Once you have your web site up and running, how will users surfing the Internet find your web site? Why will they visit your web site and not your competitors? How can you drive useful (relevant and targeted) traffic to your site who may be interested in your product or service?

In this section we hope to shed some light on these questions as we discusses various aspects of web site promotion including different forms of advertising and getting your site found in search engines.

Ways To Advertise Your Web Site

The Basics
Before looking at more aggressive advertising methods it is important to remember the more passive advertising at your disposal. Add your new web site address to all of your company or organisation stationary such as business cards, letter heads and invoices etc. Consider contacting current or past clients with a mail shot to announce the launch of your new web site and perhaps consider an incentive such as a discount or special offer for Internet orders.

Another good form of passive advertising is your e-mail address! If you have your own domain name then the second part of your e-mail address will also remind people of your web site address. Again be sure to include this on all stationary, advertising and other publications. Also ensure all past and current clients are aware of these new contact details. E-mail is vast becoming the preferred contact method for most organisations because of its flexibility and low costs.

Traditional Advertising
You can use many standard forms of advertising to promote your web site, those you choose would depend upon the nature of your product or service. If you run a local service then advertising on local radio and press may provide dividends, or for a larger national service a TV campaign or other national media might be more appropriate. Also consider producing a press release, especially if you are a charity or other public service type organisation.

Internet Advertising
Without doubt this is the most successful form of advertising websites. Most users first visit to a web site will be via a link on another web site. This could be a text link, a banner advertisement or link obtained from an online directory or search engine (see below). Online advertising agencies exist that will show your advertisement on other targeted web sites and will usually charge on a 'per display' (CPM) or 'per click' (CPC) basis. They usually offer advanced tracking and statistics allowing you to fine tune your advertising based on performance.

Search Engines & Why They Are Important

What is a Search Engine?
A search engine or directory is an online tool used by Internet users to locate web pages on a particular subject or topic. Search engines, the largest of which being Google, are usually keyword related allowing the user to search using keywords or phrases and see a list of relevant results. Directories, with Yahoo being the largest, are organised by topic and tend to follow a tree like structure. Getting your web site listed on these search engines and directories is essential to the success of any web site. Did you come across this site via a search engine? It's highly likely that you did!

How to make a Search Engine friendly Web Site
In order to be effective a search engine must be able to show your listing when a surfer performs a relevant search. The goal is to appear on the first few pages of the returned listing, ideally the first page. A search engine will read your web site and then rank it based upon a set of pre-defined rules. The key to success is to ensure a search engine is able to retrieve enough data from your web site to be able to rank it for words and phrases you wish to be found by. For example 'used' and 'cars' would be relevant keywords for a car dealership.

Use the following tips when building your web site to help make your web site search engine friendly and ensure relevant and productive search engine results:

	Identify Keywords - The first thing to do is identify 5 or 6 keywords or phrases relevant to each page on your site. Search engines usually index individual pages rather than the entire site so ensure your selected keywords actually appear within the page itself.
	Page Title - Include keywords for the page within the page title (in the HTML <TITLE> tag) and ensure it acurately describes the content of the page. Search engines will often use this as the clickable part of your listing so keep it brief and do not just cram it full of keywords.
	Page Headings - Search engines may pay particular attention to words contained in headings on your page (the HTML <H1> - <H5> tags) so including keywords and phrases here are a good idea.
	Page Content - As with headings on your page, it is also vital that your targeted keywords appear within the actual text on your web page, ideally more than once. Do not create pages that are just crammed full of keywords as these will likely serve to lower your ranking when anti-spam rules are applied.
	Image Tags - Try to include at least one keyword or phrase in each of your image 'alt' tags, especially if the images are also links. Search engines cannot read images and so will fall back to the text within the images 'alt' tag. Search engines rely on text to properly rank your site therefor a web site made entirely of images is not recommended.
	Link Text - Words used within actual link text are also given priority by search engines and so should contain appropriate keywords where possible and should link to a 'relevant' page.
	META Tags - Within the <HEAD> section of your HTML code you can provide additional information for search engines within META tags including your targeted keywords, a description of the page and also allows you to specify which pages should be indexed an how often. Use the same rules as above when providing this information.
	Get Linked - Search engines will up your ranking if other 'relevant' sites link to your own, the more the better. A link exchange, where you link to another website and they link back to you have become common place but only approach web sites that are relevant to your own.
	Submit Your Site - Most directories require that you submit your website for listing via a special submit page on the directory web site. Some search engines will allow you to submit your site and others will find your site by following links found on other web sites. It can take some time for your listing to appear but once it does it will be regularly read by the search engine and your listing updated automatically.

Some words of caution
Some search engines contain "Anti-spam" features to help prevent abuse of the ranking system. A page containing nothing but repeated keywords will not only lower your rankings but could get your site banned altogether. Keywords need to be embedded within other relevant text on your page and do not target non relevant keywords.

Some directories and search engines will not list your site if they cannot find contact information and a privacy policy, therefore ensure these items are present on your site and easily found by someone reviewing your site. Yahoo for example will actually look at your website before deciding whether to list you and what category to place your site in.

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