Now the dinner is ready, how you would like to serve it? Unless you actively advertise the existence of your site, there is a good chance that you will be the only visitor your site ever gets. Because there are tens of thousands of websites competing for the same universe of surfers, only they that figure out how to successfully promote their site will survive. Fortunately, promoting your site doesn't have to be an overly complex process.

However, because mastering search engine concepts is a complex topic, we will only cover the basics in this chapter of our tutorial. For those of you that are interested in exploring this topic further, I've included a list of resources that will provide you with a much higher level of detail. Keep in mind that when working with search engines, patience is key. Structuring your website for optimal search engine ranking is a time consuming process that may involve multiple repetitions of submitting your site and tweaking your page contents/structure. Seeing positive results can often take weeks, if not months, and will probably require lots of work. If you don't succeed at first, don't give up.

Search Engine Basics
Search engines are the primary windows to the internet. Their purpose is to index websites in a way that allows people to use keywords to find the sites that interest them. Search Engines send out "robots" to search the web and bring back the full text of pages so they can be indexed not just by the words they contain, but also by phrases.

The key to using search engines effectively is to understand their indexing processes, and use this understanding to maximize your website's search engine readiness. You will need to structure your web pages so that search engines can easily determine the subject(s) covered, and then index your pages by the appropriate keywords.

Each search engine is different and has its own unique way of determining relevance. Some of the more common aspects of your website that search engines review when determining relevance include:
• Meta tag content
• Page content and the identification of keywords based on frequency and positioning
• HTML comments and ALT tags
• Keywords in URL's
• Link popularity (how many other sites link to yours)
• Defining your site's common theme.

Properly structuring your web pages is a multi step process. Below is a generic list of activities that address the most commonly used search engine indexing concepts.
• Define your target audience. What kind of person do you want your site to attract? What are their needs?
• Define and list your site's services. What does your site offer? Attracting the appropriate visitors is a matter of matching your services to their needs.
• Develop a concise page title. 50 characters or less is ideal. Place this page title in the HTML title tag. Many search engines use your page title as the site title in their listing.
• Develop a concise page description. Try to stay under 200 characters. This description should be placed in the "description" Meta tag. Some search engines use this information to describe your site. Others build their own descriptions from the first paragraph of text on your pages.
• Develop a list of keywords that describe your site's offerings. What words most accurately summarize your site's offerings? Minimize keyword repetition as much as possible. Try to keep the list below 1000 characters. These keywords should be placed in the "keywords" Meta tag.
• Develop a concise and clear page summary. Something in the 200 to 250 word range is ideal. This page summary should be the first text on your page. Tip: Emphasize importance by repeating keywords from the keyword list; however, don't repeat a keyword more than 7 times. Some search engines use this information to build descriptive text about your site.

As I mentioned earlier, mastering search engine concepts is a time consuming, complex process. Applying these concepts to maximize search engine rankings is not easy and will often take lots of tweaking. From personal experience, I have found that the above basics are a good start in addressing these concepts. When you're ready to submit your site, you can find a comprehensive list of the major search engine submission pages at www.searchengines.com

Directories
Directories categorize Web sites by topic and provide a brief description of the site. Unlike search engines that use "robots" to index and list sites, directories use real people to review sites and determine their value and relevance in relation to a particular topic. For this discussion, we will focus on two directories that we believe will give you the most outrageous result, Yahoo and ODP (The Open Directory Project).

Yahoo
As we are sure you've already heard a million times before, getting listed in Yahoo is the single most powerful promotional tool you can utilize. Yahoo has two processes for submitting your site. Non-commercial sites can use the "standard" free submission process. Commercial sites must use the "Business Express" process which costs $199. The Standard process doesn't guarantee a timely response, and it usually takes several weeks before you'll hear back from Yahoo. The Business Express process guarantees a response within 7 business days. As I mentioned, the Business Express process is required for commercial sites, but anyone can use it. Unfortunately, neither process guarantees that your site will be listed in the Yahoo directory. When submitting your site to Yahoo, make sure that you follow their instructions to the letter. Also make sure that you find the most appropriate category/sub-category for your site. Guidelines for finding the most appropriate category can be found at the Yahoo - Finding an appropriate category page. Even though there may be a cost associated with getting listed in Yahoo, if you're serious about promoting your site, Yahoo is where you want to be.

ODP (The Open Directory Project)
The Open Directory Project has recently become more and more widely accepted as an independent directory source for many popular search engines. Currently, there are 190 sites that use the ODP directory data in their search engines. Included in this list are search engines such as AOL Search, DirectHit, HotBot, Google, Lycos and Netscape Search. Because the ODP directory is so widely used, it's a very good idea to submit your site and have it included in their list. This way, even if you don't get a prominent ranking by their search engine, you will have a presence via their directory list. When submitting to ODP, just like Yahoo, you should follow their directions carefully. ODP is a very highly respected organization and will not tolerate spamming or any misuse of their directory. Currently, ODP does not charge for inclusion in their directory, making them an even more valuable promotional resource.
To find more about Search Engine Optimization and for ODP we refer to read more in our topic included in our corporate overview section;
http://tweenpath.com/our_company/corporate_overview/search_capabilities.htm

Newsletters (E-zines)
E-zines (Electronic Magazines) are one of the most powerful tools for establishing and promoting your presence on the web. Even though running a quality E-zine takes lots of work, it pays for itself many times over. Some of the stronger benefits and reasons for publishing a newsletter are:
• Newsletters allow you to maintain a relationship with your customer base. That periodic email they receive serves as a reminder that you and your site's services are still there.
• Newsletters build trust. Providing useful information and a regular basis will establish you as a knowledgeable source of information in your area of expertise.
• Newsletters are an excellent informational vehicle. They allow you to keep your customer base informed about new products, services and changes on your site.
However, there three rules that you absolutely must follow if you are going to publish your own e-zine.
• Don't spam. The best way to accumulate email addresses is through an opt-in box on your site.
• Do maintain privacy. Make sure your privacy policy is clear about what you do with the email addresses you acquire.
• Do provide an easy vehicle for unsubscribing. Not everyone wants to continue receiving your newsletter and for those that don't, make it easy to get removed from your mailing list.
Finally, if you're seriously considering starting up an Ezine, or would like to improve one that you are currently publishing, visit the Ezine University

Banner Ad Exchange Programs
Banner ads are those flashy rectangular boxes containing promotional material about someone else's site that you often see at the top (or bottom) of a commercial site. Statistics show that click through rates have dropped to less than 1/2%, meaning that less than one in every 200 banner views will click through to the promoted site. This fact alone makes banner ads a potentially expensive vehicle for promoting your site. A cost effective alternative is to join a Banner Exchange Program. In a Banner Exchange Program, a third party "provider" collects banner ads from the members and displays your site's ad on other member's sites. The frequency at which your ad is displayed depends on the number of times other member's ads are displayed on your site. There are numerous Banner Ad Exchange Programs on the internet; some are good, some not so good. Our recommendation would be the bCentral Banner Network. The bCentral Banner Network is probably the largest banner exchange program on the web. They have over 300,000 member sites and offer 2,000 categories from which to choose to target your ad.

In Summary
As you've probably noticed, promoting your site may be just as much (if not more) work than building your site. The primary difference between these two efforts is that when you are building your site, you can set your own pace; when you are promoting your site, the promotional vehicles you use set the pace. Getting a prominent listing in a search engine will require constant tweaking; designing an effective banner ad that attracts visitors may require months of testing; developing a newsletter with a steady following may take years. Patience and persistence are the true keys to successfully promoting your site. The bottom line: DON'T GIVE UP.