Marketing Your Website

When planning your website you should consider the general layout and use of colour, images and fonts; the functionality (do the pages download easily? Does the navigation work?); use of wording (are you putting the right message across? Is it easy to see what your business offers?).

If you are happy with the design and functionality of your website, your next step is to consider marketing that site. How do you know it will be found? How will the thousands of potential customers surfing the Internet each day know about you? These two new chapters aim to help you with your marketing strategy.

• Using the Internet to market your website offers tips on how to make the most of the Internet to advertise your site and business.
• How Search Engine friendly is your site deals with the technicalities of Search Engine Optimisation and explains how you can help to improve your ranking.

Using the Internet to market your website

Get your site listed on the major Search Engines and Directories - You should submit your site to Search Engines approximately every 4-6 weeks. This is a simple process and takes a few minutes. Most Search Engines offer a free inclusion but you might want to pay to try to get your site listed quicker. Getting your site listed may take a few attempts but don't be tempted to SPAM the engines by over-submitting in a short space of time. Search Engines have different rules (Tip: read the FAQs) for indexing a website so it might be worth checking these out as you may wish to target the users of those engines specifically. Or you can simply follow the tips mentioned in How Search Engine friendly is your site? a general guideline.

The major Directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ require more detail for submission, but once you are listed there should be no need to re-submit (but check every few weeks that you are still there). Again, it might take a while for your website to appear. These lists are moderated quite strictly by humans so you should choose an appropriate category wisely and your website be of a good standard.

Set up reciprocal links - Links to and from other websites can seriously increase traffic to your site and improve your ranking with Search Engines. Start by contacting site owners with whom you already have a relationship, e.g. suppliers and customers. Then contact businesses that offer related products or services. You should also consider links businesses offering the same product or service. Think about it: links from 10 separate competitor sites to yours is worth more than a link from your one site to theirs!

Join busy business forums - There are many discussion forums on the Internet that members use for intellectual networking, to gain professional introductions, request business services and exchange general business advice. Identify an active group most beneficial to your business and join. Make sure you participate and always include your contact details and a link to your website on all messages. Tip: By offering free advice to another member you could be offered new business opportunities.

Join or set up a web ring - Web rings are communities of related websites that are linked together in a ring. e.g. A chauffeur web ring might consist of several chauffeur sites (offering the same service) and a wedding web ring might consist of a website for a dressmaker, one for a photographer, one for a caterer, and so on. The advantage of being part of a web ring is that all sites collaborate to promote their service. Your site could receive hits from the site positioned before or after you (equally a visitor to your site may leave yours for the next). The owner of a web ring has the added benefit of monitoring the activity of hits to each site through the ring and can therefore place their own site in an advantageous position. The owner can also remove sites that aren't doing their bit in providing hits. See webring.com

Include a mailing list - Building a mailing list for marketing can be long and expensive so why not try to capture email addresses through your site? Offer visitors the option of receiving notification of special offers or website updates through email. Methods used to capture email addresses include use of an enquiry form and pop up boxes that appear when a visitor enters or leaves your site. Remember collect email addresses offline too from existing customers and from visitors to your trade stand or shop.

Includesticky content - It is common knowledge that returning customers is the key to success so what can you offer on your website to make visitors return? Consider your target audience and what they might find useful. Would they appreciate a conversion tool, a message board, free information, a game or even a joke or tip of the day? These methods also encourage referrals so consider including a facility for visitors to recommend this site.

Directory listings - Many directories are available on the web. Some are indexed by location, others by service type. Many offer a basic free inclusion service. Wherever you get the opportunity to advertise your site for free, take it. As with reciprocal links, the more direct links to your site on the Web the better.

Use a good email signature - All business emails should contain your business name, contact details, website address and a slogan identifying the nature of your business. You should also include a confidentiality disclaimer. You could even go a step further by creating your own email stationary. Tip: Make sure recipients can view any html emails in plain text, too!

