Top position web sites use search engine optimization to promote their high ranking websites in search engines and directories. This page contains tips on submitting and increasing site traffic and lots more valuable information to take your website to the top web position.

Optimise your website if you lose ranking. When a website loses its high web position, assuming nothing has changed in the website, it is because it was either using unethical search engine optimisation techniques and was found out, or because the search engines or directories changed their algorithms or because your opposition has sharpened their act by having their Web site optimised.

Google altered their algorithm in mid October 05 in what was termed the "Jagger update", (a similar update to the "Florida update" that occurred in Oct/Nov 03), which left many Webmasters wondering where their Web site/s had gone.

Take your Business website to top position – see our high ranking website results you be the judge

Expect more Emails – Once your site is live you can unfortunately expect more spam emails. The email address gathering robots trawl the web to compile their saleable email lists and it is impossible to not be included.

While they may give you the opportunity to “opt out” of their list do not respond because they then know that your email address is real and may elevate you to their “certain to receive list”. It is conceivable that a dozen or two spam emails a week will increase to thousands!
The cost to a business to buy 1,000,000 email addresses is less than US $30, so until spam email is banned, we all have to live with the problem.

Whats's this you say, haven't you heard of spam filters. Yes of course we have however you may find that they arrest genuine mail along with spam.

Avoid Website disqualification – Websites can be penalised or disqualified and at worst banned and black listed from search engines and directories by using query programmes. Google in particular adopt a harsh approach to websites making automated queries to the Google search engine.

Endeavouring to check your Google ranking using automated query programmes are against Google’s policy and can lead to your site being disqualified. In order to check your ranking on Google conduct a standard search, as distinct from an advanced search, for common keyword phrases that should retrieve your webpage. As with most search engines and directories you can conduct searches in either lower case, or capitals, as searches are not case sensitive.

Given that Google are among the leading search engines, conducting about 50% of all www searches, and they have been mimicked in the past by would be conquerors, it may be that other search engines could adopt similar policies. The first you will know is when your site disappears from the results therefore consider checking your site ranking manually also on the other search engines, and directories, just to be on the safe side.

You can read Google’s policies in full on their Web site link from our Useful Links page.

Return to Index

Ask friends to view your site for their feedback. Their visits should add some weight to your search popularity that can assist the algorithms to improve your web position. Ask that they view each page, which will also assist your sites page popularity in the search engine algorithms. Their feedback may also provide you with some worthwhile information.

Promote your website

Make certain that every piece of stationery has your Web address – letterheads, business cards, envelopes, address labels, fax cover sheets, invoices, receipts, emails, all advertising material including brochures and price lists.

Other areas to promote your Website – Depending on the nature of your business some additional promotional items and giveaways to consider may be - drink coasters, rulers, fridge magnets, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, desk-sets, calendars, t-shirts, key chains, car stickers, vehicle number plate frames, golf/baseball caps, golf balls, notepads, compendiums, clocks, watches, pens and pensets and letter openers.

A visit to one of the promotional products Websites will provide many more ideas.

We have provided a link from our Links page to Activeways Australia, one of the largest makers of drink coasters and promotional items in Australia.
They can produce small quantity runs and are extremely price competitive.

If in the tourism industry perhaps consider postcards, letterheads and envelopes and if you operate a courtesy bus (even if you use contractors) or transfer vehicles consider having them sign written with your business name and Web address.
Perhaps have magnetic signs printed for the vehicles and maybe they could also be displayed on your personal vehicle.

In your Yellow Pages listing include your web address and consider a direct link to your Web site from “Yellow Pages On-Line” directory.

Your company cars and delivery vehicles can expose your web address far and wide.

Television and Radio advertisements should mention your Web site and if you have a “message on hold” for your telephone system, re-record the message to mention your Web address.

Consider providing yourself and staff with printed or embroidered shirts featuring your company name, logo and of course your web address.

There are probably local sporting teams seeking sponsorship and you will probably be permitted to have a sign on their home ground field.

Perhaps your brochure could be found in books in the local library on subjects relevant to your business.

Your local Chamber of Commerce may appreciate you imparting your specialist knowledge at their meetings.

Consider testimonials on your website from delighted clients, preferably "high profile" well known businesses.

Enter industry competitions with your website.

Issue press releases when your business has a newsworthy event.

