Promotions and Marketing an updated view

Promotion is what you do in order for them to find you, whereas marketing is what you have done to your site to make them stay and maybe purchase something from you.Your website should be the center around which everything depends concerning your internet business. It is what people see when they type in or find your site via a search of some sort on the internet.I would say that over ninety percent of everyone in the world has a search engine site as what is called the 'homepage' ( that is the page that appears first ) when they open the browser of choice to access the internet. This site maybe full of additional 'bells and whistles', such as news feeds, weather and advertisements ( MSN, as an example ) but it is first of all a search engine. Many companies pay very large sums to have their business show up there.Many users have the homepage in this browser already there for them provided by their ISP ( Internet Service Provider ) when they get access, but I would say only about thirty percent keep it as what they see after the first few months. Many get one set already for them when they get their new PC. Most will change it to their favorite and this is determined by their age, gender and taste. The most common I see are MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and Google. ( Of course they get results too from feeders such as Altavista, etc. The information one of these can deliver to it's users is huge since they not only search their database for a return for the search term, but use other engines results to give the user more options that may match their query.The first item any engine will use to fill your search term are the words you use for your search, these are called Keywords. Everyone with a website wants to have their site appear as the top result for the keywords they have for their site. (You must know that the really big companies have never done this for their corp site. The name of the company itself is so well known ( such as Ford, Goodyear, Microsoft, and the like ) ).The battle by companies to be on this list is what generates all the income for these engines. The major ones are normally so pricey that only the companies with deep pockets for their promotional campaigns can be sure of being placed at the top, or on the first page of the results. This has driven many mid, small and just starting companies to go to lesser engines, and they in turn pay for top placement there. What this does is when their engine of choice is asked by one of the majors for results it gives them the paid results first. IT goes on and on before the non paid get to be seen ( and this can be many pages deep in a result listing ).Do not feel that all is lost. The major engines know that even tho their bread and butter comes from their paid advertisers, variety is still the spice of life. They have made other avenues for letting your site get higher in the listings. This is by the use of site popularity ( determined by traffic ) and links to your site. Of all of these, traffic and links are still in the reach of those with limited funds for promotions. NOT that you should ignore submissions to engines, directories, classifieds, and yes, even FFA and link sites.These still produce traffic ( like my friend, a long time actor once told me ' bad publicity is better than none' ). Now I should qualify this by saying those type of sites are themselves in various degrees, some giving their submissions longer time on the engine, thus making the link more solid for both parties. My site has over one hundred thousand pageviews a month, which at one time would have given it a very good rank, but now with all the other parameters put in, it is not in the top one hundred thousand anymore,according to Alexa. So I work more on creating links from other sources now. This takes more time, but the links are 'more better'. What amazes me is how many ignore MSN for the other engines since MSN normally shows more links to a site than any of the others for every site I have queried. You get these better links from submitting articles and having them distributed, from being on the internet for a long time ( that is having the same domain name ) and from being able to do a little every day. Promotions is something you must have done for your site daily. At what level and the amount of time you spend is up to you, but do not fall into the trap that quantity is best. Quality is what counts. Links are rated too. This is a site's PR. You want to link to other sites with higher PR's and have them link to you. You can do this indirectly by listing your site with engines etc with a PR count of 3 or better. You can find good places out there to list by spending hours and hours or by finding them already done for you.One example would be: http://www.topdirectories.info/You must use common sense here tho, and only submit your site to the categories that closely match your site. Many times I will skip a submission site because it may have no such category. To do so would be a waste of time, and money.You should also be a member of forums and participate, using your site in the 'about' portion, just as you should do in your articles.MarketingAs I stated above, this is what people see when they do enter your site.The most common blunder I see is that sites are not 're-freshed' often enough. That content is not changed, added to, or even the rest of the site looks the same as it did five years ago.Even a minor change will sometimes give your site a boost. Things like the background ( called theme ), the color of the text, things like that. This is because the search engine robots ( we call them spiders ) re-visit your site more often than you may think just to check for changes so they can up-date the database.Conclusion:Doing a little even day will pay off. Not letting your desire outweigh your common sense will show you are mature and serious. When you are taken seriously, you will make an income.

Comments? Questions? Email Here

© HowtoAdvice.com

How to Advice .com