how to promote a website

tomocondo

i recently opened an online store and it is doin okay. However I want to promote it further as I know it can do well. It is slowly been picked up by the search engines which is okay. Is there any basic ways that i can promote the site further and let people know it exists. Money is tight at the moment so I would like an alternative way to advertise.

Any advice greatly appreciated

mike65

[size=-1]Reciprocal[/size] links are a cheap way for speading the word or at least a link.

http://www.igoldrush.com/missing/

Mike.

beller b

Why not post the link & give us all a look

tomocondo

beller b wrote:

Why not post the link & give us all a look

I posted it here before and got good comments.
Im looking for ways to promote it - not too interested in comments on the look and feel as I have a huge amount of work to do with is still.

pwd

put links in directories. lots of directories.
There is a tool online that validates sites for search engine optimization. Google for that. I think it is linked to on my site if yo click the standards links, alternatively.
I don't know if I'm telling you stuff you already know here. Best to link to it using targeted keywords ifor search engines as the displayed text of the link. Like "buy perfume online" maybe. That will make it appear higher in google for searches on these keywords.

Webmonkey

Get linked to sites of high page ranking. 4+
This will show google you are an important site. Do not sign up to them sites that display your link on a huge page of other links, this will be considered spam and your site might be considered spam.
Make sure your main keywords are in the title of the website. The first few lines should be what you want your site's description to be.
Make sure all links are clean and search engine friendly.

You can also purchase ad words from google that will attract your target audience. Check it out.

Good look with the promoting, i'm trying to do the same with a site of my self too. Got high page ranking but its not enough...

smeggle

You could upgrade your coding to xhtml. You'll be pleasantly amazed at how much more search engines will list your site and higher in the rankings. I have tested this by making two exact copies of a site, one in html 4.01 (compliant) and one in xhtml 1.1 (compliant. The xhtml 1.1 site was picked up far sooner than the html 4.01 site and consistently listed better.
My view from that is how search engines now list sites, in that they will list in the specific order of current W3C coding standards starting from the most up to date coded sites and so on down the blocks of html code, i.e. xhtml 1.1, xhtml 1.0, xhtml 1.0 transitional and so on.

It is something I have definately seen a trend towards in the last 12-24mnths. You have a nice site and your allready using css. I can't for the life of me understand why you would nest 'div's' within tables (Yuk). Why not just use divs? far simpler and can easily be controlled within your css.

Still a very nice site and getting into good directories, listing with sites and or even promoting via the gifts section of ebay.ie would be a great help. Google adwords would also be a good option because of the very high exposure they can return. Reciprocol linking has it's advanatges and dis advantages. I suggest you check the links for relevant suitability which is tedious yes, but can be very rewarding in the end..

I see your site has been around since oct last, still early days yet really but if you keep your work consistant, add/change/rotate product/stock on a regular basis you will do quite well. changine/rotating/moving stuff about is seen by the search engines. This keeps the engines 'Interested'. Most folk will put up a site and then sit there expectantly. They do quite good for the first three -four mnths and then start to slip. This is because the engines are just getting the same info and the search bots stop visiting as often, even if you do use the meta tag revisit after x days. (There clever little blighters those bots are ). That last part alone will do you more good probably.

Please don't get caught by any of those search engine optimization claim companies. Most cannot promiss what they offer and you can do the same as what they do far cheaper yourself. Most just list your url in some bit of search engine submissale software such as webposition gold and hit submit. Most also just spam the engines and that as you know is very detrimental in the long run.

I'd also reduce the amount of white space between your product/stock and the footer of your main page there . I suspect that will be costing you a few users - folk don't like empty space and tend to navigate away kinda quickly

edit: yeah stick these tags in - it'll help
<meta name="robots" content="all">
<meta name="revisit-after 7 days">
<meta content="General" name="rating">
<meta content="Your Name Here" name="Author">
<meta content="Your copyright & year here" name="Copyright">
<meta content="Your Name Here" name="Designer">

probably not getting any bots in at all. I have a spiders.txt as well, pop it in your root folder - it calls the bots of all engines listed in it. - see attached.

fintan

I would highly recommend Google Adwords. You should also use Overture (it covers Yahoo and MSN).