If you use TV or radio broadcast your web address to all viewers and listeners.

Return to Index

Offer ezine – (electronic magazine)
A newsletter is a great way to stay in touch as well as keeping your business name in front of existing (and potential) customers. It may offer them specials or provide informative news but it will have your Web address on it meaning your site on their monitor is only a “click” away.

Consider archiving past issues on your Website particularly for “newsy” ezines to entice your Visitors to return to your website.

It is only recommended that you start a newsletter if you, or your designated staff, are prepared to issue it regularly because many newsletters start with enthusiasm that dissipates over time when it becomes a real chore.

With new regulation in Australia unsolicited email is banned from 11 April 2004. In future your ezine will need to be permission based so have a “subscribe to our free newsletter”, (probably best visible on your main page).

Within the ezine/newsletter advise the recipient how to “opt out” of your mailing list if they wish to unsubscribe.

There is a way around getting your news out to interested parties. You can have a "blog" on your website which is merely a link to your news page.

A blog, unlike an email, requires only that the site visitor clicks on your blog link from your web page to be taken to your blog and as such, does not contravene spam email leglislation.

If you elect to put such a link to your blog, make the link appealing, in order that site visitors are enticed to read it, and make it clearly visible from your Home / Main / Index page preferably. Our suggestion is you place your blogs link below the text links at the bottom of your page.

A blog, if kept up to date with newsy items, will also bring return visitors to your Website and the more visitors your site receives helps its rankings with the search engines.

Again, like newsletter emails, don't start blogging unless you, or your designated staff member, have the time and energy to keep it up to date.

Return to Index

Track site’s performance through Site statistics.
Site stats if properly understood will provide invaluable information about Visitors to your Website.

You can learn how many hits your site receives and more importantly how many visitors, how long visitors stayed on your site, how many pages they viewed, which page they entered through and exited from, what part of the world they came from, the time they visited.
Most important of all you can learn about the search term or word your site Visitor used to find your website.

You can also determine the referring search engine or directory that retrieved your webpage.
Once you have a clear understanding of your site’s statistics you will be able to capitalise on your knowledge throughout your webpages.

Return to Index

When you change pages or add new pages, which is inevitable as you increase or decrease products or services offered or change images on your page and for a multitude of other reasons, thoroughly test the site’s pages that have been altered or added to your site.

Test the site for HTML errors, Page loading time - including image sizes (bytes), Browser compatibility, Broken links, *Spelling and Grammar mistakes (be cautious of automated American software that may alter your English spelling to US) and META tags for spamming.

Don’t fail to alter the META tags when you alter a page to include or omit the exclusion or addition to your site.

* Another person probably best does proof reading Spelling and Grammar - because we tend to miss our own mistakes.

Keep the site up to date with fresh content within your pages – nothing will turn your visitor away quicker than old (and perceived outdated) information. There is some evidence that refreshing Website content periodically also helps with ranking.

Return to Index

Pay for position – Sponsored sites that you see at the top of the search results have been growing in number as websites, in their never-ending quest for high ranking, pay for placement.

As searchers realise those results have paid for placement they may in future be more inclined to ignore the sponsored sites and look for the webpages retrieved for their keyword or phrase search.

The alternative to pay for placement is ethical Search Engine Optimisation you be the judge

Return to Index

Submission to Search Engines and Directories – Search Engine Submission beyond that carried out immediately after the Website’s launch should only be necessary when major changes have been made to your site assuming your site has been designed correctly in the first instance and used an ethical Search Engine Optimisation firm.

It is not necessary to submit any pages other than your main page because the search engine spiders will follow your links to your inside pages. It is possible with some search engines to submit all your webpages while others prohibit it and will penalise you for spamming. Know the rules with each or play safe and only submit your main page.
If you know which search engines accept submission of all your site’s pages, it may help the inside pages to be indexed more quickly if you submit every page.

The Directory Editors take a more serious approach to being spammed and are not very tolerant in having their time wasted so play by the rules or face the consequences.
It is essential to be indexed in the Directories because they provide results for many of the search engines.

There are numerous software programmes available to D.I.Y. and many search engine registration firms that will submit your site, however we have always “hand submitted” every website to the major Search Engines and to the Directories without exception. Although time consuming if it achieves the desired results it is worth it - you be the judge

Some search engines, including Altavista and AllTheWeb, (which are now owned by Yahoo! and have replaced Google in Yahoo’s Web searches* more below), now refuse submission from auto submit programmes.

