Intro Unless your site is among the top of popular search engines no one will know your web page even exists. The Internet consists of BILLIONS of different web pages and more appear every day.
Unless you take action in properly promoting your page, you can consider the time
spent creating the page a waste. We've created this section to help
improve your search engine rankings and improve your pages overall quality and
popularity using the secrets we've learned over the past 20 years creating
Computer Hope, which currently average over 340,000 unique page views a day and over nine million unique a month (around 50 million hits). Like everyone else, we hate "get rich quick" schemes and having to pay for information that should be provided for free; therefore, all of our secrets and valuable information is free, like all the information on Computer Hope. If you have any secrets of your own that you would like to share, please do not hesitate and let us know
about them and if you find this page valuable be sure to link to it.
Secrets Below is a listing of quick links to get to specific categories on this page. If you have not yet read through this document we suggest
simply reading this whole page so nothing is missed. Content
Titles
Navigation and Layout
Keep it simple, clean, and fast
Adding keywords into your URL
Spelling and grammar
Bad links
Meta Tags
Robots.txt
E-mail
Free
Domain/URL
Links
Let others know about your site
Watch the traffic / logs
Age
Forum, bulletin board, or other user generated community
Search optimization services and other paid services
Major search engines
Analyze search engines Content
Create new and fresh content
By far the most important first step any site can do is create new
and fresh content. Search engines
use web robots (spider/crawler) designed to search a website and grab keywords and text from the website to be listed on their search engine.
If your site does not have a lot of content and pages, your chances of being found by a search engine and users on the Internet is greatly decreased. For example, if your web page has ten pages and your competitor has 100 pages, it's a lot more likely that your competitor's website will be found first.
Update content frequently
Update and add new content frequently. If your site contains content that is updated frequently, you give your visitors yet another reason to visit and bookmark your site
and search engines are more likely to visit your site more often.
We suggest at the very least that you create 2-3 pages of new content weekly or
even better a new page every day. Sites that haven't been updated in over a
month are often considered abandoned pages by most visitors.
Add content even if you're site only sells
products
Most users don't visit a website to only purchase a product. If your site is trying to sell something it should have complete information about the products such as how to setup the product, how it can be used, reviews, and comments from other users about your products. Not only will this help bring more visitors to your
web page who're
looking for more information it'll likely also convert those users into
purchasing the product.
Format the content
Your content should be formatted in an easy to read and scan
format. This can be done by creating easy to read, short, and catchy headings as
shown on this page. Doing this will make your web page more enjoyable to read
and help reduce your pages overall bounce rate.
For the main page heading we also suggest surrounding your heading in the HTML <h1>
tags. Doing this helps with matching keywords and can improve your search engine
rankings.
Titles Most search engines use the title of your web page when displaying your site in their
search results. Therefore, it is always a good idea to place a little more
keywords into the title of each of your pages. However, keep the title short (at most 5 or 6 words), use words that you think a potential visitor may be searching for, and make the title understandable. For example, our title for this page is "Promoting your web page", this title is not only descriptive but also has commonly used keywords such as
web page and promoting. Navigation and Layout If a user is unable to navigate your website they are not going to be able to view all your information and/or will likely leave your website. Studies have shown the typical view time
when first visiting a page is four seconds or less and users who don't
immediately grasp how to navigate the site will likely leave.
Link to all sub pages from main page
Your main page should link to all of your sub pages; if this is not possible it should at least link to your biggest sections. When designing your website, you want to make sure that the visitor will find what they are looking for within a few clicks. This can
be accomplished by making lists of sub pages or categories, adding your own search engine, and/or making a
site map. Sub pages
should link back to main page
All your sub pages should link back to your home page and/or other main sections of your main page. Many of your visitors will likely not get to your website through your main page, therefore you should make it easy for the user to get there from all sub pages.
Have a search engine
If you don't have your own search engine and/or don't want to fuss with implementing your own search engine at the very least you should consider using a major third-party search engine such as Google to search your pages. These scripts can often be implemented into your site in less than a few minutes. Additional information about having your own search engine can be found on document CH000077. Keep it simple, clean, and fast
Making a website too complicated or busy is going to likely frustrate a user
away. Try to make the page as simple as possible by reducing large images, animated images, background sounds, and moving text.
