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Promoting
and Maintaining Let The World Know About Your Web Publishing a web does not insure its success. After you have set your site live, you need to let the world know where you can be found online. Be prepared to invest at least 40 hours of your time in announcing your initial launch or to pay a professional to assist you in your efforts. Announce your site not only through traditional promotional venues but by registering your Web site address with as many of the free popular online indices that will allow its publication. The way you submit information to these indices will have an impact on how your site is categorized and ranked within a category. It could mean the difference between seeing your address often or not seeing it at all. Promotion plays such an important role in the development and success of your Web site that we have dedicated an entire section of the Westward Connections Web site to the subject. Please visit our special promotion section on the web at http://www.westward.com/promoteit/ for in-depth coverage. To give you a jump start on your web promotion, I've summarized some of the more critical points in this publication:
Include Your Internet Presence in Traditional Promotional Materials As soon as your domain name has been approved or you have established a Web site address within someone else's domain, add the information to your traditional promotional materials, including but not limited to:
It is amazing how many companies spend a lot of money on producing a Web site and yet do not put the site URL or any email addresses on the promotional materials they already use with success. In most instances, adding their Internet presence information would have cost little more than a few minutes time.
Announce Your Web site in Your E-mail All external e-mail should include a signature block with the company's Web site and email addresses as well as standard contact information. The trick behind successful signature blocks is keeping them short enough and easy for the reader to capture for their contact management program. Most importantly, the signature block must not outweigh your message. Following is an example of one of my signature blocks:
For more insight on effective use of e-mail signature blocks, please read Turn Your E-mail into a Promotional Tool at http://www.westward.com/promoteit/prstep7b.htm.
The easiest and fastest way to promote your site on the web is getting it listed in the popular search engines and web directories. Most companies complaining about not getting results from their site have done little or nothing to promote it. Putting up a site without promoting it is equivalent to opening a business without listing it in the phone book — the only way prospects will find you is if you tell them. You won't be open to the world for business because they won't have a clue your business exists. Just as people look in the phone book to find businesses that have what they need, they use online search tools to locate sites that offer the information they are seeking. Most often, the search tools they use are the popular search engines such as AltaVista and web directories such as Yahoo! and InfoSeek. Make sure your site is in a relatively finished state before promoting it the first time. If the search engine and directory services publishers suspect your web is still under construction, they may choose to exclude it from their listings all together. Certainly, these publishers do not have time to visit every site and personally examine each page. All you need to do to keep them at bay so to speak is make sure the content you do include on each page is complete within itself. Here are a few tips to insuring your publication will be found in search engine or web directory search results:
Your site will not be ready for promotion until you have included strategic descriptive wording in your web pages. Commonly known as keywords and the site description, this strategic wording should include the words and descriptions your customers and prospects would use to locate you in your local telephone directory or an industry specific or product directory. Company decision-makers should be involved in selecting and approving the keywords and description. Do not leave this task to your web developer or site promotion specialist. Instead, help them help you. They might know the commonly accepted principles but nobody knows your business better than you do. In particular, someone who knows your industry very well should be responsible for selecting the proper placement for your site in Yahoo's hierarchical directory. You will need to have your web developer include your keywords and site description as meta tags within your home page or other key pages containing information you think your audience will most likely be seeking. Using meta tags typically helps your site come up earlier and more often in a search engine or directory. In browsing your phone directory you may have noticed a lot of business listings beginning with the letter "A". Obviously, they are at the top of the list within an alphabetical category. If your company name doesn't begin with "A", you can legitimately title your Web site with keywords to raise your site's ranking. But don't try to trick the search engine and directory service providers by starting your site title with A followed by a space or AAA. Most of these services have routines in their programs to flag such entries and if they suspect you are trying to trick them, they will boycott your listing all together. There is no standard listing policy among search engine and directory services providers. However, most of them use search mechanisms that rank by relevancy. In short, the more times keywords pertain to content on the pages of your site without being redundant, the higher the relevancy ranking with these search tools.
