This document covers the various techniques of marketing your Web site. Another covers the specifics of successfully submitting your Web site to search engines, which the main document covers only briefly. Keep in mind that it can take time to get your Web site noticed. As with anything, name recognition will help these other efforts.

There are a few guidelines in marketing you Web site. Hopefully, your site will take care of the rest.

The basic idea behind these marketing ideas is to accomplish three things:

A: Attract people to the site

B: Attract them back again

C: Steer them to your order form

Some generalized issues that apply to all of the topics below: Content is king. Make the information on your site valuable. Know your audience and target group and adapt your marketing plan to them. You don’t want to try to sell ice cubes to Eskimos. Do not make false claims or promises. Do not overwhelm people with multiple e-mails, newsgroup messages, advertisements, etc. Last, this process is a time-consuming task. It will take you hours upon hours to do everything here, and days to research and enter the information into all of the available search engines. This will truly be a process where the more you put into it, the more you will get back. For purposes of examples, I will be using a site that sells computers throughout both documents.

Make your home pages’ title a catchy one that contains the purpose of the page. Quite a few search engines use your title as the link line in the listing or as a description. To let people know what you have on that page, you want it clear, concise and up front. What you lose in flash, you gain in clarity. This will help your potential visitors trying to wade through screens and screens of listings.

Use graphics to illustrate your site, but not be the focus. Use the graphics to guide the eye to your important points. Try to keep the graphics under 20k so there is a minimal wait time for the pictures to appear. Keep the information on your home page clear and easy to understand. Keep it easy to access, simple to navigate and find information on your site.

Provide valuable information and plenty of it. Strive to create a valued presence on the Internet, be the resource for information in its field. In our computer store premise, you might choose to publish detailed instructions on how to streamline your computer something only tangentially related to computer users and hopefully your customers, but is of great interest to Internet users.

Everything else aside, quality content will be do more for your Web site than all the bells, whistles and flashy graphics.

You’ve been there. You go to a search engine, enter your topic and get back a list of close to a million sites. The last thing your want when you are listed on that search engine is to be at the ned of that list.

Last count, there were more than 400 different search engines and each one of them handles your submission differently. Many of them are specialized and only list Web sites on specific topics, like sports or travel.

First, get listed on the big 10 search engines: Yahoo, Excite!, AltaVista, Infoseek, Magellan, Lycos, HotBot, WebCrawler, OpenText and MetaCrawler. Make sure the path name you are entering is valid. You also want to make sure you have Meta Names listed in the code of your Web site. Then, search out which engines specifically cover the subject matter of your site and get listed there.

Make sure you use complete sentences in the copy on your Web page. Some search engines disregard sentence fragments. On the other hand, use incomplete sentences if you don’t want the text indexed by the search engine.

Add keywords to the very top of your homepage. Bury META tags on each of your pages. Do not open your page with an image map. Some search engines will not be able to take an abstract from your document.

Since most of the larger search engines will want to know a genre for your site, give some thought to the categories you want to be listed under. Also, consider the geographical nature of your site. Can you ship the computer anywhere or do hand deliver it only to Los Angeles area customers? Don’t assume a category (i.e. Computers) means the same thing on every directory. Take time to look within the directory until you find the subcategory most appropriate for your site. If you find organizations similar to yours, you're most likely in the right place. Can’t find an appropriate category, suggest a new one to the search engine.

Re-list your site whenever you make changes to it. Add new keywords and descriptions. If one of your pages your previously listed no longer exists, find the Dead Link forms to remove it from the database.

Do not make it your goal to appear in the top ten list of every search engine. This would not only be a very difficult task, but would most likely end in disappointment. You are guaranteed to have varying success with different search engines due to the variables that play a role in every search listing.

Links can be the best, and cheapest, way to get your name out into the world. There is no specific set of instructions for this, but requires some work. Basically, talk to the people you do business with, your friends, anyone with a Web page. Send e-mail to related sites. Create an interesting "button" to provide to the other sites. In exchange for putting this button/link to your site on their site, you place a link to their site on your site. Believe it or not, this method often creates more traffic than the search engines, so don't ignore it. There are marketing companies which will oversee linking programs for you, but it can be more effective to do it yourself. Two companies that will orchestrate links for you are:

There are a number of things you want to remember when you create your e-mail letter. Keep in mind that the letter you send out through the USPS does not work well online. First, instead of long-winded appeals, keep your letter short and "catchy." Use clever pitches and fit them on one screen or less. Next, keep the message personal. Avoid using long cc: mailing lists. Be clear and concise so you don’t try the reader’s patience (which is generally quite short online). Send people to your Web site where you can woo them with sound and color.

Business cards, advertising, letterhead, e-mail, product packaging, collateral, on T-shirts, on the wall, bumper stickers, billboards, your forehead.... anywhere and everywhere.

Give people a reason to come back to your site. Let them know you are constantly updating the site, adding new features, content, specials, links, pictures, cool JAVA or ActiveX stuff, whatever, just get them coming back.

As with any marketing effort, it is essential to know where your advertising dollars are doing the most good. In turn, you also what to know where your customers are coming from. An easy way to do this is to offer Web specials or coupons the visitor can print out.

If nothing else, you will build a mailing list. Offer some incentive to those that do sign your guest book, like a discount or freebie. Once you have an e-mail list, do not abuse it.

Place advertising banners on other sites. A number of companies can help you with this.

You may want to consider the following guidelines when advertising on the Internet:

1: Target a specific audience. Why waste money trying to sell ice to Eskimos?

2: Make the information on your site valuable. Give people a reason to visit and return.

3: Always update the information. Another reason to return.

You need to know its audience. When you target that audience, your advertising will be more coast effective. You will also be able to speak to the needs and desires of that specific audience.

If your web page is related to computers, post an announcement in the computer newsgroups. Do not advertise indiscriminately to newsgroups. Be sure to read the group's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and understand the nature and scope of the group or list before posting. Many readers of these groups can become quite irritated by people who don't normally read the group and post strictly for their own commercial benefit. Please, keep your announcements relevant to the newsgroup topic. There are also a number of newsgroups dedicated to more generalized topics like new business, interesting Web sites and the like which you also will want to post your announcement.