Web site promotion

Paola Kathuria & Frank Wales, May 1999

This article describes promotional activities to get visitors to your site. It is part of a paper which was written for an SBN[1] After 5 Network seminar in 1999. Since this was written, some of the search engines and directories have disappeared or merged whilst most now charge for listings. However, most of the advice will still apply.

Introduction

"If we build it, they will come," is not true of web sites. Many companies behave as if getting a new web site is like getting a new phone number. Ordinarily, the number is automatically listed in the phonebook and people can get your number from directory enquiries. There is no equivalent for web sites.

Keeping with the phone number analogy, imagine instead you opened a freephone order line. If you don't tell people about the new freephone number, no one's going to know about it, you won't get any orders and you'll think the freephone number was a waste of money. By not promoting the freephone number, it is a waste of your money. The same can be said of unpromoted web sites.

By the time you start promoting your web site, a web site should already have been planned, designed and developed. You should also have an idea how to measure your site's success and know how you will monitor this success in gauging the effectiveness of your promotional activities.

There are a variety of ways to promote your site. The methods listed below are in descending order of ease, time and expense.

1. Publicise the URL

Print your web site address everywhere you would normally print your telephone number. Put it on stationery, your brochure, and in every advertising campaign.

Make sure that people who answer your phone know your web site address and can give it out over the phone. You don't need to use the full address on your stationery - http://www.orchard.co.uk/ - it is now customary to print or give out the short forms of addresses, such as www.orchard.co.uk

Unless you're able to put up a holding message at a new domain while you finish your web site, don't publish your web site address until the site is up and running.

For some companies, publicising the web address this way can account for at least 5% of new business.

2. Register your site with the main search engines

A search engine refers to a site which people use to search the web. They are used to search huge databases of indexes of individual web pages (not web sites). Search engines do not store web pages, but indexing terms associated with each web page. Even the biggest search engines only index less than a third of the web.

Web pages are indexed and added to the database by two main ways:

1. people use their online forms to add the URL (web address) of their site's home page - when this happens, a program, called a spider, is sent out to the site to index it;
2. there are links on pages already indexed by the search engine.

There is no charge to register your site with the main search engines. The most popular search engines include:

AltaVista
Lycos
Excite
HotBot
WebCrawler
GO.com (formerly InfoSeek)
Northern Light

Since each search engine does things differently, there are guides available - to buy[2] or online[3] - on how to set up your pages to maximise success with particular search engines.

For instance, search engines use a variety of information to index pages. You have a degree of control as to how well web pages are indexed by paying special attention to the wording of the following:

• page <title>
• <meta> keywords and description
• page heading (<h1>)
• first 200 characters of content

The process of registering the site with search engines is as follows:

1. Set up your web pages with meaningful <title>s, <h1> headings and with extensive <meta> keywords. Search engines use these to create the index of your site.
2. Visit each search engine. Go to each and look for the submission page (look for links such as "Add a URL" or "Submit your site"). Bookmark the search engine search page and the submission page, although be aware that submission pages tend to get renamed over time.
3. Print out and read the page of submission guidelines.
4. Submit the URL of the home page -- the search engine will try to retrieve the page immediately. If successful, it will schedule your site for a visit by a spider, which will follow most internal links to find all the pages to index.
5. Go back a week later and check for your site by searching for it using some of the search words you added to your pages in the first step. Resubmit if you cannot find your site.
6. Resubmit the site whenever you make significant changes to your site (such as adding products or press releases).
7. Check that your site is still listed on the search engine every 3-6 months. Search engines spiders will now automatically revisit your site every few days or weeks. However, search engines have been known to "lose" listings.

3. Register with other search engines

There are hundreds of search engines, some of which specialise in a certain country, region or subject matter. There are also search engines which differ in how they can be searched and how pages are listed. A few examples are given below.

Some search engines do not accept submissions and, for those that do, submission isn't always as simple as providing the home page URL. There are commercial services[4] available to do bulk submissions to search engines and these would be most useful for registering at those search engines which only want to know a URL.

There are various ways to find other search engines:

• Read Internet magazines for mentions of popular search engines;
• On Yahoo[5] - they are listed by country as well as generally.

4. Register with web directories

A web directory is different from a search engine in that a directory lists web sites, not web pages. Directory registrations usually involve providing background information for the site, including contact details and categories.

