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Free Internet Marketing Lessons
How to be a wwwow
on the wwweb
by
John Saxon
In the quest to develop and
promote the world's number one
business related web site I knew we had cracked it when we
entered allthe web at No 1 out of 5,040,00 sites on the key
phrase 'business start up'.
Coming from a Sales and Marketing background, with a
background in IT, but no knowledge of the Internet, I had to
approach everything from the ground up, with an open mind.
This proved to be of significant advantage, since I was
prepared
to listen to everyone, try anything, reject the bad and improve
on
the good.
We also appear on Lycos, Google, AltaVista, Excite and a
myriad
of other search engines and know that with 12 months work
ahead we will be the No1 Business site by 2002.
So here are my ten top tips for successful web placement
1. Most web designers assume that the customer is the
reader,
wrong. It's a bit like assuming the customer for an old
people's
home is the resident - it isn't it's the residents 45 year
old
daughter. Therefore sell to her and the place is full.
The main customer for a web site is 'gulliver' or 'arachnia'
or
whatever the search engine spider is called. Observe it, profile
it,
get to know it intimately, what does it like and loathe. How
can
you get it's attention?
2. In my experience only AltaVista takes
<KEYWORDS> seriously. I
know this because I used mingmong21 as a keyword and,
despite all the search engines we appear on, if I search on all
of
them for 'mingmong21' I only turn up on AltaVista. Don't put
too
much store in keywords.
3. The <TITLE> of the page is the
single most important thing to
Google, Excite and a host of other search engines, so why,
why,
why are we so vain that we call our web site 'XYZ inc.' if they
knew
who we were before they got on the web they would have
called
us on the telephone. The <TITLE> of your site should be
what
you do, not who you are.
4. Many of the search engines pick up the
first paragraph of the
<BODY> content (in other words what's written on the
page).
Don't confuse it with 'last updated on ...' and counters, etc.
Just
have a simple paragraph that says what you do and ... use
the
same words as the <TITLE>.
5. If each search engine spider likes
different things, give them
exactly what they like in the form of 'portal' pages which
are
dedicated to one keyword or phrase and aimed to satisfy each
search engine spider. For example a page with the title
'business start up' and the KEYWORDS 'business start up'
where the BODY says 'business start up' will put you pretty
high
when someone searches for 'business start up. Make sure that
you have a link from your index.html page to this portal and
from
this portal, that way you don't have to submit each page (it will
be
found on the next spider) and be accused of spamming.
6. Make the <DESCRIPTION> of the
page tie in with the <TITLE>
and <KEYWORDS> - obvious but some of us get a bit
carried
away.
7. Tell the spider what to do
<ROBOTS> index, follow and
<REVISIT-AFTER> 10 days. then you get a regular visit.
8. Content is king - that means that when
the spider visits you, and
you appear on the engines, if your content is negligible or
static
(never changes) don't expect anyone to come back - you can
only
sell rubbish once.
9. Subscribe to, and read, every
newsletter on web marketing that
you can. If you only pick up one tip per month you can
improve
your web site placement.
10. The KING of all tips. Most Search Engine spiders cannot
follow
graphically embedded links!!!!!
In other words if you have a 5000 page web site and have
linked
it through gifs or buttons then, as far as the spider is
concerned,
you have stuck the pages together and it sees only page one.
If,
however you place text links or <A HREF> links that the
viewer
cannot see, within those pages then you have 5000 pages that
can have a <TITLE>, <KEYWORDS>, <DESCRIPTION>, etc
to
sell to 'gulliver' and his little friends.
Mark my words by the end of this year, by following the
guidelines above your site could be in one of those top ten
positions on major search engines and gathering the traffic
you
seek.
author
John Saxon is a grandfather of 3 and Technical Director
of
Fastlink Solutions Limited. He is a Companion of the Institute
of
Sales and Marketing Management and has 25 years experience
in helping new and growth businesses develop and profit
http://www.fastlinksolutions.btinternet.co.uk
is a free access site
providing advice for anyone considering setting up, or
expanding
a business. Information includes on-line counseling, business
growth ideas, business basics, glossary of business terms,
FAQ, downloadable business and web resources.
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