Also the usual of getting listed in Directories, there are plenty of Irish ones. Also list with Dmoz (this may take a long time) also if you money you can get a paid listing with Yahoo which will do wonders for your ranking with them on search results.

Also someone recommend ebay, dont forget that you can also sell on Amazon!

mneylon

smeggle wrote:

probably not getting any bots in at all. I have a spiders.txt as well, pop it in your root folder - it calls the bots of all engines listed in it. - see attached.

I don't see how that file can "call" anything. It looks like you may be confusing it with an addon for oscommerce

smeggle

blacknight wrote:

I don't see how that file can "call" anything. It looks like you may be confusing it with an addon for oscommerce

Bots are programmed to look for either robots.txt or spiders.txt if they find niether they then look for index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order. They then look for the robots meta tag and follow the instruction there. If that is set to disallow, they (are supposed) to leave and ignore the site.
Although that spiders.txt is from an oscommerce package (well spotted btw ) it is a valid option you can use at any level, from root folder or sub-folders. It doesn't specifically require initiating by a php package for instance.

Far as I'm aware, you can use either or both, choice is upto the user though most use robots.txt. Open to correction on that of course

mneylon

They only look for robots.txt - believe me.

My understanding of what that file does is provide different treatment to the UA ie. if the site is being visited by a robot matching one of those UA strings - which makes sense.

mneylon

tomocondo wrote:

http://www.perfumeireland.com

I posted it here before and got good comments.
Im looking for ways to promote it - not too interested in comments on the look and feel as I have a huge amount of work to do with is still.

Manually submitting it to all the Irish directories is a good starter.

If you are targetting an Irish market you should seriously consider hosting the site on Irish IP space, as you are currently at a distinct disadvantage.

axer

Yeah, hosting your site in Ireland would be a big plus.
Meta tags and links from other sites.

krz7e

http://searchenginewatch.com/

Keep your eye on this site, lots of great info.

Also, you should also register the .ie domain. Many people pass off .com's as American companies. It will also give you more credability.

Best of luck, some good info posted above!

rsynnott

smeggle wrote:

Bots are programmed to look for either robots.txt or spiders.txt if they find niether they then look for index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order. They then look for the robots meta tag and follow the instruction there. If that is set to disallow, they (are supposed) to leave and ignore the site.
Although that spiders.txt is from an oscommerce package (well spotted btw ) it is a valid option you can use at any level, from root folder or sub-folders. It doesn't specifically require initiating by a php package for instance.

Far as I'm aware, you can use either or both, choice is upto the user though most use robots.txt. Open to correction on that of course

Very authoritive, but sadly, very wrong

And such files don't attract spiders; the major reason for their use is to prevent access to whole sites or specific parts of sites.

I love "index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order."

smeggle

blacknight wrote:

They only look for robots.txt - believe me.

My understanding of what that file does is provide different treatment to the UA ie. if the site is being visited by a robot matching one of those UA strings - which makes sense.

I stand corrected then - Is this a developement recently? About a year since I read the article and it did say they looked for both. Must try finding it. Thanks for the info

mneylon

smeggle wrote:

I stand corrected then - Is this a developement recently? About a year since I read the article and it did say they looked for both. Must try finding it. Thanks for the info

No it isn't a recent development.

Dig out the article and re-read it. Either the author was talking about something else and you remember it incorrectly or the author is inventing stuff to make people read him

Serbian

blacknight wrote:

No it isn't a recent development.

