5 WAYS TO GET YOUR WEBSITE NOTICED

5 WAYS TO GET YOUR WEBSITE NOTICED
BY: MAUI REYES
your website is just one of the billion sites
parked on the world wide web. chances are, you
DON'T THINK YOURS WILL EVER GET NOTICED.
we hear your cries for cyber attention. here are
five ways to get people clicking on to your
SITE.

1.) make sure it's professional looking.
NO ONE LIKES LOOKING AT WEBSITE THAT REMINDS
them of a book report they wrote back in school.
invest in learning a good web design program
(DREAMWEAVER MX AND MICROSOFT FRONTPAGE ARE GOOD
picks), and let your creative juices flow. make
sure it's compelling, well-designed, and
ORGANIZED. PEOPLE DON'T EXACTLY FIND IT FUN TO
weed through haystacks of cyberfiles to get the
information that they want.
ON THAT NOTE, DON'T MAKE IT A HEAVY SITE.
putting up some flash intros may be great eye
candy, but the average internet surfer only
WAITS 10 SECONDS FOR A PAGE TO LOAD, AND THEN
they're off to the next.

2.) PUT YOUR URL ON EVERY SEARCH ENGINE
possible.
putting your url on business cards and bugging
YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO CHECK OUT YOUR SITE
won't exactly increase traffic. submitting it to
search engines will make it easier for people to
FIND YOU, PROVIDED THAT YOUR WEBPAGE CARRIES THE
topics they're looking for. to understand how a
search engine works, think of it as a "spider":
IT CRAWLS THROUGH YOUR WEBSITE, PICKING UP WORDS
and information which would later be indexed in
the search engine's database. so make sure you
PEPPER YOUR SITE WITH KEYWORDS YOU THINK ARE
relevant to what people are looking for. web
directories, like yahoo!, are operated by humans
WHO ACTUALLY CATEGORIZE THE WEBSITES THEMSELVES.
if you don't feel like submitting your website
to numerous directories, consider subscribing to
SITES LIKE WWW.SUBMIT-IT.COM, WHO, FOR A FEE,
will automatically submit your site to search
engines and directories for you.

3.) link everywhere.
find other sites that carry similar content as
YOURS AND ASK TO EXCHANGE LINKS. CREATE BANNERS
to be placed on other peoples' websites, and
offer to the same for them on your site. add
YOUR URL ON YOUR E-MAIL SIGNATURE. JOIN WEBRINGS
if you must--there's nothing like strength in
numbers.

4.) advertise offline.
the world of cyberspace isn't enough to get you
NOTICED. WRITE UP PRESS RELEASES AND SEND THEM
to local newspapers and magazines. print out
fliers to be distributed. just make sure that
YOUR SITE IS ALREADY UP AND RUNNING TO AVOID
giving people a bad impression (no one likes
getting pumped up for something only to get
DISAPPOINTED).

5.) interact with your readers.
PUT UP FORUMS OR MESSAGE BOARDS FOR YOUR
visitors to interact with each other. chat rooms
are often time-consuming for some, while message
BOARDS ALLOWS THEM TO CHECK BACK EVERY SO OFTEN
for replies. create an e-mail list so you can
update your visitors about new developments, and
ALWAYS BE OPEN TO FEEDBACK--THAT'S WHAT WILL
make your site even better.

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