Online Marketing - getting the website listed

Hi all,

I've just launched a new website and would like to find some good (and legit) places to get my url posted, could you please suggest some options?

I've done the usual submissions to search engines and am now looking to up the number of incoming links for the site.

Thanks so much,

Sarah

Not totally sure what you mean by the "usual submissions to search engines" - although Google, etc do have a place to submit urls, they do a pretty good job of finding them once you get a couple of links such as the one in your signature.

Next up: the ongoing process of finding non-spammy places to get links. Relevant directories in moderation but don't spend too much time on them and personally I wait rather than pay for an express listing. Sites like dmoz.org may still carry some weight but you need to submit an editorial style entry to the best possible category - drill down to get that rather than go for a national place which will just get shunted downwards over time before it gets reviewed.

A press release announcing your new business won't hurt - plenty of places to submit this online when it's done and your local media may be interested as well.

Contribute to relevant forums, ideally with a link in your signature or profile.

Consider Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Consider a blog.

Sort out a Google Places page if you haven't already done that - normally good for local results.

That should keep you busy for a while

When you get short of ideas, use one of the online tools such as Yahoo Site Explorer, Majestic SEO or AHrefs to see where your competitors are getting their links.

Hi Sarah,

Trevor has given you some good points, but for your type of business, I wouldn't be too worried about ranking in search engines for now.

I think you will get most business through networking - face to face and online.

A blog is a good idea - and if you can contribute articles to other relevant blogs in your sector, that's a great way of raising your profile (and getting links).

This also gives you things to post/talk about on Twiiter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

I notice you have an email sign up - but it's very small and you don't give any reason or incentive to sign up. Building a strong list of interested prospects could work very well for you and is great for promoting your events.

Do these things and links will come naturally.

Hi Sarah,

Some good points from the others here. I would add that if you are a member of any regulating bodies which list you as a member then ask them to place a link to your site. Regulating bodies are often authority sites and are filled with content related to your area of business. To this end, you should also try and make sure the backlinks to your site are surrounded by relevant text and are in the form of a hyperlink using "Anchor Text" (see the signature box at the bottom of Trevors Post for a good example of this). So instead of a link to www.go-ginger.co.uk you place it in a paragraph about your business and use a hyperlink from "Coaching Companies London" for example (or whatever phrase people are using to find your business).

When linking from sites that may not have relevant content such as profiles on Linkedin etc. make sure you fill out as much of the profile information as you can with relevant text about your company so that the backlink appears within some relevant content.

This will ensure the backlinks are more relevant.

I also notice you have some videos posted on your site, if these are owned by you and uploaded to Youtube and other video sharing sites, then make sure there is a link from the video back to your website.

Hi all,

Thanks very much for your advice, some useful pointers there. I should've mentioned that my new website isn't the one in my footer (you're all so proactive) - it's www.gingerpublicspeaking.com. This site signals a shift in strategy for me - I'm separating time and money, building a list of loyal followers and offering knowledge products. As such it would be great to have more people find me online, hence my original question.

Sarah

Can I just chime in and say that I realy like the style of both of these sites. Your web designers did a really good job in my opinion.

Can you hook me up with a copy of your book - or must I wait until the 4th :(

Thanks Andy, very kind of you to say so.

You're best off buying on 4th October from Amazon, because if you follow the instructions on the link below you'll also get access to a whole bundle of gifts from personal dvt people in my network (some free workshops / coaching sessions included)

http://www.gingerpublicspeaking.com/bookgifts

Hope you enjoy!

S

Hi Sarah, 

Could I give you a call and pass on some free advice?

There are literally loads of options out there: article marketing, guest blogging, blog submissions, social bookmarking, (quality) directory submissions, link baiting strategies, press release marketing and so on and on...

Alternatively, take a quick look at this ever-growing thread: 

http://www.4networking.biz/Forum/ViewTopic/93466

Sarah,

Love the site - love the design.... and trust me I don't say that about all the sites I see!  