Dig out the article and re-read it. Either the author was talking about something else and you remember it incorrectly or the author is inventing stuff to make people read him

Yeah, but it's just too convenient that spiders.txt is used with osCommerce, smeggle is probably confusing the two. Also, rsynnott should have been gentleman-ly enough to explain why he loved "index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order." so much. A spider doesn't look for the index page, that's the webserver's job. The spider simply parses what the server gives it.

mneylon

Serbian wrote:

Yeah, but it's just too convenient that spiders.txt is used with osCommerce, smeggle is probably confusing the two.

Possibly.

Serbian wrote:

Also, rsynnott should have been gentleman-ly enough to explain why he loved "index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order." so much. A spider doesn't look for the index page, that's the webserver's job. The spider simply parses what the server gives it.

Agreed. Maybe rsynnott likes the shape of the words or something ?

rsynnott

Serbian wrote:

Also, rsynnott should have been gentleman-ly enough to explain why he loved "index.htm, index.html, index.php in that order." so much.

Because it's BIZARRE, that's why. Two HTML extensions (the lesser-used, less correct one first) and PHP, a newish scripting language. How anyone could believe that this is a standard observed by spiders is beyond me. (It would be normal, in any case, to request "http://www.blah.com/foo/bar/&quot; and let the web server deliver the index.)

fizzy

hi tom,

like fintan said, your best bet is to get your site appearing in the sponsored listings of the main search engines.
the 2 main programmes are google's adwords https://adwords.google.com/select/
and yahoo search marketing (formerly overture) http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com

it will take time to learn how to get the most bang for your buck but it is quick and easy to get set up and this should have a very quick impact on your traffic and hopefully your sales. you will be able to track how many people click on your ads and how many of those people actually go on to purchase anything so the advantage of using these ads is that you can measure exactly what you make out of it.

unlike conventional banner advertising, sponsored listings work on a Pay Per Click (PPC) model, meaning you don't pay for your site to appear as an ad. Instead you only pay each time someone actually clicks on the ad and visits your site which is a lot more reasonable! You set up your ads so that they only appear when certain releveant terms are searched for and the price you pay depends on the keyword.
more competitive / generic terms e.g. perfume will cost a lot more than more specific ones e.g. buy perfume ireland or perfume shop ireland etc.

some of the other advice about reciprocal links, search engine friendly pages and directory listings is useful also, but this process is extremely slow and results are not guaranteed. so focus on the ads, and work on the other things on an ongoing basis and you should see your site ranking highly in the free listings over time as well.

good luck!

boy1er1990

Create a Stencil, A Cool And interesting one, then in public areas, or even quiet(not too quiet) Spray the stencil on to a wall or old Destroyed building

This Is very Effective, I have seen it a few times and it really Drew, my attention, Its Amazing what people would try!!

boy1er1990

I am Thinking of setting up a website, if i do i will give you a shout and i can advertise on it for nothin.

rsynnott

boy1er1990 wrote:

Create a Stencil, A Cool And interesting one, then in public areas, or even quiet(not too quiet) Spray the stencil on to a wall or old Destroyed building

This Is very Effective, I have seen it a few times and it really Drew, my attention, Its Amazing what people would try!!

Ah, vandalism, wonderful strategy. Though I must confess it was fun watching the American tourists gape in horror at those American flags with the stars replaced with a swastika that turned up in Dublin shortly before the Iraq invasion...

wheres me jumpa

is there any hassle with putting up say a roadside sign? on a short term basis.

rsynnott

Well, it's illegal, theoretically, and it's extremely unlikely to attract people... But you're unlikely to get in trouble over it.

wheres me jumpa

well its a local website so in this case it might not be a bad idea. i had a feeling it was illegal but its a law that is definitely not obeyed.

axer

its graffiti!

Seth Brundle

...and litter!

AARRRGH

blacknight wrote:

If you are targetting an Irish market you should seriously consider hosting the site on Irish IP space, as you are currently at a distinct disadvantage.

How?? A few milliseconds won't bother the visitors to his site...

axer

dublindude wrote:

How?? A few milliseconds won't bother the visitors to his site...

the advantage of hosting in ireland is that your server has an irish IP address - this is an advantage when it comes to search engines - not speed.