How to promote a blog or Website for free

Every blogger wants his blog to become famous and get millions of views but this is not possible unless your blog is among the top of the Search Engine results, no one will know your page exists. The Internet consists billions of blogs or pages and millions more appear everyday.This page will help you in improving your search engine ranking and page quality using some important tips.We suggest everyone, reading this whole page so nothing is missed.

Topics that we discuss about for blog promotion on this page:

1. Content
2. Domain, titles and URLs
3. Navigation and layout
4. Keep it simple, clean and fast
5. Meta tags and robots.txt
6. E-mail
7. Let others know about your Website
8. Remind users of your site
9. Watch the traffic, logs and keywords
10. Forum or other user generated community
11. Submit and promote your site to search engines
12. Analyze search engines
13. watch for errors

Content:

• Create a new and original content

By far the most significant step any site can do is create new and original content.
Search engines use web robots (spider/crawler) designed to search a website and grab keywords and text from thewebsite to be listed on their search engines. If your site does not have a lot of content your chances of being found are significantly decreased. For example if your web page has 10 pages and your competitor has 100 pages. It is a lot of more likely that your competitor's website will found first.

• Update content frequently

Update and add new content frequently. If your site contains frequently updated content.
Visitors have yet another reason to return and bookmark your site and search engine crawlers will visit your website more often. We recommend to create at least 2-3 pages of new content weekly or even better a new page everyday. Sites that are not been updated in over a month abandoned page by most visitors.

• Add content even if your site sells products only

Most users do not visit a website only to purchase a product. If your site is trying to sell something, it must have complete information about the product such as how to setup the product, how it can be used, reviews and comments from other users about your products. Not only will this bring more visitors to your site, it is also likely they will convert into visitors that buy what is being sold.

• Format the content

Format your pages content in an easy to read and scan format. This can be done by creating easy to read, short and catchy headings. Doing this will make your web page more enjoyable to read and help to reduce your page bounce rate.

          

• The importance of first paragraph

The first paragraph of text is the most important paragraph on the page. Search engines pay close attention to the first paragraph of the page and the first paragraph is what is going to catch readers eyes. Placing important key words into this paragraph and making sure it is well written can help to improve your rank and will decrease your bounce rate.

• Make sure each page has enough content

Individual web pages that contains only a few dozen words do not help your page or your visitors. Make sure every page has at least 200 words.

• Add a catchy picture

People are visual creatures, adding one or more pictures that help grab visitor's eyes, build interest and make sure they don't leave your site immediately. When you are adding a picture also make sure that to add an alt tag to the image that describes the picture and has keywords that a search engine is also going to notice.

• Free

Most people on the Internet expect information to be free. If your site contains free information, be sure
to mention it. For example 'Free download softwares' is much more catchy than 'Download softwares'.

Domain, titles and URLs     

• Domain

If you plan on doing anything on your web page, a domain name is a must. When registering a domain  name make sure the name is short, simple and easy to spell and remember. For example thewebsearch is much more easier to remember than thewebsearcheseverything . Many of the common domain names already have been taken, so try to think as many name as possible. Doing Whois  lookup is an easy way to determine what domain names are available.

• Page title

          Most search engines use the title of your web page when displaying your site in their search results. 
          Therefore, it is always a smart idea to put keywords into the title of each of your pages. However, 
          keep the title short (at most 5 or 6 words), use words that a potential visitor may be searching for, and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

make the title understandable. For example, this  pages title is "Secrets and tips of promoting your web page and blog", this title is not only descriptive but also uses keywords: secrets, web page and promoting.   
    

Notice: The maximum size of a title before it gets cut off is 70 characters.

Tip: Try pacing your most important keywords at the beginning of the title.

• URL Keywords

Add keywords into your URL by adding subdirectories that are your keywords. Use this to your advantage, search engines today convert your URL to text and use it as a method of indexing your web page.

Notice: Do not get carried away with using keywords in your URL. Having a short URL is also a good method of making sure your link is shared. Nothing worse than trying to send someone a link to a web page in an e-mail or chat only to find the link is four-lines long.

Tip: When linking to your webpage or folder on your web page make sure to end the URL with a slash. For example, http://www.thewebsearch.blogspot.com and    http://www.thewebsearch.blogspot.com/ both point to the same address. However, the link without  the slash will cause the server to redirect the request, which will slightly decrease the load time and may decrease your page rank. Keep in mind this is only done for directories and not for files, in the above example that pointed to the cdrom.htm file, it should not end with a slash. Finally, keep it consistent, don't have both versions of the same link on the same web page.

