Getting Hits on Your Web Site

It's one thing to want to make money from your Web site, but if you don't get the page views, you won't make the money.

This article is not going to give you any long lost secrets that will bring your site to the top of every search engine, but it will help you get more hits.

1. Submit your site to search engines
This may seem obvious, but a lot of people don't do that, hoping that the spiders will somehow magically find their site. While this may happen, why leave it up to chance? There are some great programs out there that will help you do your submissions quickly and for free. Some of my favorites are listed on my Promoting Your Web Page net links section.

2. Use meta tags and use them well.
Well formed meta tags will get your site higher in the search engines that use them than many sites without meta tags or sites with poorly written meta tags. My article on meta tags explains a lot about meta tags and how they work.

3. Request reciprocal links
If you have a page of links that are to external sites, why not write to them and ask if they will link back to you? For one thing, this brings them awareness of your site, and you might get a link. I don't recommend demanding links (along the lines of "I'll link to you, but only if you link to me") as this can seem rude. When you write to a site to tell them you've linked to them you are telling them that you find their site valuable, and a compliment is much more likely to win you a return link.

4. Use formal link exchanges
There are Internet companies where all they do is set up links and banners for various sites to use and promote one another. Some of the best known ones are Link Exchange and Banner Exchange.

5. Advertise your site
Where ever you are, and whatever you do, you should talk up your site. Your email should have your site URL, and possibly a small blurb about what people can find there. If you are willing to spend the money, you can get business cards, shirts, toys, novelties, and more to give away with your site URL on them. Keep in mind, I am not advocating sending unsolicited email or annoying your friends with commentary about your site, but if you write a site about dogs and don't tell your Doberman loving friend about the fawn dobie photos you just put up on your site, you are missing out on a marketing opportunity.

6. Keep them coming back
If you have a site that changes on a regular basis, and the content is compelling and useful, your readers will come back. And in the time between when they left and returned, they may (and most likely will after two or three visits) tell someone else about your site. ("And she told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on..."). Also, every time they come back is another page view for you, another advertisement served, or another chance for you to sell your product. In my article If You Build It... ...Will They Come?, I discuss a number of suggestions for making your site compelling to keep people coming back.

by Jennifer Kyrnin