12 More Ways to Promote Your Website

How do you get visitors to your website? What do you do to get increased traffic? Here’s a list of 12 more items you need to consider. You may be doing many of these already.  Others you meant to do and forgot about.  Still others you’ve never heard of.

Here are 12  more ways that are in addition to my previous post here - 10 Ways to Promote Your Website

Linking Strategies

Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic.  But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (”link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines.  Google has a measure called PageRank ( PR ) that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links.  All links aren’t equal.  Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites.

11. Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic.  A directory is not a search engine. It is a listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory.  Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com), overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don’t get listed right away, don’t be impatient and resubmit, or you’ll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.

Yahoo! Directory (dir.yahoo.com) is another important directory.  Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given.  Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don’t have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping.

12. Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories.  Ask for a link.  Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.

Some directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.

13. Request Reciprocal Links.  Find websites in your general niche and request a reciprocal link to your site.  Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites so you don’t send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front door.  Your best results will be from sites that generate a similar amount of traffic as your own site.  High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don’t have anything to gain.  Look for smaller sites that may have linking pages.

When you locate sites, send a personal e-mail using the contact e-mail on the site or to the administrative contact listed in a Whois Directory .  If e-mail doesn’t get a response, try a phone call.

Warning: Only link to complementary sites, no matter how often you are bombarded with requests to exchange links with a mortgage site that has nothing to do with your teddy bear store.  One way Google determines what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It’s not just links, but quality links you seek.  Reciprocal linking as hard, tedious work, but it doesn’t cost you a dime out of pocket!  Keep working at this continuously, a little bit at a time.  Patience and persistence will get you some good links, so keep at it.

14. Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters.  You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail newsletters or their websites.  Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article.  This is an effective “viral” approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site over time.  You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week. Read more »

Facebook is the number one destination on the web

The average U.S. Internet user spends more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia, and Amazon combined. Think about that for a moment.

The latest numbers released by Nielsen today confirm that Facebook is the number one destination on the web based on time.

Is this a good or bad thing?

This is good info to have if you market online.  Facebook is a great target for marketing worldwide.

What are your thoughts on those numbers?

Google Buzz

Has Google changed social networking with today’s introduction of Google Buzz?

Buzz is touted as a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting, share updates, photos, videos and more. It’s built into Gmail, so there’s nothing to sign up for, install or configure.

Buzz makes use of your current contact list within Gmail, so you already have a built-in set of friends, as well.

You can choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a small group of friends each time you post. Connect other sites you use, such as Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter.

This lets your friends keep up with what you’re doing around the web in one tidy little place.

If you don’t feel you have enough connections in Gmail, Google Buzz will suggest new contacts for you. Buzz will recommend posts from people you’re not directly following, usually from places your current friends are having conversations. If you’re not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the “Not interested” link.

Some are saying that Google Buzz can replace FriendFeed.  I still think that both services are quite different, offering different things to their users. I don’t see Buzz as replacing or killing FriendFeed.

Google Buzz will be rolled out everywhere within the coming days.  If you don’t already have it showing up in your Gmail, you will soon.  Keep an eye out for a Buzz link under your Inbox.

Check it out… try it on for size.

Let us know what you think of the newest offering from Google. Is it a bunch of hype? Or… is the buzz about Buzz on target?

Do you think that having it tied to your email address is a good thing?
I can keep my email private at facebook, twitter and FriendFeed.  Not so much with GMail.

Organic Acres January 2009 Update

Organic Acres is
NOT a recommended business

Please see the front page of the blog for other great income ideas