• Domain 301 redirects

After you've registered your domain make sure your domain is properly forwarding to the address you want. For example, Computer Hope wants to be http://www.computerhope.com and not http://computerhope.com. Both of these addresses are valid, however, when entering http://thewebsearch.blogspot.com it is forwarded to http://www.thewebsearch.blogspot.com. If we did not forward the URL it could mean that Google and other search engines will treat both domains as different domains and could mean a lower page rank.

If your page is not forwarding you or your web host will need to create a 301 redirect for your site.

Navigation and Layout

A visitor will leave immediately if they are unable to navigate your website. Studies have shown the typical view time when first visiting a page is two to four seconds,visitors who do not immediately understand how to navigate the site or see what they want will almost immediately leave. Internet users know that if your page does not have what they are trying to find there is plenty of others that will.

• Link to all sub pages from the main page

Your main page should link to all of your sub pages; if this is not possible it should at least link to your main sections. When designing your website, make sure visitors can find what they are looking for within a few clicks. This can be accomplished by making lists of sub pages or categories, adding your own search engine, or making a site map.

• Sub pages should link back to main page

All your sub pages should link back to your home page or other main sections of your main page. Many of your visitors will not visit your page through the home page, make it easy for visitors to go there from all sub pages. For example, a company logo or name should link to the main page, a navigation bar it should have a link that says "home", and the bottom of the page should also link to the home page for visitors looking for more information.

• Have a search engine

If your page does not its own search engine, consider using a third-party search engine. These custom search engine scripts can often be implemented into your site in less than a few minutes.

 Keep it simple, clean, and fast

          Keep It short and Simple  (KISS) Follow the KISS principle, if your website is too busy or over    
          complicated your visitors will become frustrated and leave.

        Applying KISS [keep it short and simple] to a web site

1. Keep your layout clean, consistent, easy to read, and easy navigate for all types of visitors.
2. Don't overload the website with images, Flash, and other distractions.
3. All primary content should be on the first page. Avoid any vertical scroll to see primary content and never make the user scroll horizontally.
4. Break up text. All text everywhere on web site should be broken into easy to read paragraphs and sections.
5. Make the primary sections of your website and search accessible with a navigation bar or links on each of the pages.

• Do not make the visitor scroll

When first visiting a web page, most visitors do not scroll down. Keep the important and eye-catching information on the first viewable page. If your page has a lot of information, create bookmark links in the first section so visitors can jump to what interests them. Finally, never make a visitor scroll horizontal, a web page that scrolls left-to-right causes frustration and most visitors will not even realize they need to scroll and leave.

• Keep your headers small

The top headers of all your pages should be small, at most one to two inches in height. A large header will make the visitor scroll down on every page and is often distracting for users who visit the site frequently.

• Test with other monitors and browser

Not all users have the same browser, monitor, or computer. Make sure your web page looks good on all computers and monitors. A page displayed on a 17" monitor will look different when displayed on a smaller 15" monitor or laptop display. 
Consider using these online tests to see how your web page looks with different browsers and devices

1. Check whether your blog is working or not with http://ismyblogworking.com
2. Website optimization is a great service to find how much time it takes to load your web page and what you can do to help decrease the overall time it takes to load it.
3. You can also test your Web page on http://www.webpagetest.org/
4. MobiReady is the best website for checking how compatible your website or blog is when being viewed on a mobile device.

• Test with other devices

Today, computers are not the only way people access the Internet. Make sure your page is accessible and viewable on other devices such as smart phones and tablets.

• Avoid large images and Flash files

Avoid large images or flash animations that take a long time to load. Not everyone has a broadband connection, visitors with amodem or in other parts of the world may become impatient with slow load times. As we mentioned earlier, the average view time on a website is a few seconds, grab the visitors attention immediately with a fast-loading page. If your page needs large images consider loading those in a separate page.

• Test your load times

Make sure the overall load time of a web page is at or around four seconds. Fast load times keep visitors on your site and search engines like Google use a web pages load time as part of their algorithm for ranking your page in the search results. Run portions of your web page through online tests to help determine the slow portions of your page. Below is a list of Websites that let you to check the load time of your website
Webpagetest
Pingdom Tools
Load Impact
Global load time performance test

      Meta Tags and robots.txt

• Meta tags

Meta tags are hidden text found in the source of a web page queried by search engines and browsers. Below are two examples of Meta Tags to add into your HTML code.

