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To Black Knight- attracting more visitors
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
How can I, or anyone else with a website, get more people to go there, especially target groups of people?
And, how can you make a site more interactive for users ?
Thanks <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
And, how can you make a site more interactive for users ?
Thanks <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
0
Comments
RNT has the right general idea in his post above. Links from other sites are always worthwhile, especially links from sites that have a similar topic (i.e. appeal to people who are likely to especially enjoy your site).
One thing though, never ever do those 'submit your site to 3,000 search engines for free' things. They are cons. All they are is a couple of genuine search engines (who anyone can submit to anyway) and about 2,994 spammy 'Free for All' (FFA) links pages that no-one ever visits. In fact, some of the search engines will actually penalize the search rankings of any sites listed on FFA pages.
When seeking links, always consider whether the place the link will appear is the kind of place whose recommendation you'd trust. If it isn't, dont waste time getting your link there. No-one is likely to trust (and click) its links anyway.
The most valuable place to get listed is in a proper Web Directory. There are three really important ones (i.e. lots of people use them).
Now web directories such as Yahoo.com / Yahoo.co.uk , Looksmart.com / LookSmart.co.uk , and dmoz.org are a bit like search engines, but are edited by hand by a team of editors. A real search engine is fully automated and uses robotic 'spiders' to find and list sites, Directories still have editors.
This brings us to the first problem specific to your site. Directory editors review sites, and are looking only to include the best and most accessible in each category... and accessibility is a problem on your site.
Firstly, you are using FRAMES. To search engine spiders, webTV users (an ever growing number), or people with older browsers or text-based browsers, frames are a no-no. Frames are a way of piecing multiple separate documents (web pages) into a single browser window. Doesn't work on older browsers nor on webTV, nor can most search engines handle frames.
Instead, there are a pair of html tags called NOFRAMES tags
<NOFRAMES>
anything you want people without FRAMES support to see goes here.
</NOFRAMES>
These go on the Frameset page, the one where the FRAMES tags are. At the moment, you have the following content...
<noframes>
<body>
<p>This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.</p>
</body>
</noframes>
Hmm, not very helpful or informative for WebTV users or search engine spiders. Not even a set of links to each of your content pages. The stuff between the NOFRAMES tags is all that most spiders can 'see' apart from the TITLE and metatags on this page.
Because of that, you increase the chances that a Web directory editor will decide that your page isn't accessible enough to all users, and refuse to list the site. If you really really must use FRAMES, then you need to provide links to all of your content pages in the NOFRAMES area. You'll also need to embed a link to your homepage into each of those content pages so people can get back there easily, or find their way there if a search engine were to send them straight to a content page outside of the Frameset.
If you want the masses of traffic that search engines can bring, you really should create a sub-level of the site with different versions of each content page with a full navigation menu on each. Not a javascript drop-down menu either - people without frames won't have javascript either, and again, spiders can't understand JavaScript or follow links in a JavaScript menu.
To do that, create a new sub-directory (folder) in your site called something like 'frameless' and place in it copies of each of your content pages that are redesigned specifically for the people (or spiders) who don't support frames. Place links to those pages in the NOFRAMES area of your page and lo, your site is fully accessible to all.
Right, now you are ready to submit to some web directories.
First up is Yahoo. Now Yahoo is hard to get listed in, mainly because they get literally thousand and thousands of submissions each day. They simply discard any submission that doesn't grab their attention right away - especially if they already have a lot of sites listed under that category. Yahoo is worth persisting with though, even if you only get listed under 'Personal homepages'.
Submit your site carefully. Read their guidelines and follow them. Select the category where you want to be listed carefully and realistically. Then fill in the form, proof-read it carefully, and hit the submit button. If you are lucky, you could be listed within the week.
However they tend to reject at least 95% of submissions out of hand. So if after 6 weeks you haven't been listed there (or in another category, search to make certain) you can resubmit.
Rethink the description and category and make doubly sure it is the most fitting category for your site from the editors point of view. It can take upto a year of trying to get listed, but keep going, it is worth it if and when they finally do include your site.
Right, having done the hardest one, you should do dmoz.org next. Now it is quite possible you have never heard of dmoz. Maybe you think that if you haven't even heard of it, then it can't have many users?
Not so, for the dmoz.org directory is open source, and is the data used to make the google directory, the AOL directory, the Netscape directory, and hundreds upon hundreds of others. One submission gets you into all of those other directories when they next update their data from dmoz (about every 6 weeks or so).
Dmoz is short for Directory Mozilla, named in honour of Netscape's open source MOZILLA project, and its editors are all volunteers. In fact anyone can volunteer to help build and maintain this wonderful directory.
Right, well the basic idea is the same as Yahoo, but they don't reject as many sites. Not nearly as many. Find a category, choose your description carefully, looking at what the editor has allowed as descriptions already in that category for guidance about the length or style.
You may see that directories use third-person in their descriptions. No 'you can' or 'we provide' stuff. Also, don't use exclaimation marks (editors get sick of those) and never use the words, 'etc', or 'and more' when describing your content.
Hmmm, that's enough for now, plenty to be getting on with there. <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Please do have a read of the following links though, as they will help you understand more about directories and search engines, and how they find results to people's searching.
http://www.aim-pro.com/helpfiles/submissions.html
This is an older guide to submitting to search engine and web directories, but is still relevant and true today. Read it. Twice. <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
http://www.webmarketingplus.co.uk/marketing_faq/editor_description.html *
This page concerns the way (and reasons) that directory editors may change the submitted description.
http://www.webmarketingplus.co.uk/seo_positioning/tutorials/keywords.html *
This page explains key words (which are mentioned quite a lot in the other articles) and details what they are, and how to select the best key words to use for your own site.
http://www.webmarketingplus.co.uk/seo_positioning/basics/index.html *
Basic tutorial about getting listed in search engines that is more recent. This is specifically about search engines, rather than web directories, but it will help you prepare for the next step.
http://www.aim-pro.com/helpfiles/metatags.html
This slightly older page discusses META tags and how to use them.
* = Pages marked with a * are on my (unfinished) personal site.
[ 16-03-2002: Message edited by: Black_Knight ]