Don't make the user scroll
Many users when first viewing a web page will not use any
scrollbars. Try to keep all the important or
eye-catching information on the first viewable page. If you have a page with a lot of information create
bookmark links at the first part of the page to
allow the user to quickly scroll down to what they may be interested in.
Finally, keep the page within its horizontal boundaries; a page that makes the user scroll left-to-right is almost always going to frustrate the users
or may even make that information invisible to the user.
Keep your headers small
The top headers of all your pages should be small, at most 1-2
inches in height. A large header is going to make the user have to scroll down
on every page and is often distracting for users who visit the site frequently.
Test with other monitors and browser
Not all users have the same browser, monitor, and/or
computer. Make sure your web page looks good on all types of computers and especially monitors. A page displayed on a 17" monitor can look very different from a page that is displayed on a smaller 15" monitor or laptop
display. If you do not have access to different computers or monitors, visit
Browser Shots to test out
your page. Avoid large images and Flash files
Avoid large images or flash animations that take a long time to load. Not everyone has a broadband connection, and while it may load up fast on your connection, users with
modems may become impatient if your website takes too long. As we mentioned earlier, the average first view time on a website is a few seconds, so make sure you grab their attention with a fast loading page.
If you want large images consider loading those in a separate page.
Adding keywords into your URL You can add keywords into your URL by adding subdirectories; for example, Computer Hope has computer CD-ROM help section, its URL is: http://www.computerhope.com/help/cdrom.htm. As you can see, this URL has two big keywords, help and cdrom. Use this to your advantage as the majority of all search engines today convert your URL to text and use it as a method of indexing your web page. Caution: When using keywords in your URL do not use too many. Having a short URL is also
a good method of making sure your link is shared and when shared it works. Nothing worse then trying to send someone a link to a web page in a e-mail or chat only to find the link is four lines long.
Spelling and grammar Your page is likely to be seen by thousands or even millions of different types of people, watch your spelling and grammar. Make sure to run a spell check on your pages and proof read before posting the page.
Bad Links Bad links are a growing issue and commonly will cause your visitors to look elsewhere or make the visitor irritated. If possible, try to never change any of your links on your page, even if you plan on redesigning a web page. It is likely that those pages are already indexed in search engines, linked on other web pages, or even bookmarked. Removing or moving your page is like starting all over, and could cause a great loss in visitors. If you're running your own server that is hosting your web page or your Internet Service Provider (ISP) supports customized error pages. Make sure to create a custom
404 error page. This will allow a visitor who stumbles across a bad link on your web page somewhere to go other than back to the page that referred them to the bad link. Click here to see an example of Computer Hope's error page.
Meta Tags Meta tags are hidden text found in the source of a web page commonly queried by many search engines. Below are some examples of how to use Meta Tags in your HTML Code.
Description and keywords example <meta name="description" content="Helping you get your web page more hits by telling web secrets, listing tons of different locations to add your web page, search engines, award sites, banner exchanges, and more."> <meta name="keywords" content="promotion secrets, promotion, add link, free for all, banner exchange, search engines, promote secrets, promote, Promote, PROMOTE, ranking"> In the above examples we
first list the description of this page, this description is commonly used for the description of your website when it is listed in a search engines
results. The second tag is keywords that
relate to this page. General Rules of Meta Tags
- Like all other HTML code, any website's Meta Tags can be easily displayed. View the source of some of your competitors' Meta Tags to find out why their website may be higher than your website.
- Search engines that look at meta tags will only pull the first four lines or
less of the description and the keywords. Do not more than this as it will not be viewed by the search engine and could cause the search engine to deny your page.
- Post the description and keywords of information that is really on your site. There is nothing worse than entering keywords or descriptions that do not relate to the page they are on. Commonly, this will cause a search engine to block the page and/or the complete web site. In addition, tricking your customers or visitors to visit your site is not going to help your website.
A lot of search engines today are no longer simply relying off the Meta Tags, some don't even include them. Although a lot of web site designers are now saying to not include meta tags there are still some search engines that will utilize these tags and we strongly believe they should remain on each of your pages.