          Description and keywords example

        <meta name="description" content="Free web page promotion tips and secrets in getting to the top of                                              
        search engines and increasing the traffic to your web site.">

The description of a web page is by far the most important meta tag to have on every page. The description describes what your web page is about and is often used as the description shown in search engine results.

          <meta name="keywords" content="free, promotion secrets, promotion tips, promotion, secrets, SEO,            banner exchange, search engines, increase page rank, pagerank, listing, keywords">

Today, the keywords meta tag is not as valuable as the description, but can still be used to list keywords that relate to your page.

      General Rules of Meta Tags

• Like all other HTML code, any website's Meta Tags can be displayed. View the source of some of your competitors' web pages to get ideas.
• Search engines use no more than the first four lines of the description and keywords meta tags. Do not enter more than four lines of text, it is not used and could cause your site to be delisted.
• Post the description and keywords of information that is on the page. Visitors tricked into visiting your page will not stay and this form of deceit can cause your entire site to be blocked by search engines.
• Because of abuse, search engines like Google, no longer look at the keywords meta tags.

Today, most search engines no longer only rely off Meta Tags, some do not even look at them. Some people recommend skipping meta tags, however, there are still plenty of search engines that use these tags, we strongly recommend at the very least to have a description.

Search engines use robots (spider/crawler) to crawl and index your web page automatically. These robots often rely on the robots.txt to tell them what they can and cannot index on your website. If this file is missing from your web site, your website may not be indexed or indexed properly. Make sure to at least have a basic robots.txt in your root directory.

E-mail


•      Respond as quickly as possible

If your page accepts e-mail, reply to every e-mail as quick as possible. If your page experience large volumes of e-mail, make sure to let your visitors know that replies may take a while.

• Mention your web address in your e-mails

When replying or sending out any e-mail, always make sure to have a signature with your companies name, web address, and your e-mail address. This helps remind users of your website's address and is an excellent free method of free advertising. However, keep the signature small, it should be no more than three-lines of text.

• Do not send SPAM

Most users ignore SPAM, sending out unsolicited e-mails can get your e-mail address or domain added to lists that prohibit you from e-mailing servers that check these lists.

      Let others know about your site

• Links

Link to other popular related pages and see if they participate inlink exchanges. One of the ways Google ranks pages is by who else links to your site and how popular their site is. The more inbound links to your page the more likely visitors will find it and the higher it will appear in search results.

• Friends and family

Let your friends, family, coworkers know about your website. Not only is this a good way of getting the word out, it may also provide additional feedback about your website.

• Social network

Participate in online forums, newsgroups, or other community driven sites that relate to your websites topic while letting others know about your website through a signature or a link. However, do not visit only to promote, provide constructive feedback and suggestions; otherwise its likely the post will be deleted or you will be banned.

• Remind users of your site

Keeping your past customers and visitors reminded of your web page is a crucial step in getting them to return. Below are some helpful tips in keeping recent visitors reminded of your web page.

• Facebook fan pages and Twitter

Creating a company Facebook fan page and Twitter page can be an excellent way to keep your community up-to-date and a terrific way to post promotions.

• Let users rate and share your page

With the increased popularity of social networking the ability to rate and share your pages is another important feature that can help spread the word about your page. These sharing and rating links can be added using services such as AddThis or Sharethis. 

• RSS feeds

Creating RSS feeds is an easy way to keep users up-to-date on all website updates and new content. For example, Computer Hope's RSS feeds use the free Feedburner service, which allows easy control over RSS feeds, the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed over e-mail, and the ability of posting RSS posts to Twitter.

• Newsletter and mailing list

E-mail newsletters and mailing lists can be another fantastic method of keeping users up-to-date. Sending monthly newsletters and your latest deals are both excellent examples of how to remind past visitors and customers of your site.

• Birthday reminders

If your company logs birthdays send your visitors or customers happy birthday notices. Most users appreciate the personal touch, even if automated.

      Watch the traffic, logs, and keywords

• Analyze web page visitors

Many web hosts today offer their users with charts that show traffic information. Try to view this information and determine what pages are popular or where people are leaving.

• Use Google Analytics

The basic web host statistics are a reasonable first start, however, nothing compares to the free Google's Analytics service. Google Analytics reports provide a better idea of how users are using your website and is better than anything any web host could provide.

• Act on the information

Examine how people are entering your site and where they are exiting and bouncing. If a page is popular, link that page to other related pages in your site. If a page has a high exiting or bouncing rating, improve the page and if needed add more information.