Since each web directory varies in what information is asked for, it is worth printing out the submission forms (by going through all but the last submission stage of the process) of all those that you want to register with and decide how you will fill them in. Some may provide you with a password so that you can amend your directory entry later. On others, you cannot amend or remove an entry.

There are various ways to find web directories:

• Read Internet magazines for coverage of directories;
• Yahoo! lists directories by name[6], by category[7] and by category within country[8];
• By finding out where your competitors or similar companies are linked[9]from.

The process of getting listed on directories is similar to search engines with the added steps of preparing your submission in advance by printing out the forms and planning your entry.

5. Ask for links on related sites

Besides directories, many sites maintain free web resources in the form of lists of links to sites in a specific subject area. These are maintained by enthusiasts, hobbyists but also by official organisations and commercial companies.

Getting a link on these can be as simple as sending a mail message. People will not charge you for a listing and, if their site it popular, visitors from that site will already be interested in your area of expertise.

To get added to other site's links pages do the following:

• Add a links page to your own site to make the negotiation process easier, although this isn't compulsory;
• To make it easier for people, add a page to your site which includes official link graphics and sample HTML for people to use on their sites when linking to yours - link graphics should include your logo, site name and URL;
• Research potential sites to get linked from by reading Internet magazines and finding out where your competitors or related companies are linked from;
• Find the links page on the sites you find - if it contains the date of last update, make sure that it was updated in the last month;
• Make a note of the site name, the contact address, the URL of the links page and, if relevant, the heading of the section that you think a link to your site should be included in;
• Write a short message to the maintainer to request a link. Take care not to let your message look like spam or automated in any way. Line lengths should be about 70 characters (press return at the end of each line) and don't use a long signature (it should be 5 lines or less).

Here's an example message:

The likelihood of a positive response is very high (over 75% from our own experience). When they reply, mail back promptly (within a working day) to thank them for the link. Check their site a week later to see if the information is correct.

There are a number of companies who offer "online marketing" in the form of registration, requesting links and even placing banner ads for you. Many are listed on Yahoo[10]. Once you know their company name, search for them on the main search engines. If their own company hasn't been promoted online or cannot be found easily, they're probably not a company you want to hire to promote yours.

6. Use banner advertising

This is the first promotion method that you will definitely have to pay for. It is not unusual to spend from £2,000 a month for a single ad campaign. Banner ads, like traditional ads, have to be a) carefully designed and then b) placed somewhere popular with visitors which meet your required demographic.

When asked about the effectiveness of banner ads, Carsource[11] entrepreneur, Andrew Dyson, offered this advice: only consider using banner ads to promote your site:

• if your product is fairly unique,
• to reinforce your brand or
• if the expected income derived from a single customer, in the entire lifetime of your relationship with them, exceeds £10,000.

Look at your logs or stats reports (under Referring sites) to measure the effectiveness of the ad. Expect clickthroughs of less than 5%. You should also examine the behaviour of visitors after they enter your site via a banner ad - do they stay longer or shorter? do they complete any forms? do they order anything? - to decide whether your ad is paying for itself.

7. Sponsor content

Sponsored content varies from:

• paying for a recommendation or endorsement from an already-respected information resource
• to providing editorial to other sites which will publish it under your logo.

Both of these will cost money. Research by Orange[12] has shown that sponsoring content was more effective than banner ads in terms of the quality of leads.

Sponsored content - by providing or being associated with editorial - has the extra advantage of increasing your brand/company's association with expert knowledge or advice, making your company the one people are more likely to contact when they need services or products that you can offer.

8. Impress the community with your expertise

Similar to sponsoring content, you can adopt a low-key approach by participating in Usenet newsgroups[13] and electronic mailing (discussion) lists[14] relevant to your business. This will be time-consuming as it will require frequent (at most, daily) reading and writing of messages.

The idea is to join in on discussions and offer advice without overtly trying to sell your services or products. Take the time to create a short signature which contains your name, your e-mail address, the company name, web site address and a strap line to summarise your company's expertise.

Also take time to familiarise yourself with Usenet etiquette[15] before posting messages or else you will do more harm than good to your company's reputation.