No doubt shortly after your domain is registered or your Web site is live, you will begin to receive e-mail solicitations to automatically register your Web site. Every Web site should register with the seven largest and best-known web search engines and directories* (these are what direct most web users to sites), but the other directories with which it is best to register vary based on the focus and mission of your site. A promotional tool that registers a site in 100 or more places may well miss many of the best places to connect your site with the audience you are trying to reach. The time, effort, and money it would take to do registrations which have no chance of ever bringing any useful traffic to a particular site, can be better spent finding specific directories which aim at the particular subject matter the site is about and/or arranging link trades with related sites. In many instances it might be useful to register more than just your home page address. Important ancillary pages may be listed with different descriptions and thus multiply the chance of your site address coming up early when requests are made for information your site offers. Get Listed in Printed Web Directories Printed web directories (some of which come out quarterly and can be found in magazine racks) can be useful places to register your web address. At a minimum, I recommend paying for a bold listing in WebBound Magazine. While this publication simply lists links, it is the top selling publication of its kind and is distributed in major computer and bookstore retail chains as well as Wal-Mart stores throughout America. Another popular American source to get listed in print is Web Guide Magazine. To be included, your site must appear in the Web site Reviews feature, or you must purchase ad space. Editors evaluate and rank sites based on their content, design, navigability, and hyperlinks to external web pages. Remember to check with any associations or industry groups you have joined for opportunities to list your Web site address in their directories. Many associations and industry groups also publish magazines, newsletters or other periodicals where your site listing would be welcomed. Always be on the look out for listing opportunities. New magazines, newspapers, search engines, and categorized Internet directories are launched often.
Trade Links with Related or Strategically Cooperative Sites For many sites the best way to attract traffic is through reciprocal links with other related sites. Doing this productively, however, takes some serious and time-consuming research. This research could be done by in house, but if your people are not thoroughly familiar with the web, their efforts are often wasted. Most successful sites turn this job over to web promotion specialists. However, this does not mean your people are to be left out. If anyone in your company knows of other related Web sites, especially noncompetitive sites with whom they have relationships, they should certainly arrange link trades if possible, or pass on relevant information on the related company and its site to whoever is doing the promotion. One of the most important points to remember in arranging link trades, is to monitor them after the trade to insure they were initially published and are still active.
Your people must commit to answering the e-mail directed to the site without delay. Internet culture promotes immediate feedback and users are notoriously impatient. A responsive company keeps people coming back to its site and often establishes open lines of continual communication, cultivating relationships that result in increased revenue.
Check Out Internet Newsgroups and Web Discussion Groups Once your people have embraced the online communications environment, encourage them to join newsgroups and e-mail discussion groups (like listservs and majordomos) on subjects related to their roles with your company. In most instances they will not only have an opportunity to gain exposure for your company but also to learn more about what they do or should be doing to enhance their job performance. Although most of the newsgroups discourage outright promotional messages, they almost always allow URLs in signature lines and allow their members to mention a company and the company's site. It is easy to get away with talking about your Web site if it contains useful information. Joining such discussion groups also allows company personnel to keep up with the concerns of potential or actual customers who use or are interested in products or services your company provides.
Issue Frequent Newsworthy Press Releases Another important aspect of promoting many sites is to send press releases to publications which cover the field the site relates to, the particular region of the country the company is part of, or, sometimes, those which cover the web itself. The editorial staff of any publication that might include an article connected to what your company does or to information provided on the site should be informed about your presence on the Web. The editors will look for related information in their files before they write articles. Many businesses have lost money when their competitors were mentioned in publications and they weren't. Since most companies know the print publications in their fields, information on those publications should be passed on to whoever is promoting the site, or, alternatively, the company can, of course, put out its own press releases. Any place in which the company ever buys advertising should definitely be sent press releases on the site. And don't forget to add the URL to your release! There are also a growing number of digital publications to which press releases should be sent. Some of these are connected to print or other media and some of them are independent. Check with your web promotion specialist for the latest developments. For more information on the importance of news releases and web publicity, please another one of my online publications in process, Cybersmart Publicity.
Swap or Buy Strategic Web Advertising Space Most of the promotional strategies described previously cost only the time of the web promotional expert. You will also have opportunities to purchase or trade advertising space on the Internet. Usually in the form of banner ads, this type of space costs anywhere from free to $35 per thousand impressions. While the per thousand rate seems inexpensive when compared to traditional advertising, they can be fairly expensive since the volume on some of the most popular sites are in the hundreds of thousands if not millions per day. Alternatively, a company may offer and sponsor its own content and eventually sell banner ads on its site. To do this right requires the investment of time and money, and one should not expect this strategy to produce an "overnight success." Some directories also sell link listings or preferred positions. The price ranges from nominal to thousands of dollars depending on where you want to be listed. Another way to advertise your site is the Internet Link Exchange: a free service where your banner is shown on other sites in exchange for a banner on your site. This tends to work best for sites that have a potentially broad audience since you have little control of where your banner shows up. And, although, no "adult content" or broadly objectionable sites are allowed, site owners have little or no control of what does show up in banners displayed on their site. An inappropriate banner could drive visitors away from your site for good. Decide whether or not you might include banners as part of your marketing program before you build your site. That way, you can establish standard sizing and allow space for them in your site design. Whether or not you ever decide to participate in a banner exchange program, you can use the space set aside to promote content within your own site.