When submitting to the Directories the golden rule is to choose the correct category for your site submission. If you submit to the most appropriate category editor you will maximise your chance of being accepted so take the time to study where your site belongs otherwise your submission is a waste of time.

* Yahoo now own the powerful Inktomi, AllTheWeb/FAST, and AltaVista search engines. They bought Overture in mid 2003 for US$1.6 billion and Overture had already acquired AllTheWeb and AltaVista.

Yahoo! until end March 04 used Google for “Web” results to supplement their own Yahoo! “Directory results”. Many website owners who received Visitors from the “Web” results in Yahoo! are devastated now that Altavista, Alltheweb, Inktomi and Overture have replaced Google’s search engine results, and their Website is no longer retrieved.

The Yahoo! results are limited because Yahoo’s human editors are firstly particular about the Yahoo Directory inclusions and secondly there are many websites that were not included in the Yahoo Directory prior to December 2001 and have not been submitted and indexed since.
That was when Yahoo started charging US$299 for submission only to be considered and with no guarantee and if accepted US$299 each anniversary.
Sites in their Directory prior to that time they refer to as “Grandfather” sites and the probability is that those sites will remain in Yahoo’s Directory without paying.

The Yahoo! owned search engine, AllTheWeb and Altavista still offer free submission. You are required to register with Yahoo! from the link Add URL at the foot of the Altavista and AllTheWeb webpage, through a relatively simple form.

In mid April 2005 Google introduced changes to their submit URL page. Possibly an indication that they may cease to accept automatically submitted sites in future, they now ask that a code be typed in a box on their submission page. Many Web builders and Webmasters have been using auto-submission tools in the past but they should now hand submit new sites to the Google engine.
We remind readers that Google as of early April 05, still handle 47% of searches worldwide* and to not be in the Google results is not an alternative most site owners will accept. *It is our belief that in September 2007, Google have around 75/80% of the Australian search market.

It is likely many Webmasters using auto submission software believed that the software submitted their site to Altavista and AllTheWeb. It is important they check their listing exists in both, and if not, they should hand submit their site in order to be in the Yahoo! Directory “web” results now Google has been replaced by Altavista and AllTheWeb.

Critical Directory submission to DMOZ - DMOZ is a critical Directory in which to be listed. It provides results for AOL and Netscape among others but you must submit to the appropriate category editor. To simplify your navigating through their massive index to find the most appropriate category to submit to, search for your business by type, to retrieve the most relevant category. We have a link to DMOZ which is also known as ODP, Open Directory Project, from our Useful Links page.

Special Subject Search Engines – Having submitted your Website to the general search engines and directories you may consider submitting to the many industry specific search engines that are available. A search in Google for “my industry” search engines should retrieve ample results or visit the searchenginecolossus link from our Links page for a comprehensinve list of search engines by country and category.
If you want to submit your website to Country specific search engines there are many that will only index the URL's for sites registered in that country. I.E. Certain Australian Search Engines will only take (free) submissions from .au sites.
Once you determine their submission policies are for sites within their country registry only, move along, because your submission will be a waste of your time.

MSN now have their own search engine and knowing they don't do things by halves it is conceivable that MSN's search engine could rival Google and Yahoo! within a short period of time.

Return to Index

Be patient – Now that your site has been submitted to the search engines and directories it will take some time, depending on the individual search engine and directory, for it to be indexed.

How long will it take before search engines index our site – Many Web site owners and naive Webmasters expect that their site will be instantly indexed and at the top of the rankings – well that's never been the case.
Google especially are likely to leave their sites in their "sandbox" for many months.

Ranking alters – You will notice that your website rating will alter from time to time which need not concern you providing it is only one or two places but if you notice a major slip in ranking it is wake up call to find the reason and correct the slide.

Search results vary – The search engine result pages (SERPs) retrieved when you conduct keyword searches, will vary from country to country, and time to time. This is quite normal as the search engines and directories up date their information at different times the number of results for those keyword searches will vary.

Set your Home Page to www.yourwebsite – there is some evidence that hits on your Website are considered within the search engine algorithms to measure your site’s popularity. Setting your Home Page to your site on all your computers (and you might ask close friends and family to do likewise) will enable an extra hit on the site each time you go on the Web.

