Website help!

Kez1983

I have nearly finished my website for my new business (through MrSite) but I am now trying to work out how to promote it.

How do I get it on search engines etc? I obv want to generate as many hits as poss. Sorry if its a dumb question!!

Any help much appreciated!

hunnie

Hello,
We just put our business on all the free ones,
yelldirect.com
google business centre/google maps
freeindex
touchlocal
vivastreet
hotfrog
gumtree

Dont know if these would work for you but in searches our website comes up first quite a lot in listings and we dont pay anything.
cheers and good luck
hunnie

Charity_Dalek

In the first instance to get your site index I would recommend that you submit your site to Google through the following link:

http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

The next stage is to optimise the site for search engines, which is a little more difficult. Send me a pm with your website URL and I will have a look for you.

Robert

barginboyrob

You can use adwords (and be listed in the sponsored listings etc (you have to pay)), or you can hire an SEO

stallfinder

Online networking on sites like Twitter, Facebook (you can setup a Facebook page and group) and lots of business forums can be a good way of getting visitors to your site. Many of them will let you have a link to your site so you appear on search engines.

Kez1983

Thanks for all the help, Ive done facebook now and am about to figure out twitter! Then gonna move on to the others!!

Cheers! :beer:

save-a-lot

Some tips:

SEO, this is ultimately the best method, HOWEVER, this is not instant and your efforts may take months and months before any results are seen. You would need decent tracking to view statistics of search engine traffic. Even when you see results this may not meet your expectations. SEO is a massive subject and I am unsure how "site builder" websites deal with SEO. Bespoke built sites would most likely have an advantage in my view as there is more control of how the content is served on the page.

Google SEO.. search MSE for SEO too as there are decent posts on here.

SEO can be split between onpage and offpage. Onpage SEO in the simplest terms is about creating content that is "designed" to get noticed by a SE spider, creating importance of a page for your keywords and phrases. Yet, this has to be balanced to read ok for the human visitor. Offpage, well this is inbound links for instance, coming from relevant sites with anchor text matching (or closely matching) key phrases on your pages. Then further to this SEO extends to site design and structure aswell. A good structure and really good linking throughout the site is very important, no dead-ends or orphan pages then. A site map helps to ensure your site is deeply accessible and if your site is large this would help get more of your pages indexed.

The above represents the long haul, many hours of tweaking, lots of thought and the result may disappoint.

In the short to medium term while you are waiting for the above to deliver some results consider

Next, social bookmarking:
"add me" (google it) and various services such as that make it easy for people to share your site with others via social networks, these work via a button on your sites pages. The popularity of these buttons really does depend on your sites content and whether it is worth sharing.

Next, you could, as mentioned before, create pages on facebook etc, tell your friends, but personally, I always feel a bit uneasy pushing business on friends, but it does depend on what you do I guess in your line of business.

A competition:
I have a site to release very soon and I already have prizes lined up to generate some interest. Submitting a competition to various networks gets your competition details replicated across the net very fast and your site visited alot (I am a novice at this, but from what I have read it is a good tactic, as the competition will be discussed all over the net).

Directories:
Lots of free directories, there are paid ones, I would advice keeping to free directories while starting up.. keep relevant though, don't just list your site on any directory

Hope that helps

save-a-lot

Putting your URL in your MSE profile helps to. That way anybody entrigued to look can

nickoran

Could you post a link to your site here? If your just looking for free advice then i would recomend going to an SEO forum and posting your site there. nice people are always happy to have a quick glance at your site and offer their opinions.

- nice person ;-) lol

slipp_digby

ironcially, when your site is up and running after about a year you will be in undated with companies saying they have looked at your rankings and for a small ££££ fee they will 'optimise' if for you.

I saw one the other day, guaranteed place on a search for a specific term or your moeny back. i am dubious!

save-a-lot

slipp_digby wrote: »

ironcially, when your site is up and running after about a year you will be in undated with companies saying they have looked at your rankings and for a small ££££ fee they will 'optimise' if for you.

I saw one the other day, guaranteed place on a search for a specific term or your moeny back. i am dubious!

That is easy to do, find a keyphrase that is actually not all that popular and optimise your site for that phrase. Of course the SEO company offering this money back guarantee will "suggest" keyphrases for you.

Their offer will be get you to the top of search engines -- there are plenty, but if they are not popular or relevant then, you are wasting your money. You need good positions on google and yahoo really.

Carry on being dubious. Nobody should ever pay for SEO, there is good advice all over the internet.