Website promotion.

[yorkiesauctions]

What in your opinion do you think is the one action you have taken to promote your website (commercial site or otherwise) which got you the best results ?

I'm looking to promote a website and am doing all the usual things but it's only been going for a couple of weeks so it is too early to judge anything yet, although it is already listed in AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and Yahoo search engines and has had over 500 hits.

I've done the usual Meta tags, keywords, and stuff to make it search engine friendly and I've started working on building up some quality incoming links. I set up a Facebook fan page for the site last week and I promote it now and again with status updates on both Facebook and Twitter (being careful not to spam ofcourse) and asked my friends to pop a link on their pages/status updates now and again too. I've avoided adding it to any of the free-for-all link sites as I know that these actually damage your ranking because search engines put more value on one way links than on reciprocal links and reduce your ranking if your site is one certain types of sites like free-for-all's. I'm thinking about writing an article covering the subject matter of the site and then uploading it to various article sites for other people to use as I know that this is an excellent way to increase traffic and incoming links. I might be looking into banner exchanges later but I'm not keen on that idea as I want to keep the site banner free if I can. I've made a video and uploaded it to YouTube and included the url to the site in the video description because I know that that helps with the search engine rankings and also gains traffic from folk surfing YouTube. I've added the site to some relevant Directories. I've obviously added a link to my email sig too but not to forum posts because of the nature of the site and the probability of arguments. I made some humorous images with the url to the site on them and have uploaded those to various places.

That's all that I can remember that I've done off the top of my head. You may have noticed that all the above are free ways to promote a site, that is because my site is non commercial and I don't have the funds for options such as Pay Per Click of paid for links.

I'd be very interested to hear what has worked for you as far as site promotion goes.

[damian_steele]

Sounds to me like you're doing pretty well already. You've already exceeded the list of things that are regularly suggested and come up with some good ideas of your own. The only thing I can think to add is to ensure that the content of the site's landing page relates directly to the site content and doesn't just contain a list of meta data to "fool" the search engines. Aside from that I reckon you just have to give it time. Some search engines can take a full month before you get listed, so patience is the key. But give yourself a back-pat for the work so far.

[pique]

Sorry Yorkie, I'm far from an expert but as we are in the process of setting up a site I'd like to thank you for giving me some ideas. I clicked on your Twitter and You Tube links - good stuff. The Facebook link didn't work for me, perhaps you might want to double check it.

[yorkiesauctions]

Cheers Damian. Yeah the landing page does relate directly to the site content as the site is all about one subject so every page relates to the same thing. I've not gone in for any of the old tricks for search engine ranking like hidden text and hidden links or spamming keywords as the search engines are now wise to that and your ranking suffers if you have any of that in your site.

Sorry Yorkie, I'm far from an expert but as we are in the process of setting up a site I'd like to thank you for giving me some ideas. I clicked on your Twitter and You Tube links - good stuff. The Facebook link didn't work for me, perhaps you might want to double check it.

Glad you found something useful in the post.

Doh!, I knew it was faulty but forgot to go back and fix it because my family turned up. lol. I think I've sorted it now.

[deltadelta48]

Wow, you have been busy! You are way ahead of me, I just signed up with various sites and get daily hits but nothing like yours. You are a good example to all of us!

[moonwitch]

I found some ideas there I hadn't thought of too.

I recently installed a watermarking programme....and you gave me a great (and fun) idea of how I could use it

[bykimbo]

As the others have said, that's an excellent effort and it's hard to think of improvements. If you have any other sites, I assume you link back to it from there. You could join appropriate discussion groups, and include the URL in your sig - but in this case appropriate discussion groups are likely to be bear-pits, so good luck with that one. There are various free press release sites out there, so a release about the volume of traffic and response it's generated already could be an option.

When I first launched a Formula One cartoon site I did many years ago in a previous existence I managed to get it recommended by the BBC as a "one to watch" and mentioned favourably in The Times tech section. Those involved sending out press releases myself, by email - just had to track down the appropriate address. Might be worth you investigating that sort of thing (I've long since lost any relevant info, sorry!)

[yorkiesauctions]

Thank you for your comments and ideas folks.

The site is only a project but I like to give things my best shot and I find online promotion quite interesting because it's surprising what an ordinary person like myself can do without having to lay out any money. The internet has certainly opened some doors for the average person, we have never been able to reach as many people without expert help as we can now. When you stop and think what anyone with a net connection can do these days and then think back to the 1980's or before it is amazing really. I find the power that the internet has given to the average person a very interesting subject.

Anyway, I'm gonna spend some time on Google and see if I've missed any ways to promote the site without laying out cash, and then I'll give it a couple of months to see how well my efforts have worked.

Thanks again for your help folks.

[yorkiesauctions]

but in this case appropriate discussion groups are likely to be bear-pits, so good luck with that one.

lol. You wouldn't believe some of the abuse I've already had to put up with.

I was obviously expecting some abuse but didn't think it would start so quickly, it took me a bit by surprise to be honest. Even my Youtube channel was targeted. I delete all the abusive messages/posts/comments but am going to leave all the others, I won't delete things simply because they don't agree with my views. It makes things more interesting with conflicting views being expressed.

I can't believe a little poxy free website could create so much commotion is such a short space of time, I've even been reported to an MEP ! pmsl. It's not as if the website is going to change anything, it was just my way of sounding off a little.

Still, it makes life interesting. lol

[Juliebabe25]

Yorkie
What is the url of your website !

That paragraph of ideas in your OP is good.
500 hits since when ?

The thing is, there are so many websites out there, and every new one makes it harder to get seen.

To get regular hits you need a site that is of interest to people !

IMHO people do not spend that much time on the web surfing, they do their banking, they check their email, they read the news, the go onto social networks, they download stuff, they go onto their favorite forums. And they occassional search for info they want at the time. But they don't go onto their browser and think I'm going to spend half an hour surfing !