Include Promotion and Maintenance in Your Budget The success of your site will depend largely on your promotional and maintenance efforts. Aside from integrating your site's presence into your traditional promotional campaigns, you should budget a minimum of $500 for labor to enter your Web site URL properly in the search engine and Internet directory databases. A good rule to follow is to budget at least as much for promotion as you did for your site development. I suggest to my clients that they prepare a strategic promotional plan and budget a minimum of $2,500 for their first year on the web. You've got to maintain your site as well. Maintenance typically involves checking your pages for link rot, changing keywords and phrases, removing and revising content. Some developers also include special pricing in their maintenance packages for adding new content, functionality or features to your site. I recommend budgeting anywhere from $150 to $300 per month for small business sites. Another way to estimate annual maintenance costs that has proven reliable on larger sites is to add $10 per page per month. On larger sites, developers will usually quote an hourly rate with a monthly minimum.
Avoid
Bad Publicity — Never publish a page substituting an "Under Construction" notice for relevant content. The veteran web visitor will view such a page as an attack on his or her intelligence. Why? Because the World Wide Web is always under construction. By its nature, it is a virtual publication. Check for site rot regularly. Verify the accuracy of links and make necessary changes quickly. Make sure your content is still relevant. You do not want to leave your web visitors with the impression that you are not visiting your own site or the other places you refer them to. We recommend using a software utility such as Web Analyzer to help you in managing site rot. Make sure your intended audience can get access to your site. Some people and companies restrict Internet access to particular types of sites or content. Many computers are blocked from going to sites that aren't registered with an independent web content rating service that indicates there is no sexual or violent content on the site. To make sure the majority of your home page visitors will be allowed to access your site, it is best to have your web developer register it with the two most popular rating systems, RASCi and SafeSurf. Also, some corporations and government facilities specifically block access to sites with Java and ActiveX on them to prevent certain security problems. Use caution in placing these applications on your site. You don't want to turn away customers unnecessarily.
Evaluate
Your Presence Regularly — Keeping up with site promotion will protect your investment in the site. You will need to check your status in the search engines and directories at least quarterly. Submissions often fall through the cracks and never make it into a directory. Mistakes are sometimes made in listing a site or the listing information may never reach its destination. Remember that your message must travel through people, equipment and plain old telephone system (POTS) or other unstable communication lines to get from the person submitting the information to the person who is responsible for adding the link to your site. Checking on submissions is often a time consuming and expensive process and many companies try to skimp by not hiring someone with expertise to do it. If employees of the company have the time, they can use the submission report (links or URLs should be included) to do this checking themselves to find out where, when, and if the site comes up in each search engine. Some search engines will also find the site listings in directories they monitor — but the search engines rarely look at the directories more often than once every three months so it could be awhile before the directory listing comes up in the search engine. In addition, if a company is willing to wait several months, the search capabilities of Alta Vista, InfoSeek and HotBot can be used to search for the sites that link to your company's site. However, for the most reliable results, you will benefit from using software specifically published for that purpose. While a few search engines will index your site automatically within minutes, others take between six and eight weeks if not longer. Remember, too, that the hardest place to get your site listed is in Yahoo. You may find that your Yahoo category selection was not to the liking of Yahoo's editorial staff and got bumped all together. That's why it is critical to spend some time browsing Yahoo to determine the most applicable category before submitting your site information. The person responsible for your site submissions must keep accurate and complete records. Those records should include when the site is registered, where it can be found, any passwords or IDs needed for changes, and any special comments noted during the submission process. These same records will be needed if major changes or additions are ever made to the site. Stay in touch with what’s happening in the online world at all times. You may find you will need to change your home page more often to address shifts in demographics of your online audience and target markets within it. You may need to focus on reaching a new audience. The landscape of the online world changes by the minute. To be successful over the long haul, you must respond to changes just as fast! Routinely visit sites sites that produce or publish Internet statistics. For instance, a couple of my favorite sites to pick up statistics from are:
Get
Faster, Reliable Results — To determine the best moves to make in fulfilling your online mission, work closely with a consultant who specializes in online communications and marketing. Be careful in selecting that consultant. There are a great number of individuals hanging out Internet publishing and marketing shingles these days, but only a few have actually experienced the thousands of hours of online research and communications to develop the skills necessary to pull off successful online campaigns that produce more than thousands of meaningless hits to a site. Following is a list of questions you should ask to determine if the person or firm you are soliciting is capable of producing professional results:
If their answer is longer than the date their Web site was first published under their own domain name, find out the reason behind the discrepancy. They may have used a different domain name previously or you may have uncovered a sound reason for not pursuing their services further. Please remember that my company, Westward Connections, is a full-service Internet communications and marketing firm. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your goals with you — any time. Drop me an email addressed to barbt@westward.net and I'll personally see that you get the attention you deserve. ### Optimized For Print Version Available: CLICK HERE
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Westward Connections | A Majority Woman-Owned
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