Robots.txt Search engines use robots (spider/crawler) to crawl and index your web page automatically. These robots often rely on the robots.txt to tell them what they can and cannot index on your website. If this file is missing from your web site it is possible that your website will not be indexed
or indexed properly. Make sure to at least have a basic robots.txt in your root directory.
E-mail If you allow your visitors to e-mail you, try to reply as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this can be very hard when you receive a lot of e-mail. For example, Computer Hope commonly receives around
100-200
messages a day, which can build up and make it extremely difficult to reply to every message. If you experience large volumes of e-mail, make sure to mention this to users before they e-mail you.
Mention your web address in your e-mails
When replying and/or sending out any e-mail, always make sure to have a signature that gives your web page's name, address, and your e-mail address. This helps remind users of your website's address and is an excellent free method of
free advertising. Don't send SPAM Do not participate in SPAM; not only do users commonly not pay attention to SPAM it can also cause your e-mail address and/or domain to be blocked denying any future e-mails you send. Free A lot of the people browsing the Internet are looking for free information, much like a user visiting a library; the user does not expect to pay to read a book. If your site contains free information,
make sure to mention it; for example: Click here for FREE Computer Technical Support. However, do not mention the word "free" unless your site truly offers something for free with no gimmicks. Although today this word is commonly abused, users who have followed your site from a link indicating it is free, only to find that it is not free, will lose respect for you and your company and will likely immediately leave. Domain / URL
It's highly recommended that if you plan on doing anything with your website
that it have its own domain name. When registering a domain name, make sure the name is a
short, simple, and easy to spell and remember. For example, computerhope is a much easier name to remember and type than computerhopesfreetechnicalhelp. Many of the common domain names have already been taken, so make sure that you have several names in your mind or down on paper.
Using a whois lookup will enable you to quickly determine what domains are
available, the GoDaddy whois
is an example of such a lookup.
Links
Link to other popular related pages and see if they participate in any type of link exchange. Google bases its results on who else is linked to your site and how popular their site is. The more people that link to you the more likely
you will be found, and in Google's case, the more likely you will be at the top of the search results.
Note: because of the amount of requests we receive Computer Hope does not
participate in any type of link exchanges. Let others know about your site Don't only post your site on a search engines, let your friends, family, co-workers know about the website by mentioning it. Not only is this a good way of getting the word out, it may also provide you with additional feedback about your website. Participate in online forums, newsgroups, or other community driven sites that relate to your websites topic while letting others know about your website through a signature or a simple link. When doing this, however, do not simply post your web page address, you must provide useful feedback and/or advice, otherwise you and/or your web page will get flame responses. Watch the traffic
/ logs Many Internet Service Providers (ISP) today provide its customers with the logs on who is visiting your site and/or charts that display your traffic information. Watch for how people are entering your site and where they may be exiting. Look for search words they are using to find your page. Act on this information; if a site is popular, see what you can do to make it even better, and/or try to link to other pages from the popular page to help generate even more traffic. If users are getting to your site using keywords that you may not have a lot of information on, expand on this information as well. If your Internet Service Provider does not have any type of statistics or log system or if you're looking for something more advanced there are numerous sites and services capable of generating reports for you. One great free example is
Google's Analytics service. This is an extensive service and almost always better than what your ISP is able to provide you. If your site has its own search engine or you've written your own search engine make sure to incorporate or view what people are looking for on your site and what is being found or not being found. This will give you a better idea of what type of content to add or expand on. Age Like a fine wine many search engines (such as Google) are also incorporating a websites age into the overall rank of a site. This means a site that has been online since 1998 is going to have a higher score than a site that has only been online since 2005. When setting up your domain make sure it's going to be something you will be happy with forever. In addition to how old the page is, paying to register the domain for several
years in the future can help increase your PageRank on Google.
Forum, bulletin board, or other user generated community Create an online forum or other section on your site that allows users visiting your site to make their own comments, questions, and posts is a great way not only to build your web site community but at the same time generate more content for your site. If you
already have a forum make sure that you've also read through document CH000898, which contains additional tips for making your forum more popular. You can see an example of a working forum on the Computer Hope forum section.
