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The World Resource for Windows Tech Support and Drivers
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The Savvy Way to Successful Website Promotion:
Reviewed by Nathan Segal.*According to Mr. Galon, "Using the proper keywords very important. You don't want people to click for nothing. As an example, if you were to use the word software, it might get people to your site, but if you are selling scheduling software and they want graphics software, this is a wasted click. A better keyword combination would be "scheduling software," which will probably give you one hundredth of the traffic for the word software, but that one person will be looking for exactly what you have." The second part of the book deals with Search Engines, Advanced Methods and Recommended Software. Some of the changes involve how the Search Engines function. In the short period of a year, many Search Engines are now out of business, others have merged together and still others are using each other's databases in different configurations. Another major change is paid indexing which is pretty new. In the update, you will learn which sites offer the best return and which ones offer a questionable service. Of this new form of submission fee, Mr. Galon said that: "Paid indexing favors those who have the money to pay for it. Typical fees on a site such as Excite are: Express submission: $199.00, Basic submission: $99.00. And then you know that your page will be indexed. But you will not know where it will be placed, only that your page will be added to the database. Another downside is that is cuts out many small businesses that cannot afford the fee. Also, more and more Search Engines are getting involved in this practice. While you can still do free submissions with some search engines, it could take two to three months and who only knows if it will really get indexed. The paid submissions get priority." With regards to banners or expensive paid advertising, Mr. Galon discourages the use of these services, "because they because they overcharge and simply do not work well. This includes high traffic sites that charge to carry your banner or sites that a visible link to your site. And according to a report he recently read online about the sites that charge a premium service, approximately two thirds of traffic is coming from search engines." One relatively simple method of generating traffic is to go to Newsgroups where you have a certain amount of expertise, and answer "How should I?" messages or cries for help. Give your advice, plus a plug for your website and people will write back to thank you. Just be sure not to violate netetiquette. A really cool Advanced Method is to create an Awards program within your site. Many people who are setting up a website for the first time want to have some sort of recognition - to lend an air of legitimacy to their site. And these people will apply for your Award, even if it has little or no value. For them, it lets them say that their site exhibits certain qualities. So how does it work? Essentially, you create a list qualities that you want to see in a site, such as well designed Flash animations, overall site design, whatever appeals to you. Then you decide what categories of awards you want to give out and how often, such as out once a week, biweekly, etc. The end result is that they will proudly display your Award and/or Graphic on their site, which has a link back to you. Of the traffic you will receive, some will be garbage, but here is the key, the Search Engines not only count the links that link back to your site, they also count the traffic of people who visit your page. Even if people only come to study your rewards program, this traffic is noted and is helps to boost your presence in the Search Engines, making it easier for the people who really want to find you. To see how the Awards program functions in actual practice, visit Mr. Galon's site at: http://www.webmax.bc.ca/SlickPick. This is how you play the rules to your advantage. Another important change is the use of Reciprocal Links. While the bulk of your traffic will come from Search Engines, Reciprocal Links are still important not only because they give you a separate form of traffic, but also the link aspect is also important for search engines. How it works is this, the more links that you have from other sites to you, the more important your site is. Search Engines will find your links by spidering, but this could take as long as a year or two, but once it happens, your site will rise in the Search Engine rankings. As Mr. Galon explained: "These external links are proof of the value of your site, as people are linking to you as a reference. The Search Engines take statistics of how many links you have in order to determine your site value. If, for example, your site has 45 links to you while another site has 65 links to it, this makes the second site more important to the Search Engines. The result is that you will wind up with a slightly lower ranking, even if you have exactly the same keywords." Creating these Reciprocal Links can take a lot of work, but Mr. Galon has found a program that offers a great link strategy, known as "Zeus." He said that: "Zeus is pretty tricky to use and it will take time to find your way, but once you know how to run it efficiently, it will give you a good response for sites it visits. It is the perfect tool to generate a great link strategy. Additionally, you can program Zeus to send requests to these sites to exchange links with you. Of these, 20-30 percent will respond and will eventually add the link. This method works well, but again, it can take Search Engines a long time to find these links." But Mr. Galon doesn't stop there, he goes into a task that is even more time consuming. He follows up and checks the pages where the links are, then copies that address into a database. Eventually, he might have 50 links, which he then submits one by one to the Search Engines. Contrary to what some might believe, he said: "You have the full right to submit pages that are not yours." "Once you submit the pages, Search Engines will visit those sites and they will see the link to you. This will take a few weeks to a month or more but once they are indexed, they will boost your presence on the Search Engines and this listing will stay in their databases, quite possibly for years. Eventually, this will push you higher up in the rankings. Initially, this takes quite a bit of work at the beginning, but later on, it won't take as much time." Mr Galon also recommends two other programs for boosting your presence, Web Position Gold and GRKda Keyword Analyzer. Of these, he said that: "Web Position Gold is very simple, powerful, and fast. If you are a beginner, it's perfect, because it does much more than you can think of and is a good tool, the best on the market. GRKda is more complicated and you have to know what you are looking for. It is more utilitarian, but it gives a pretty good idea of what is going on with your webpages." For more information on these and other useful programs, visit Mr. Galon's site at: http://www.webmax.bc.ca/book/software-links.html Parting Comments
*Nathan Segal is a Writer and Artist who is also active in Stock Photography.
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