Saturday, February 12, 2011

Why Website Optimization And Promotion Are Necessary For Your Success Online

By Frank Stoczko


The topics of website optimization and promotion go hand in hand. If you run your own site, then, unless promoted, it will just sit there unnoticed. It's often said that the old adage about building a better mousetrap is untrue. People will only beat a path to your door if they know about your product. Likewise, they'll only visit your site if it's brought to their attention.

In order to promote a website, it is essential to take an active role, using one or more of the many methods available. Banners and text adverts can both point to web pages, so that if a user clicks on one, they will be taken to the target of the link. There are programs that allow a webmaster to sign up and host advertisements of relevance that pay a premium every time they are clicked.

The promoter's corresponding view of this paid advertising is a widely used pay per click, or PPC promotional method. The great thing about this is that you can appear in the index very quickly, but beware, big money can be lost if you don't understand the system thoroughly. You can choose whether to have an entry appear in the results pages, before the unpaid list, or inserted along with relevant content elsewhere.

Viral video can receive literally millions of views, so if you're lucky enough, you could produce a short animation or movie and submit it to any of the directories that accept these posts. The popularity of these clips means that you can add a link back to your site and get a lot of exposure.

The number one way of bringing your site to the attention of more potential visitors is through articles, either written by yourself, or by someone you've paid to write for you. An article should have your key words placed in strategic places and should be submitted to a directory, of which there are many, that supplies free content for webmasters to download. Anyone reading this will see the link you've included for your site. The more inbound links you have, especially high quality, the greater will be your website's popularity score and the more likely it will be returned to searchers.

If you want to appear high in the natural listings, in other words, those that are not paid for, then optimizing your content is a must. You should think about where keywords are placed and how they are emphasized, so that the subject is obvious. To do this, you'll need to know something of how to optimize a page. Although this does not give such rapid results as paid insertion, there is a tendency to trust these organic entries as they're known, more than others.

There are other things to do such as including the main words or phrases in the domain name, if possible. Also, the title bar in the browser and the title of the content should include the same information. The design of the pages should take into account the size of headings, the text shown for external links, and the alternative wording in image tags. Something to be avoided is filling the written material with words through which you want to be found. This can have the opposite effect to what you wanted.

So, website optimization and promotion are very important techniques for getting discovered on the Internet, but both must be done with care if adverse effects are to be avoided. The use of inappropriate methods can leave you with no visitors and penniless. This small guide is not exhaustive and you should look into these topics in more detail if you intend to act upon them.




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