Up and Running!
Make sure your site is fully operational and completely filled out. If you need a review of your site, please visit
Move-In Support.
Web Promotion Steps
Once you have your eSite up and running, you will want to encourage visitors to stop by on a regular basis. Here are just a few examples of the ways to entice frequent visitors.
- Notify your current customers—Send out a mass e-mail or direct mail piece notifying your customers that you are live on the Internet. Encourage them to visit your eSite and provide valuable feedback.
- Distribute your URL—Place your Web address (URL) on all of your printed materials, such as spec sheets, flyers, and brochures. Also include your URL on advertisements and your business card.
- Network online—Visit other Web pages of businesses that compliment yours and find the webnndc/owner's e-mail address. Contact the business about exchanging links and referring customers.
- Check Out WebRing—This free service offers easy access to hundreds of thousands of member Web sites organized by related interests into easy-to-travel rings. For more information, visit WebRing at http://dir.webring.com.
- Distribute your e-mail address—Place your e-mail address throughout your eSite and ask for feedback. You'll hear suggestions on how to improve your site as well as providing visitors an opportunity to contact you about business opportunities.
- Respond quickly —Impress visitors and turn them into customers by responding to e-mails and messages immediately. Your response time and visitor involvement are vital to your Web success.
- Use META Tags—See below for more information on using your META Tags to get listed on the leading search engines.
- Build a "People are Saying..." page—Have a page on your eSite showcasing the great things visitors are saying about your eSite and/or company. Be sure to include any awards or recognition that your business or your eSite has received.
- Use newsgroups—Visit newsgroups that pertain to your business type. Post news briefs and articles about your business on these sites to increase company name recognition and eSite visitors. To help you find current newsgroups, visit: Topica at http://www.topica.com
- Change & update your site often—Include an "updated on..." date to indicate when your site was lasted updated. Update any timely information throughout the site regularly.
META Tags & Title Tags
Your eSite includes META tags that allow you to include keywords and a description for your eSite. These tags are stored within the internal source code of your site and are recognized by search engines when people conduct a search. You will need to have your META tag keywords and descriptions prepared before submitting your site to the search engines.
META Keywords should be matched to the keywords or phrases that you think a person would use to conduct a search. For example, if you were a tax consultant, you could use a keyword of "tax" in your META tags. When someone goes to a search engine and types in the word "tax" your eSite should appear in the list of sites found. META tags can be created in the setup area of your site under eSite Promotion. For most search engines you may list up to 150 words. Each keyword or phrase should be separated by a comma, and should be listed in order of importance.
META Description is the area of your META tags that describes your site. When someone conducts a search in a search engine, they are brought to another page, which has a listing of search results that match the keywords they typed in. The search results display the title of the site, a link to the site, and a description of the site. This description of the site will be the same as the content that you submit into the META Description area. When creating your META Description it is important to limit your copy to 25 words or less because most search engines will cut off after 25 words.
To create your META Keywords and META Description:
- Sign into your site by clicking the "Sign In" button at the bottom of your page
- Click "Set Your Meta Tags." This link is under the Administration area in the right hand side of your Owner's Page
- Type your Keywords and Site Description into the appropriate text boxes
- Save your changes. Remember the META Keywords and META Description will not be displayed on your site. They will only be seen in your source code.
Note: It is important to add your company name or other desired name in the Title Page of your Web site Home page. Search engines and directories will also look at the Title tag of eSites, along with the META tags.
- Click the "Sign In" link located on your Home page.
- Click "Site Manager."
- Click "Home Page."
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page until you find "Page Title."
- Type in the title that you want to appear.
Note: This title will also appear in the upper-left corner of browser window.
Search Engine Submission
Once you have entered META Tags and Title Tags, you are ready to submit your URL to the search engines. Please visit our Search Engine Submission page by clicking here.
There are several services that will register your site for you. For more information, visit:
Note: With some of the larger search engines, there may be a longer period of time until the site is registered.
K.I.S.S. (Keep It a Simple Site)
It is very important to make sure your site is interesting and fun, yet simple. Part of K.I.S.S. is to provide quick, simple navigation for visitors. Keep the number of images on your site to a reasonable number and be sure that the image sizes are correct. Analyze how easy, or difficult, it is for a visitor to navigate through your site.
More Marketing Tips
Some great tips may be found on Wired's Webmonkey site, including this article
If you need some examples or additional assistance with your eSite,
please visit our eSite Services site.
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