Register and become a member of popular online communities and social networks such as
StumbleUpon,
Facebook, and Myspace. Search optimization services and other paid services There are numerous companies that claim they can help improve how high up on a search engine result page your site will be listed. While it is possible for these services to improve your rankings it often will not occur for the queries you would like it to occur and/or is so insignificant that it is not worth the cost. It is much more beneficial to simply follow the recommendations on this page and
it wont cost you anything.
Submit to major Search Engines
Think before submitting your site
Before adding your link to any search engine or other site, put yourself in your potential viewers' shoes. What would you search for to get to get the topic you're looking for? When describing your site verify it is grammatically correct and it sounds ok, make sure keywords are plural instead of singular. For example, instead of computer, use computers, or use them both if you think it may be necessary. Try to use uncommon keywords that would help make your site different
from your competition. If your web page topic deals with something that may be misspelled, use both the correct spelling and misspelling of those words.
Where to submit your site
Below are some of the major search engines on the Internet. We've listed them from best places to not so great pages; however, all the below search engines are excellent. We have rated some lower because they are not the more commonly known search
engines. Also, if the search engine has a link "Direct add page" you can click on this link to get directly to the add link, this allows you to add, come back and continue down the list very fast.
Google - Today, Google is the ranked as the most popular and well-known search engine on the Internet and commonly is the only search engine used by many people. We highly recommend that you ensure your site is listed on Google. Google has a unique method of sorting pages, known as a PageRank. Each page on the Internet is given a rating. Although Google does not disclose all the factors used to create a PageRank, below are listings of some of things that are believed to help create the PageRank.
- How many pages link to your page, and the ranking of each of these pages. In addition, how many outbound links to other sites and their ratings.
- How much content is on the page and how often that content is updated.
- How much new content is added to the overall site.
- How old the content is.
Direct add link (new window)
Yahoo - One of the most visited and known search engines on the Internet. To add to Yahoo you will need to go through the index and find the page that has the category of your page. Choose the option to suggest a Site at the bottom of the page. Keep in mind Yahoo is the one of the hardest locations to get a link on because the each page is manually added and the majority of the Internet wants to be on Yahoo. Generally speaking, it could take anywhere from two to four months to get listed on their page. Direct add link (new window)
Altavista - Altavista is another frequently used search engine and service. When posting your site, you will be able to get your link on their page a lot faster than what you will on Yahoo,
which means you should post links to each of the main pages on your web site. Direct add link (new window)
Lycos - Lycos is another big search engine on the Internet that is an excellent place to post your URL.
Search Engines - See our search engine listing for additional search engines you can post your web page to. Analyze search engines Many search engines allow you to see who is linking to your website and/or how many of your links are on the search engine. Search engines that provide these features commonly have them in the advanced section of their search engine. Below are some examples of how this can be done in some of the more popular search engines. Google has one of the largest (if not the largest) search engine indexes on the Internet. Use it to your advantage to view who is linking to you or your competitors and what they're saying about your site. Use each of the below search terms to find additional information about how
you're indexed on Google and who is linking to you. site:www.computerhope.com computerhope - List each of the pages on your domain currently indexed on Google. This is a great way to determine how many entry points you have into your website. The more entry points the more likely a visitor is going to visit your web page. link:http://www.computerhope.com - Shows you pages linking to your web page. In this example this also includes your own pages linking to your own site. link:http://www.computerhope.com -site:computerhope.com - In this example you will get results of all pages linking to your web page except for links on your own domain. On AltaVista see who is linked to your page by searching for the below text, replacing our URL with your own URL. url://http://www.computerhope.com - Shows you the URLs Altavista currently has listed
on its search engine. link://http://www.computerhope.com - Shows you the URLs of pages Altavista has in its search engine that link to your web page. Alexa, an Amazon.com is another great location to check your sites statistics and compare your statistics with other pages. If your site is indexed on major search engines and popular enough you'll be able to view your sites traffic rank in comparison to all other page on the Internet, view a graph of traffic details, rank, page views, page visits per user, and much more.
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