CSC
112 - Lesson 7
The Final Touch
Now it the time to test your site and be sure everything looks
and works the way you want it to in as many browsers and computers
as you can. Check all the forms. Place an order for each of your
products. Click on all the links. If anything doesn't work, fix
it. Get everything write before you submit you site to the search
engines.
Submitting your Site to Search Engines
Having perfect navigation and relevant content is not enough
to make you site successful. You have to let the world know you
are open for business. Last weekend, I saw a sign at the airport
that said, "The man who advertises his business, has one."
You need to advertise your web site in order to have the amount
of visitors you need to make you endeavor successful.
Since most of us don't have the budget to advertise in the New
York Times, we will need to generate the majority of our traffic
through search engines, directories and other Internet related
search programs. Although I do recommend buying keywords, significant
free traffic can be generated through search engines if you know
how.
I won't go into great detail here about search engines placement
techniques because these have already been covered in lessons
on the CSC
110 and CSC
111 sections on Site
Promotion.
In this lesson, we will learn about tools that can help us optimize
our web pages faster in with greater accuracy.
Tools for Optimizing
In this class, we have been using software that is installed
on our server and this lesson will be no exception. As usual,
this software may or may not be similar to software that is provided
by your Internet host. There are many standalone programs that
do similar functions too. You may choose to use one of these programs
instead.
The search engine tools software for this class will give you
the basis for understanding and configuring software that you
may use in the future. This type of program compares your page
with a top rated page of your choice and shows you how they did
it.
Even with the software, this is a very time consuming process.
The program just tells you what to do, but you still have to do
the modify your pages yourself to optimize them against your competition.
Spend the time optimizing your pages. You'll be glad you did.
Search Engine Tools
This software can be used to secure good search engine rankings.
The way the software assists you in doing so is simple. It compares
a well ranking page to your page (the one you wish to obtain a
good ranking for).
By matching your page (the parts which matter to search engines)
to the well ranking page ('compare to' page) as closely as possible,
search engines will assign your page a similar ranking.
Note that this does not involve copying/stealing content from
the 'compare to' page. All you are doing is giving search engines
reasons to rank your page/site as well as the 'compare to' page.
Search
Engine Tools can be found at:
http://www.students.modemswitch.com/se_tools
Instructions
for using the Search Engine Tools provided on our server are online
for review.
Each copy of the software can be easily customized to blend in
with your site. The following files can be modified :
- header.html (control the look of the actual pages, change background,
use your own logo...)
- footer.html (control the bottom of each page, user your own
navigation)
There are many other programs that help you optimize your pages
for the search engines but one of the most well known is Web
Position Gold. I have used their program in the past and have
found it useful although I have had better luck following the
rules in my Site
Promotion lesson. The reporting features from Web Position
are some of the best. For reporting, I find Web Position Gold
very useful.
The folks from Web Position Gold also publish an excellent Newsletter
called "Market Position." Even if you don't wish to
subscribe, it is definitely worth viewing their current
and back issues, which are available online. Even though some
of the stuff in the back issues will be obsolete, much of it is
still relevant. I recommend printing out all of the issues from
at least the last twelve months and reading them. These people
are really into search engines.
There are many tools for submitting your website to search engines
and directories. Search the net and you will find many to choose
from but there is one that I do use:
World Submitter
http://www.worldsubmitter.com/?rhiggins
This site offers free submissions for up to five sites, which
are saved so you don't have to type them in again for free. Even
though the basic service is free, you are still required to sign
up to receive your login and password. A more comprehensive submission
program (up to 30 web pages) is available of a monthly fee.
World Submitter now submits URLs to over 1640 search engines
including Yahoo!, Open Directory Project (DMOZ), Hot Bot, AltaVista
and many other top worldwide search engines/directories as well
as Country-specific search engines/directories. They also submit
to an amazing 135000+ FFA (Free For All) link pages and 51000+
Classified Ads sites! All free and no catch ever!
World Submitter is so cool that I bought the premium membership
and I think it is the best submission service on the net (and
believe me, I have looked.)
