Promoting your website

• The basics: Why is it important to invest some time to find the best keywords?
  Keywords are the words that web surfers enter in search engines to find websites. It's pointless to optimize your web pages for keywords that nobody uses in the search engines.

  For a successful online marketing campaign, you must target the right keywords. The keywords you use should be relevant for your website and web surfers should be searching for your keywords.

  If you target the wrong keywords, your website promotion efforts will be in vain and you will waste a lot of time and money.

• Tips: Which keywords are good keywords?
  There are three different keyword types: keywords for browsing, keywords for comparing and keywords for buying.

  Keywords for comparing are usually the keywords that work best for search engine optimization. People who use that keyword type are looking for a solution to their problem and they are ready to buy. To get best results with your search engine optimization efforts, you should concentrate on that keyword type.

  Most people use a two to four word phrase in a search, so phrases are very effective. Single words cannot be promoted effectively because they are not very targeted. Internet users who use four-word searches are more likely to purchase goods or services than those using fewer words (source: Oneupweb Research).

• Warning: What can happen if you target the wrong keywords?
  If you target the wrong keywords, you will lose time and money.

  You will invest a lot of time in optimizing your web pages for keywords for which your website cannot get high rankings at the moment. Or you will invest a lot of time in optimizing your web pages for keywords that don't convert to sales.

  It is very important that you choose the right keywords that lead to high search engine rankings and sales. Make sure that you choose the correct keyword type.

Step 2: Optimize your web pages

• The basics: Why is it important to optimize your web pages?
  By optimizing your web pages, you tell search engines for which keywords you want to be found.

  If you do not optimize your web pages, then search engines won't list your website or they will list it for the wrong keywords.

  Optimizing your web pages makes sure that your website can get high rankings for the keywords of your choice.

• Tips: How to optimize your web pages
  High rankings on Google and other search engines are the result of optimized web page content and good incoming links. Start with optimizing your web page content.

  By optimizing your web page content, you tell search engines for which keywords you want to be found. Search engines can only give your web page a high ranking for a certain keyword if your web page is relevant to that keyword. Make sure that your web pages don't have major HTML code errors that prevent search engines from indexing your site.

  You should optimize at least six different pages of your website for different but related keywords (the keywords that you found in step 1). Do not optimize the same page for more than one or two keyword phrases.

• Warning: What can happen if you do not optimize your web pages?
  If you do not optimize your web pages then search engines might not be able to index your pages. In addition, search engines might not be able to find out what your web pages are about.

  If you optimize only one web page of your site then it will be very difficult to get high search engine rankings. Search engines take your complete website into account. If you have many web pages that are optimized for different but related keywords than search engines will think that your web pages are relevant to a certain topic.

  Relevant web pages get better search engine rankings. For that reason, you should optimize as many pages as possible for different but related keywords.

  Some HTML errors can prevent search engines from indexing your web pages. If your web pages have such an HTML error, you won't get listed on search engines because search engines cannot index your pages. For that reason, it is also important to check the HTML code of your pages.

Step 3: Optimize your inbound links

• The basics: Why are inbound links important?
  Links are one of the most important factors for high search engine rankings. It is not possible to get high search engine rankings without good incoming links!

  The idea behind this concept is that search engines think that your website must be important if many other websites link to your site. The more other websites link to your website, the higher your search engine rankings will be.

  If more than one website has been optimized for the same keyword (see step 2) then the page with the best incoming links will get the highest search engine rankings.

• Tips: How to optimize your inbound links
  High rankings on Google and other search engines are the result of optimized web page content and good incoming links. You need both to get high search engine rankings.

  The number of links alone is not enough to improve your search engine rankings. It is also important that the other websites are related to your website. If the links to your website include your important keywords in the link text, then it's easier to get high rankings for these keywords.

  If the links to your site include your keywords, then search engines will think that your website must be relevant for these keywords.

• Warning: What can happen if you do not build inbound links?
  It is impossible to get high rankings on Google or other major search engines without good inbound links. It is absolutely crucial to the success of your website that you work on the inbound links to your site.

  Inbound links are extremely important for modern search engines. You cannot get high search engine rankings without good inbound links.

Step 4: Submit your website

• The basics: Why should you submit your website?
  By submitting your website to search engines you invite search engines to visit your website. You ask search engines to take a look at your pages.
• Tips: How to submit your site correctly
  Do not submit your website if you don't have your own domain name or if your domain name is only a redirection to another domain. Do not submit multiple domains that lead to the same web space.
• Warning: What can happen if you do not submit your site correctly?
  When you submit your website to search engines, you invite search engine spiders to visit your web pages. That does not mean that your website will get high search engine rankings.

  If you did not optimize your web pages, it's pointless to submit your website to search engines. You won't get high rankings if your web pages are not search engine ready.

  If you don't use your own domain name or if your website is hosted by an unreliable web host then it is likely that your website will not be listed on search engines. If the submitted website URL is only a redirection or a welcome page then it's also likely that search engines won't index your website.