Offline marketing - Amend existing publicity material to include your website address and relevant email addresses. e.g. Business cards, press adverts, brochures, leaflets, letterheads, invoices, statements, shop fronts, billboards, yellow pages and trade directory listings. Consider offering freebies such as pens, post its, etc displaying your website address.

How Search Engine friendly is your site?

This chapter contains important information to help you to optimize your website for Search Engines - If you aren't planning on updating the site yourself, you should hand this over to your web designer. Otherwise, read through each section carefully and feel free to contact the e-tameside Business Team for further assistance if required.

The source code - This is the code behind the website. It tells the browser what to display and can look something like this:

<html>
<head>
<title>Three important keywords - Business Name - Page </title>
<meta name=keywords content="List keywords">
<meta name=description content="Logical sentence">
</head>
<body>
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
Code for the content which is viewed by website visitor
</body>
</html>

Always use a good <title> tag on your web pages - The title is what appears on the taskbar under your browser window to show the title of the page you are viewing. Avoid using titles like "Homepage" or "Untitled Document". Instead use something that describes your business or service. E.g. "Independent Financial Advisor". This tag should vary on each page and should ideally include three most relevant keywords (see next paragraph)

Include up to twenty <Meta name> keywords and phrases on each page - These are behind your website amongst the coding and are not readily viewed by the website visitor but are used by many search engines to index your site. Keywords should be thought out carefully. Think what terms might be used to search for your product or service. Avoid using single common words such as "testing" as competition will be high; instead use specific phrases such as "portable appliance testing". Consider using misspelled words and other identifying factors such as your name, town, country, etc. Try to use keywords appropriate to the individual web page and revise them regularly. (Wordtracker and Overture are very useful keyword suggestions tools. Contact the e-tameside Business Team for details). Avoid repeating keywords as this is frowned upon by many search engines e.g. "plumbing, plumbing, plumbing, pipes, plumbing, plumbing, pipes, pipes".

Make the <body> text on your page count - All text that is readily viewed by the website visitor must be clear, professional and to the point. It should also ideally contain 7 - 8% of the keywords used in the Meta tags for that page. The popular search engine Google only reads the Meta title tag, main body text and the alt tags.

Give images a description - Alt tags give alternative text to images so that they can be read by Speech Readers (used by people with visual impairment) but Search engines look at the these tags too. Improve your sites accessibility and score a point with the Search Engines too by naming your picture. E.g. Oak dining table instead of picture 1 or image 10003

Don't forget the <meta name> description tag - The description Meta tag, like the keyword Meta tag, is behind the website and should be approximately 250 characters. It should be a logical sentence or two that describes your product or service and as with the main text, should contain the keywords. Not all search engines look at this tag but those that do may display this text with the search engine results.

Avoid using frames! - A site using frames is usually made up of two or three pages put together to give the appearance of one page. They are typically used to create sites with a lot of content such as news and information portals to enable quicker download of pages. Frames should generally be avoided if you are relying on search engines to find your site. Many search engines cannot index them or, if they do, the listing is often a single unidentifiable page. If frames are used then the web designer should employ specific methods to enable the search engines to find their way through the site, such as utilising a noframes tag, providing a link to home on every individual page or forcing the full page to reload. Tip: If your web designer is using frames on your site, ask what is being done to ensure your site can be indexed by Search Engines (or contact the e-tameside Business Team for further info).

What else don't Search Engines like? - Search engines cannot index dynamic content, nor can they get past Flash intro pages. To get round this you should provide a flat html page that the search engine robots or spiders can trawl through.

Dont be tempted to try to fool Search Engines by adding white text on a white background you could get thrown off.

Avoid using unrelated keywords in your <Meta> tags. Inaccurate results are annoying to the Search Engines and to the people using them and, as above, you could be thrown off. So why bother?

If you would like to comment on or discuss this item, please send us a message or telephone 0161 342 2515