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Visibility: Marketing Your Web Site on the Internet
by Brooke Long
One of the key benefits of investing in, and maintaining, a web site is the opportunity to reach large numbers of prospective customers at a relatively low cost. However, there are literally millions of web sites on the Internet. So, how do you achieve a high ranking on searches relevant to your product or service?
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Meta tags - Are keywords coded into your web pages that are not seen by site visitors but rather by search engines. Choosing optimal keywords that are related to what your site offers will help the search engines relate your site to relevant searches.
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Optimize page names - Many search engines crawl through your site to see what it is all about. The first thing the search engine comes across is the page name, thus this is an important factor in rankings.
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Use headers throughout your site - This is a little technical but using proper formatting of the site content will impact how your site is read by the search engines.
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Link exchanges - One factor search engines use in compiling their ranking is the frequency that they come across links to your site on the web. So, by getting links to your site on other web sites will help with visibility to the search engines. And it's no cost to you!
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Write content well - Because the search engines "read" your site, it is very important to put content in your site that visitors will find useful and informative but that is written in a way that optimally relates the content to relevant searches.
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Participate in online forums - This is simply a way to talk to more people and put your name in front of them.
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Use a signature with your web address on your emails - Again, you are offering people an easy way to link to your site, thereby increasing your chances of a good ranking on the search engines.
The nice thing about these search engine strategies is that you can use them all; this is not an either/or proposition. But keep in mind that the content in your web site is far and away the most important thing in getting good rankings. Use those phrases, words and titles throughout your site that people would use to search for you. For example, on www.cataluna.com I would want to use "web design" or "web sites" throughout my site. Maybe you should play up geography. A recent Google search for "web design" brought up 11,700,000 web sites. However, marketing myself to appeal to businesses in my own city produced a top ranking (web design Shakopee Minnesota). But, be careful…read what you have written and make sure it makes sense or you'll lose your visitors as soon as you get them.
© Cataluña 1999