Why Promote?

18 May 2009

It is not enough to have built the fanciest and best-looking web site on the Internet if customers cannot find it. No online business will survive based on a 'build it and they will come' strategy. Its website must be promoted to ensure that search engines like Google and Yahoo list the business ahead of the competition. This requires a carefully considered approach to web site promotion. Online businesses need to consider the search engines as their biggest customer and need also to remember that effective search engine optimisation takes a lot of time, a lot of trial and effort and may involve waiting weeks and maybe even months before the effort pays off.

To do this effectively requires a detailed understanding of the algorithms used by the search engines, a working knowledge of metatags and how to tag website pages, and the ability to know how search engines use link popularity to rank web pages.

Sound complicated? Many online businesses think so while at the same time trying to drive profitability from the business and turn to specialist firms or to website promotion packages available free or at low cost or from their hosting provider or ISP.

Now it is possible to find free or low cost web hosting services. These are not the best route for search optimisation and it is well worth investing in a paid for host which is often faster and more reliable than free hosts. Also with a paid for host comes a domain name and this is a must for many search engines and directories. A domain name gives a site stature and authority. It shows potential customers that the business is serious and going to be around for some time longer than the time it takes to collect money.

And it should also be remembered that cheap web hosting accounts are often hosting all services on a single machine and so to keep down bandwidth demand that might crash the server they will often block search engine spiders from hitting the server. Server crashes are no good for an online business. And nor is a server which is unable to service its best customers, the search engines.

A better approach for any serious online business is to invest in a good hosting service which also offers a good promotion package based on the following criteria:

• What level of service availability do they guarantee?
• How easy it to switch providers and is there a minimum commitment?
• Will they host your chosen domain name?
• Do they back-up hosted websites?
• Will they offer the latest versions of software and security tools?

And it is always worth asking to see samples of actual ranking reports and only to buy if the results meet expectations, and also to ask other people about their experiences before any investment is committed. It might save money, time and hassle.

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