Tech with Tom: Get a website, part 5

Editor’s note: Tech with Tom Kirkham is intended to provide practical information about a wide range of electronic products, software and communication issues. Tom has promised to use layman terms, where possible, and to avoid geeky acronyms unless using said acronyms are the build up to an off-color joke built largely around sophomoric innuendo. Seriously, this should be good stuff and it will post on Fridays (barring any breaking news from Steve Jobs or elsewhere in the Tech world). Enjoy.

In previous articles, I discussed why you need a website and domain names, website and email hosting, assessing your website objectives, how much to pay for a website, and website construction and architecture.

Let’s wrap up this series with a few more points to consider.

• Marketing the Site
This part is easy to overlook. Far too many businesses spend far too much time building a beautiful website no one can find. If you have a website, it is likely you want it to show up in search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. If you’ve followed my previous instructions, you have built a site that can easily be "crawled" and subsequently indexed by the search engines. (Don’t overlook this last statement. I’ve seen a number of companies spend a small fortune on a website, only to discover that the site can’t be found by search engines because of its construction.)

• Content and Keywords
The words contained within the text of your website should contain the same words or phrases users would enter into Google or Yahoo when searching for your products and services. These words and phrases are referred to as "keywords" in the search engine business. For example, if you sell Incan matrimonial headmasks, this exact phrase should be used — when appropriate — in describing the headmasks. Don’t over-analyze this and get caught up with search engine optimization (SEO) phrases such as "keyword density." Just using the phrase when appropriate for human readers is fine. Leave keyword density and other SEO technical stuff to the professionals.

• Incoming Links
Without an incoming link, the search engines will not discover your website. Preferably, these incoming links should come from associated sites, like trade organizations you may belong to, but practically any link is good. If you have control over what the text is used in the link, use a keyword as the text link. For example, Kirkham Systems does Arkansas website design for companies of all sizes. Notice I could have used "Kirkham Systems," but by using "Arkansas website design" the search engines weigh this better since it incorporates a keyword phrase. (Yes, that was a shameless plug.)

• Internet Marketing
Don’t overlook email to draw attention to your site. ANY email correspondence you have should contain a link to your website. Social media is a terrific way to promote your business and website — Facebook is quickly becoming a business promotion site and can drive lots of traffic to your site. Don’t forget about email newsletters. Your site might have the capability to manage an email list, or there are third-parties such as MailChip (used by The City Wire) to more efficiently manage your email newsletter list. Constant Contact is popular as well.

• Directory Submissions
One word: DON’T. Waste of money, waste of time.

• SEO Services
This is a little tricky. There are some great SEO companies out there and there are some worse than useless ones as well. Generally speaking, the cheaper the SEO service, the more likely that it will not work, or worse, they will use tactics that can get your site banned from the search engines. Using tactics such as hidden text or link spamming are sure ways to get noticed by Google, but not in a good way.

• Meta-tags
Keyword meta-tags are useless. Google flat-out ignores them, and they carry little if any weight with the rest of the search engines. Anyone who says differently is flat-out wrong. I’ve been trying to squash this notion for years.

Summary
There is no magic bullet to get your site to the top of the search engines. You should first concentrate on building a quality site that is effective and easy-to-use for visitors —search engines really like that. Next, make sure the content on the site contains the keywords your customers will search for. Then, get incoming links from other websites and promote the site using social media such as Facebook and Twitter. If you are still unhappy with the results, then see a professional and find out if it is worth the time and money to get your site to the top.

Notes on Tom
Tom Kirkham is the publisher and co-owner of The City Wire. Tom also is host of the Tom Kirkham Show on Newstalk KWHN 1320 AM, which airs each Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. He also owns and operates Kirkham Systems, a computer, communication and networking company. Tom has more than 20 years of experience in business and technology, and claims to be a photographer, jazz lover, Cajun food expert and dog rancher.

You can reach Tom at [email protected]