Examine the popular search keywords visitors are using to find your page. If a page has search keywords that do not relate to information you have, add it to your page.

• Examine and learn keywords

Use online tools to monitor and compare search keywords to help better judge what keywords you should be using on your site. A good tool we use and recommend is Google insights for search, which allows you to enter and compare search keywords, compare keywords, and find trends.

      Forum, bulletin board, or other user generated community

• Create a community

Create an online forum or comments section that allows visitors to make their own comments, questions, and posts. Creating a community is a great way not only to build a brand community but at the same time generate more content for your site.

• Join other social networks

Register and become a member of popular online communities and social networks such as Facebook, Google+, StumbleUpon,Twitter, and MySpace. If you have a company, product, or service also consider creating a fan page on Facebook.

Tip: After joining StumbleUpon and getting the toolbar make sure to visit your page and give it a thumbs up so other StumbleUpon users will see your page.

      Submit and promote your site to Search Engines

Google - Today, Google is the ranked as the most popular and well-known search engine on the Internet and often the only search engine used by many people. It is not necessary to submit every page in your site, however, to accelerate how quickly the Google bots find your site submit your main page to the below link. What makes Google unique is their proprietary PageRank algorithm, which makes the most relevant pages shown first.

Direct Google add link (new window)

Yahoo - Another one of the most visited and known search engines on the Internet and now part of Microsoft Bing. To add to Yahoo visit the below link, sign into your Yahoo account, and submit your URL.

Direct Yahoo add link (new window)

• Promoting your local business

If you're running a business website and need to promote the business and site make sure to submit it to Google Places, Bing Business, and Yahoo! Local.

• Search optimization services and other paid services

There are several companies and people that claim they can help improve your search engine rankings. While it is possible for these services to improve your rankings, it is not likely going to happen for search queries you want or is so insignificant that it is not worth the price. It is more beneficial to follow all the free recommendations in this page than any paid service.

     Analyze search engines

• Google

Google has one of the largest (if not the largest) search engine indexes on the Internet. Use it to your advantage to view who is linking to you or your competitors and what they are saying about your site. Use each of the below searches to see how your page is indexed and who is linking to you.

          Site : www.thewebsearch.blogspot.com

In the above example, Google search displays any page they have index containing computerhope.com. Replacing computerhope with your domain is an easy way to determine how many entry points you have into your website. The more entry points a page has the better chance a visitor is going to find your web page.

          link: http://www.statscrop.com/www/thewebsearch.blogspot.com#optimize -   site:thewebsearch.blogspot.com

In this next example, Google displays all pages that link to thewebsearch.blogspot.com but are not thewebsearch.blogspot.com. Replace thewebsearch.blogspot.com with your domain to get your results.

• Setup Google Alerts

Finally, setup a Google Alert to send you e-mails anytime your webpage or company name is mentioned. This is a easy method of finding new pages and articles linking to your site or mentioning your service.

• Setup Google Web Master tools

The Google Web Master Tools is yet another excellent free service Google provides web masters. This service provides you with a quick look at search queries used to find your pages, crawl errors, links to your site, keywords, diagnostics, and much more.

• Alexa

Finally, Alexa is another excellent place to check and compare your pages statistics. If your site is indexed on major search engines and popular enough you will be able to view your sites traffic rank in comparison to all other page on the Internet, view a graph of traffic details, rank, page views, page visits per user, and much more. Keep in mind though that Alexa's data is largely based on who is using the Alexa toolbar.

     Watch for errors

• Bad links

Bad links are a growing issue with web pages and an easy way to lose visitors. Never change any of names or location of your pages, even when redesigning a web page. It is likely that those pages are already indexed in search engines, linked on other web pages, or even bookmarked. Removing or moving your page is like starting all over, and could cause a significant reduction in new visitors.

Tip: If your server allows for custom error pages, always take advantage of this ability. A custom 404 error page that directs visitors to other pages on your site is much more useful than a blank 404 error page.

Tip: Use the Google Web Master Tools to also quickly identify bad links.

• Spelling and Grammar

Your page is going to be seen by thousands or even millions of different people, watch your spelling and grammar. Make sure to run a spell check on your pages and proof read before posting the page. A page that has spelling and grammar errors will cause the more educated visitor to leave your site.

• HTML, CSS, and other programming errors

HTML, CSS, or other programming errors can cause your website to not load properly or to not work with older browsers. Make sure your web page is going to work with all recent Internet browsers and that anyone who may have disabilities is going to be able to read your page. 

         Thank you for reading. 
         I hope you would like this.............

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