9. Publish regularly-updated content on your site

By having an online information resource in the form of regularly-updated content, your site goes beyond "brochureware", which most business sites are, and you get an edge over your competitors.

Such content should be automated, where possible; you may decide to buy information or regular feeds from other sources (such as a news service).

Promote the resource to indirectly promote your company. Promoting information resources is also acceptable on Usenet and mailing lists, unlike the overt promotion of commercial companies or their products.

Organise and encourage discussion: this will let visitors contribute new content and gives them a reason to return, but requires editorial control from you.

10. Use mailing lists to maintain a dialogue with your visitors

Use your web site to gather information about people and their interests and then send out regular information based on what people want to know, through electronic mailing lists. This can be automated through custom software.

Such an activity will increase your usefulness to potential and existing customers, will continue to remind them of your existence and increase the likelihood to choose or keep you as their supplier when they need your services or products.

Closing words

Most of the promotional activities described here are things that businesses can do themselves. If you want anything explained in more detail, do let us know and we'll write more on it.

There are also companies that can help you promote your site. If you decide to use one, this article should have given you enough information on what kinds of services they can offer so that you can make an informed decision on which is the best to hire for your needs.

References

1. The Software Business Network - is part of the CSSA. (link unavailable when last checked Jan-2005)   [return to text]
   http://www.sbn.org.uk/ http://www.cssa.co.uk/
2. Planet Ocean publish a guide called The Unfair Advantage Book On Winning The Search Engine Wars. It is updated monthly and can be downloaded for printing. The guide costs just under $100 and includes a six-month subscription to the online newsletter.   [return to text]
   http://www.searchenginehelp.com/
3. An online guide to search engines is Search Engine Watch.   [return to text]
   http://searchenginewatch.com/
4. One of the first bulk submission services, SubmitIt!, is still around and now owned by Microsoft.   [return to text]
   http://www.submitit.com/
5. See the listing on Yahoo! (long page).   [return to text]
   http://dir.yahoo.com/ Computers_and_Internet/ Internet/ World_Wide_Web/ Searching_the_Web/ Search_Engines_and_Directories/
6. Web directories listed on Yahoo! by name (long page).   [return to text]
   http://dir.yahoo.com/ Computers_and_Internet/ Internet/ World_Wide_Web/ Searching_the_Web/ Search_Engines_and_Directories/ Directories/
7. Web directories listed on Yahoo! by category (long page).   [return to text]
   http://dir.yahoo.com/ Business_and_Economy/ Directories/ Companies/
8. Web directories listed on Yahoo! by category within country.   [return to text]
   http://dir.yahoo.com/ Business_and_Economy/ Directories/ Companies/ Regional/ Countries/
9. On AltaVista, use the search prefix link: to find pages which include links to URLs or parts of URLs. For example, link:.uk looks for matches to URLs that include .uk, whilst link:www.orchard.co.uk looks for pages which include links to www.orchard.co.uk
   http://www.altavista.com/
   
   Or, on HotBot, use the links to URL option in the search pull-down list. (Note that HotBot will do an exact match (that is, searching for http://www.orchard.co.uk/ will produce different results to searching for http://www.orchard.co.uk - without the trailing slash.)   [return to text]
   http://www.hotbot.com/
10. Yahoo!'s listing of UK web promotion companies.   [return to text]
    http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/ business_and_economy/ business_to_business/ marketing_and_advertising/ internet/promotion/
11. The car resource, Carsource has been online since 1996.   [return to text]
    http://www.carsource.co.uk/
12. The article on Orange's research was printed in Revolution magazine in the late 1990s.   [return to text]
13. Usenet pre-dates the web by about 20 years and had an estimated 30 million users when the web was just starting to take off. There are thousands upon thousands of different newsgroups (discussion groups) and it is all free. Read the What is Usenet? FAQ for an introduction to Usenet.
    http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/
    
    Use Google Groups to search Usenet messages and for newsgroups to subscribe to.   [return to text]
    http://groups.google.com/
14. See the official directory of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists. (site removed when checked Jan-2005)   [return to text]
    http://paml.net/
15. There are various articles available to help you get the most from Usenet:
    A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community,
    Rules for posting to Usenet and
    Hints on writing style for Usenet.   [return to text]
    http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/
    http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/posting-rules/part1/
    http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/writing-style/part1/