Return to Index

Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine placement or search engine positioning (SEP) is a waste of time for a website that has not first been optimised.
Just as you shouldn’t consider submitting your site to search engines and directories until Search Engine Optimization has been completed - nor should you need to promote your website in any other way, including SEM.

Click Fraud - If you pay per click on a search engine for visitors to retrieve your Web site you really have no control over who repeatedly clicks on your site. This means your advertising budget can be wasted by vindictive opposition businesses.
(In March 2006 a leading search engine was fined US$90m. for click fraud)

Our Web site is launched now what?
The Web, being a relatively "new" marketing tool for business, needs better understanding by senior managers who too often leave it to their IT staff.

Management need to be more involved in IT decisions relating to marketing their products or services in particular.

The exponential growth of business sales through the Internet is staggering. According to Visa International, Australians spent $617.1 million on-line using a Visa Card alone in March 2005 (up 38% on March 2004).
In the US Visa reports sales on-line in the same month of $11.6 billion (up 37% on the previous year), and in the UK sales of $2.9 billion (a rise of 49% over the previous year).

Business managers need to understand what can be achieved through a strong Web presence that can produce profits well beyond an acceptable return on investment.

Allowing a business Web site to be run exclusively by IT managers, with little input from marketing managers especially, is not very smart.

Budgetting for Web site - Management must appreciate that the costs of maintaining their Web site, which includes Search Engine Optimisation, need to be budgeted for beyond the initial launch of the Web site.

When it comes to profitability, the buck stops with management and not with their IT staff.

So you have finally created a site that has high ratings on search engines and directories and your sales are up. The effort and time and money invested have made it all worthwhile BUT you have likely upset your competitors. They want to regain their top web position because they are losing business to you. You have not only hurt their pride, you have altered their bank balance and threatened their security and they will want their top web ranking position back.

They will generally seek the SEO professional’s help to find how they can retake their coveted top web position so this is no time to become complacent and rest on your laurels.
To see examples of websites that consistently retain top web position see our website’s ranking report you be the judge

Return to Index

Do It Yourself Webmaster –
There is no reason you can not act as Webmaster for your business website providing you can afford time away from your business and are prepared to devote yourself whole heartedly to the task.

Experienced Webmasters know only too well that care for a successful website can be a consuming experience. They know their dedication borders on obsession wherein a website can rule their lives to the exclusion of family relationships and their own personal leisure time.

Your business has grown through enthusiasm and effort no different to looking after a Website. It requires that same fire inside you so don’t take on your Webmaster role unless you have time and care passionately, and continue to care to keep your site in the top web position.

If you take the time after the site’s launch, probably an hour a day, you should handle the role with relative ease assuming you have acquired the necessary knowledge and skills.

You will need to analyse your web's statistics and stay abreast of the search engine and directory changes. Subscribing to worthwhile ezines, of which you should receive about 10 a day, (mostly from the US and Europe overnight), is essential.

Once you have digested the information in those newsletters, if any changes are required you will implement those changes and test the Web site.

We are not suggesting that you need to make changes daily or even weekly but if it becomes obvious over time that there are changes required then make them but only when the algorithm changes seem permanent.

Consider a course in HTML coding and XHTML, the new generation coding that will likely replace HTML within a year or two.

Copywriting and content editing to a professional standard is essential if you intend adding content or altering existing information on your site.

A course in graphic design would be of benefit to you, which would include learning Paint Shop Pro in order that you can optimise the images as we discussed in the Design page and you may care to become familiar with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator also.

To maintain the site we suggest Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and while there are other programmes you may prefer you will still need a reasonable level of competency.

You will find that a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) programme such as Cute FTP will make the task of uploading pages to the Host a little easier for you.

A thorough understanding of the “tools” used by Search Engine Optimisation specialists and diligent webmasters to test the site is essential.

Remember to back up your Web site every time you change it. By back up I mean burn the whole site to CD and don't simply depend on the copy stored on your local machine.

The only downside in acting as Webmaster is if you get it wrong which will take you some time to realise but in the interim you are losing money.

Return to Index

Attracting site Visitors
The following article contains tips to help make your website a success.

Courier-Mail, Sat 9 Feb 2002



How to “Attract a Crowd” for your website, see you be the judge

Return to Index