores with the engines, my
visitors and my merchants. And all that spells WEB BUSINESS for
me. Now, I think I'll kick back and start thinking about my next
theme-based site.......
Trouble coming up with a theme? Maybe I can help. Send me an
email. mailto:yourhelpline@mail.com
About the author:
Julie Georg is a consultant to individuals and small businesses
interested in establishing a web presence. Step-by-step
directions for building a theme-based site can be found in the
excellent, free Affiliate Masters course. Blank email
mailto:tamsassist3@sitesell.net
