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This is where it gets sweet! I apologise, but advertising on the web is really inexpensive compared to TV advertising.
To advertise on TV you spend millions to create your advert and to get it running. On the internet everything is a lot simpler. You can easily run a very successful advertising campaign with less than $100. Although there are some costs you should be aware of.
Search engines
There are several ways of getting your website listed on a top notch search engine.
One, is by getting your site submitted to a search engine like Yahoo! where you pay a $199 dollar fee and hope your submission is accepted. Even if it is you have no control over the position your listing will be placed on so you could be number 99 as far as I've gathered.
Another way of getting your website listed on the top search engines is by making sure you have a description attached to the top of every page you put on the web.
Search engines have little nosy robots scanning the entire internet for content. These robots are looking for META TAGS on your Web Pages.
This is the appearance of the META TAG structure for a cycle shop
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Cycles</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="cycles, bikes, wheels, seats, rims, pumps">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Everything you need for your cycling pleasure.">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="ALL">
The last entry saying "ROBOTS" where content is set to "ALL" is letting search engines know that the entire site is up for indexation.
This last line isn't really necessary, but if for some reason you don't want a particular page to be listed, then you must include it with the content set to "NOINDEX"
If you have difficulty with this you can click here to help you build a META TAG structure to copy onto your web page.
Although the use of META TAGS will help your web pages getting listed, this method is far from ideal as it could take up to 3 months for a search engine robot to find your webpage.
And then, there is the problem that you still can't control the position of your listing so you can end up being number 99 again on a search query. This method is free though, and it will increase the chances of a listing.
Insider tip
I shouldn't really be telling you this but what the heck. Yahoo! is incredibly slow to process web site submissions. In fact it can take from 6 months to a year for you to find listing on Yahoo!
BUT did you know that Yahoo! uses Google's databases for web search results? Google's web site submissions are taking around a month to process.
Click here to submit your website to Google's database and get your site listed within a month for FREE.
Also, if you have other web sites with different domain names I recommend you submit them to search engines. But before you do that, include a link on them to a web site of yours that you wish to attract traffic to.
For example, you own web sites A, B and C. But you really want to attract traffic to web site B.
So on web sites A and C you will have a link to your web site B because you want to direct traffic there. Now you submit A and C to search engines.
If you created decent META TAGS for web site B, you'll be surprised but it will be listed even without submitting!
This is part of a new feature search engines are using, called Popularity Check. If you can get other web sites to link to yours, it's popularity rating will increase and so will your search engine ranking.
Other free resources you might want to try...
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/addurl.html
http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
http://www.add-url-free.com/
http://www.exactseek.com/add.html
http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html
http://www.123-add-masters.com/
http://www.submit-it.com/msnsubmit.htm
http://www.aeiwi.com/submit.html
http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
http://www.infotiger.com/addurl.html
http://www.bestyellow.com/addurl.html
http://www.splatsearch.com/submit.html
http://search.jayde.com/cgi-bin/addurl.cgi
http://www.ah-ha.com/list/list_addurl.asp
http://search.aol.com/aolcom/add.jsp
http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk/submit.html
http://www.infospace.com/submit.html
http://www.mixcat.com/addurl.html
http://www.walhello.com/addlinkgl.html
http://www.2kcity.com/search/addurl.asp
http://www.web100.com/other/submit.html
http://addurl.curryguide.com/execute/add_url/add_ur
Of course these methods aren't 100% guaranteed to get you listed on the very first position.
A friend of mine got his site listed at #1 position on Google. I told him he was number one at Yahoo! which is a search engine that is set to become the biggest and most used on the internet.
He couldn't believe it when he found out later he was number one on Yahoo! He only submitted his site to Google so he was in shock. for a little while, then he grew out of it! (I've achieved this myself)
Recent studies show that the top three listings on web search results are the ones getting the most clicks.
In fact, I know of cases where the difference of traffic from second position to first meant an increase in visitors of 400%.
Now for the real deal...
If you want to be number 1 on over 100 search engines
Hmm, so you want to be numero uno? There is only one thing you can do. Be prepared as what I'm going to reveal here is privileged information.
What will get you a number one ranking on at least over 30 of the best search engines around the world is Overture and I'm not kidding either.
I'm talking about search engines like Altavista, Yahoo!, MSN, Lycos, Infospace, Netscape.
These are the search engines that have been there since the beginning of the internet, and are the ones getting the most traffic and searches. And all these search engines share their database with a few others.
Search engines are the source for over 80% of all internet traffic.
Overture is far from being a small company. Formerly known as Goto.com, they've grown considerably in the last few years. Huge deals are being made and soon enough, Altavista, Yahoo!, Overture, MSN, will be one big company.
Ok now you know where to go but how does it work?
Well Overture is pretty simple to work with. Let me explain...
When you sign up with Overture you will become associated to the biggest and most efficient search engines in the world.
You'll also be bringing to your website targeted leads. This is by far the most cost effective way to advertise on the internet.
Signing up with Overture means you will only pay what you want for your advertising campaign, and will always get the best results.
When you use a search engine like Altavista the top position of the search result is attributed to the highest bidder.
As an example this means that someone is paying 24 cents for the top position.
If you click on that search result, the account holder for that listing will be deducted 24 cents. But what is also true is, you clicked after reading the description and finding yourself interested and wanted to get your curiosity satisfied.
This is a targeted lead! And the best part is you pay what you want!
I suggest you start out easy and look for a cheap bid for your keywords. This way you'll attract the most amount of costumers for the less amount of money possible.
Overture advises you to get at least 20 keywords listed as this will increase your chances of getting visitors. But as I said, you only spend what you want.
What Overture want from you is that you have a monthly expense of $20. You could interpret this like a membership fee although it's not, as you can also get your account set as dormant while you are developing a product, meaning you don't have to pay the monthly fee.
Also, one thing I can say about Overture is, they have one the best online customer support services I've seen so far.
Overture will also help you research your competition by finding out what everyone else is bidding for their rankings.
But please, don't go spending a fortune on OVerture unless you're already making some from oterh sources!
Other forms of advertising...
Below are the results of a recent poll on how successful people got fame and fortune online.
I'd like you to pay good attention to the methods that have brought the most success as these will be important for you to explore
| How did you get so big? |
| Link trade/swaps |
23 |
18.55% |
| Word of mouth |
22 |
17.74% |
| PPC Advertising |
8 |
6.45% |
| Other forms of paid internet advertising |
8 |
6.45% |
| Search Engines/Directories |
37 |
29.84% |
| Brick-and-mortar advertising |
2 |
1.61% |
| I was lucky. The right place at the right time |
11 |
8.87% |
| It just happened and I don't have a clue why |
6 |
4.84% |
| Other |
7 |
5.65% |
This is a small population sample but is a good example of what happens in reality. Search engines are the biggest traffic sources.
Again I advise you start out easy and not going over your budget.
Take your time to read the following free advice on Self Promotion. They basically teach you everything you need to know about Search Engine Submission.
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