Launching a new website - a guide
One of the big challenges for newcomers to website development is knowing what to do to get a website showing up in the search results - in fact it’s probably the only real challenge, after the site has been built.
For people with an existing network of sites, or a few contacts, this can be straightforward - but for the ‘man in the street’ producing a website for an offline busines this is a big challenge. Plenty of people will tell you they can get a new site indexed and in the google results within a week. Most are not doing this unaided - some will have existing sites to help them along; some will be buying links (no longer recommended); and some will be referring to phrases that no-one cares about.
In an earlier post I deliberately included the phrase “small tent on a hillside in Tibet” - lo and behold I am number one for that exact phrase, and page 1 for the same phrase without quote marks. Yippee, I could shout, I’m an SEO genius - except no one ever actually looks for that phrase and it is no use to me at all.
The paradox is that a website will only show in the results if it has attracted incoming links - and it will only attract incoming links if it shows up in the results. And many sites for small offline businesses simply aren’t the kind of site that will ever attract links.
So what to do?
Experienced webmasters will tell you about the advantages of submitting to digg, stumbleupon etc - which should bring visitors to your site, who in turn will link to it if it is interesting.
Yeah, right. For most small businesses and non-webmasters this is living in Wonderland. It might work for SEO type websites but it isn’t going to work if I have a site about my local car repair garage or a holiday rental villa in Provence. Who is going to feel the urge to link to it? The only people who will see it will be my competitors, and they aren’t about to start sending their visitors my way.
These type of sites don’t get updated every day with thrilling news, they are just ‘normal’ sites promoting the millions of small businesses to be found around the world.
So is it a lost cause? Well, often - yes! But there are a few things you can try. First though, be sure your site is actually interesting, and attractive to look at. If you have an ugly site with a confusing navigation system you are likely to fail because any visitors you do get will hit the back button straightaway.
A few suggestions to help are:
- Include informative pages on your website. A timetable of servicing requirements for each model of car you repair; what a car owner should do before setting off on a long journey; five dangerous insects to avoid in Provence; how to find cheap flights to the south of France, etc. Pretty much every subject can think of something interesting to say!
- Rewrite the page as an article or two and submit it to ezinearticles or other article sites
- Find a forum related to your subject which allows you to include your website in your forum signature. Post informative and useful posts on the forum that help other people, and they will visit your site - and you get the link from the forum signature
- submit to a handful of free directories, and even better a few of the quality paid directories such as botw, joeant and clush. Yahoo directory is also good but costs $300 per year for a listing.
Link exchanges are frowned upon by google if their goal is to manipulate pagerank or position in the search results, but a few selective link exchange will still help you out. If you have a big villa with a pool, find a property owner in the same area with a small cottage and both recommend each others properties. Your car repair site could do an exchange with a local car sales garage. You’re looking for a similar subject but not direct competitors.
Don’t put these links in a ‘links’ page, but add a new page for ‘related services’ and write a bit about the other business, including a link along the way.
Having done the above, and waiting a couple of months, your site should start to show in the results. From this stage on you can either sit back and relax (wrong!) or keep trying to think of new articles to add to your site to make it more useful and interesting.