You might want to consider paid Google advertising, also called Adwords or Pay-per-click.  The nice people at Google Engage have just let me have another batch of £50 vouchers to get you started.  They're not entirely free as you have to charge the account with £5 of your own cash, but they're as close to free as you are likely to get anytime soon.

Just PM me if you'd like one of the voucher codes to get you started.

Hi Sarah,

The link below will take you to a 15 webinar I did on Link building strategies.  It outlines the various link building options available and explains how to approach them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0TmH-KiTPY

Hope you find it helpful.

M

Thank you everyone! I'm a bit caught up in the book launch - all of a sudden it's happening next week! But will get back onto this / respond to your kind offers on the other side

Sarah

Hi Sarah,

Indeed as Marcus says, there are different link building strategies to consider, but after looking at the youtube clip that Marcus kindly shared, some of the strategies are out of date.

Directories - Google does not really use these any more (10 years ago, they were used, but now they carry no weight).

Blog Commenting - as Marcus suggested, most links are no follow - so the only benefit of commenting on blogs is for social/recriational reasons.

Article Directories - Since the Panda update, most article sites were hit badly causing drops in their value, so it is not really worth your time submitting articles now to sites such as Ezine etc.

Social Media - As marcus says, search engines do read social media sites, but there is not much SEO benefit, more a networking benefit (the same as forums like this one)

Press Releases - As marcus says, they are good, but only the expensive ones (as most of the cheaper ones remove the links when republishing).  Look at sites like PRweb etc.

Link Exchanges - these do not really carry much weight, a kind of 'you scratch my back' - you need to look at 1 way links as opposed to reciprocal.

Guest Blogging - As marcus pointed out, a good idea, but very time consuming and for a high profile site you do need to be a very good writer.

I was watching a video clip by Matt Cutts (a top google techie) (if you google his name you will find him) and he said that with the algorithm changes, google considereds two things with a website:

content - but this does not play as big a role as it once did

backlinks - this is the main thing and the most important factor when it comes to SEO.

This is an article about backlinks, feel free to browse the other articles which may be helpful.

Regards,

Marketing Quotes Support

Hi David,

The only point I would dissagree with is that article distribution doesn't work.  I know things can change quickly but it is a strategy that we are using and is working very well for us.  

Out of the strategies you mentioned above it seems that the only ones you think are worth doing are:

- Press Releases on high quality distribution sites

- Guest blogging if one has the time

All the others you seem to be dismissing as having no value.  Are there any other strategies that you use which weren't covered in the video?

Thanks,
M

Hi Sarah,

Well it looks like you've had plenty of advice to keep you going for a while. 

I would just suggest blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc if you can fit it all in. Also get listed in directories, as many as you can, there are loads out there. I would agree with what David says about the reciprocal linking, I don't think it's worth investing lots of time into, I would just concentrate on one way links. Posting onto forums is definitely a big bonus to build up your one way links. Also as the company delelops just keep adding pages to your website and optimising them.

Hope things go well for you and if you ever need any advice, feel free to contact me.

David: I'm glad you don't think article marketing works as it leaves more room for me! I still get plenty of clicks through from articles (4,634 from EzineArtilces alone during August).

Directories if they're free and easy to add to help make up the diversity and so long as the page your site is listed on is crawled (and they still get crawled and indexed a lot) then the link is likely to count for something. Maybe not as much as historically but things always change.

Not sure who you use for press releases but most of the ones I've had done keep the links intact. Not much direct traffic but syndicated left right and centre.

Follow/no follow needs to be a mix otherwise it's just not natural.

Keep a mix of links. Keep at it. Don't obsess over rankings. And don't panic when Google changes yet again.

Content on your own site, properly SEOd, aimed at your target market is the ultimate aim as that's what your site visitors care about. They couldn't give two hoots about all the links you've created. They just want something to meet their needs at the time, whether it's to solve a problem, be entertained, or whatever.

If your site doesn't provide that, you can be almost certain another one will.