Promoting your site

In an earlier article we discussed Search Engine Optimization of your site and what Magnolia Web Design does behind the scenes.  In this article we will explore the waiting game of getting into the search results and what you can do to speed things along.

When your site is first published to the internet you have visions of visitor stampedes to your site.  Then perhaps disappointed that that stampede was 23 friends and family members being supportive.  The search engines take a considerable amount of time to efficiently list sites.  Just ponder for a moment all of the things that have to take place before your great site is found in the search results.

• Site is submitted to the search engine
• Site is submitted to directories so that the search engines develop trust in the site.
• Webmasters of the directories visit your site and approve your listing in their directory.
• Search Engines spider your site a little bit at a time reading and discovering more each visit.
• Search Engine Spiders visit the sites and directories that link to you causing the search engines to follow the link to your site and thus explore a little more of your site.
• Data is continually growing as the search engines learn more and more.
• With each link your site gains more trust and is raised in the rankings.

This was a very simplified version of what all goes on after your site is launched but in reality it could be many months before a new site sees the benefit of their efforts.  Especially if the market they are in is very competitive.

How competitive are your keyword phrases?  The more competitive your keyword phrases are the more important Search Engine Optimization and promotion will be for you.  You can imagine how competitive the keyword phrase "web design" is.  Consider how many web designers are competing for the top position for web design in Google.  Staggering to say the least! 

Most sites vie to be in the first 3 pages of search results.  Well, think about it, when you search for something, how many pages are you willing to go in the results before you do another search or abandon the search completely???  The average is probably 3 pages. 

So what can you do while you wait for your site to be in the search engines?  If your site is a compliment to your B&M (brick and mortar) business in a noncompetitive market, then you wouldn't need to be as aggressive.  Aside from adding the web address to every document, advertisement, submit to directories and such you might only need a couple of well placed links to do the job more quickly.

For the competitive keyword phrases this is not possible.  The first 3 pages are where most of your visitors come from and in a highly competitive market there may be thousands vying for those 3 pages.  How can your site be seen more quickly and near the top of the search engine results?  Well you have many things to consider but here are the major options.

Pay Per Click

Adwords is one of the most popular pay per click options.  The general idea is that you pay to be listed on the right side of Google.  The more you budget for clicks the higher you are in the list of ads.  The more competitive your market is the more it costs per click.  You set the budget, demographics, search terms etc...  So you are in control of your advertising.  Perhaps your budget is tight and you want to make sure your advertising dollars go as far as possible.  You can achieve this with some creative adwords campaigns.  It takes a good bit of time, creativity, research and a little bit of advertising money to get some traffic into your site.  If your advertising budget is larger then you have many more options and can rank at the top of all of your favorite search terms.

Advertise on other sites

Advertisements on the internet work very similar to any other type of advertisement.  You pay for your banner, link or other ad to be listed on another site.  The higher the page rank of the site, the more expensive the advertising.  Some sites would be beneficial for driving traffic than others.  It certainly depends on your market and the sites available. 

Fine tune the external part of your SEO

Much time can often be taken off of the excrutiating wait by doing extensive optimization of your site internally and externally.  Your internal SEO is done mostly during construction however, external is done after the site hits the internet.  Pay Per Click could get very expensive in this market as well.  SEO professionals have not only the know how but have an inner circle of connections to get the job done.  They know how to read the stats of potential advertisers, how to strategically place a link where it counts and much much more.  This service is expensive but could be worth it depending on your market.  Magnolia Web Design is preparing to offer an affordable SEO package for the business that needs a jump start in the search engines.  More about this later.

There are many other things you can do, but we have covered the most popular methods.  Contact us if you feel that your business would benefit from any of these options.