Website Promotion
Discussion
My wife works in a local driving school with 2 other people. I designed a website for them a couple of years back, but business of late seems to be dwindling. Part of this we think is young people using the internet to find local driving schools and ours just doesn't come anywhere in the search lists.
We would like to pay to have someone promote the website for a few months. Anyone have any ideas who would do this for us? What about Register 1 - should I send an email to Jamie?
Professionals preferably rather than one of you lot sat in the bedroom
We would like to pay to have someone promote the website for a few months. Anyone have any ideas who would do this for us? What about Register 1 - should I send an email to Jamie?
Professionals preferably rather than one of you lot sat in the bedroom
For starters put a link to it in this thread. Register it at www.dmoz.org
You're basically looking for as many 'quality' links to the site as possible. Type "www.bsm.co.uk" into google.co.uk including the inverted commas to see what you're up against.
Considering it's such a competitive market you'll probably be looking at Pay Per Clicks such as Googles adwords.
You're basically looking for as many 'quality' links to the site as possible. Type "www.bsm.co.uk" into google.co.uk including the inverted commas to see what you're up against.
Considering it's such a competitive market you'll probably be looking at Pay Per Clicks such as Googles adwords.
There are lots of ways you can promote your own site for free:
Forums - a great place to promote your business for free, but try to avoid spamming, as this will quickly annoy people.
Online Directories - there are literally hundreds of online directories where you can list your site for free. Not only will this gain exposure for your site it will also start building links, which will boost your search engine rankings. Have a look here for a list of free directories in a handy Excel format.
MySpace - I spoke to a friend the other night who's set up a MySpace site to promote his business. Dunno if it's worth it, but it's certainly free.
MSN/Yahoo groups - as with MySpace, you can set up a group for your business and promote your group within other groups - all for free.
The only cost to you is, of course, time.
Then there are search engines. Getting your site listed on the first page of search engine results is not easy, but it's not impossible. I'll give you an example. The kind of person you want to visit your site would realistically search for something like "driving lessons" on Google. However, the term "driving lessons" doesn't appear on your homepage at all. Therefore you'll never be found via a search engine for that term. These are very basic things that you can do yourself to raise your site in the search engines.
If you want some more help with the search engine side of things, feel free to email me (no strings!). I will point you in the direction of some other sites I have worked on and show you how they are optimised for their particular keywords/phases and how you can apply the same simple techniques to your site.
Forums - a great place to promote your business for free, but try to avoid spamming, as this will quickly annoy people.
Online Directories - there are literally hundreds of online directories where you can list your site for free. Not only will this gain exposure for your site it will also start building links, which will boost your search engine rankings. Have a look here for a list of free directories in a handy Excel format.
MySpace - I spoke to a friend the other night who's set up a MySpace site to promote his business. Dunno if it's worth it, but it's certainly free.
MSN/Yahoo groups - as with MySpace, you can set up a group for your business and promote your group within other groups - all for free.
The only cost to you is, of course, time.
Then there are search engines. Getting your site listed on the first page of search engine results is not easy, but it's not impossible. I'll give you an example. The kind of person you want to visit your site would realistically search for something like "driving lessons" on Google. However, the term "driving lessons" doesn't appear on your homepage at all. Therefore you'll never be found via a search engine for that term. These are very basic things that you can do yourself to raise your site in the search engines.
If you want some more help with the search engine side of things, feel free to email me (no strings!). I will point you in the direction of some other sites I have worked on and show you how they are optimised for their particular keywords/phases and how you can apply the same simple techniques to your site.
viper_larry said:
Thanks for all the advice everyone. I though 'metatags' were no longer used, but certainly didn't realise I had no keywords 
I'll take advice from all above and see if I can raise the ratings.
It's a slightly off-beat website as it is ONLY relevant to our immediate local area.
I'll take advice from all above and see if I can raise the ratings.
It's a slightly off-beat website as it is ONLY relevant to our immediate local area.
Metatags are valued by Google (and others), but ONLY IF THEY'RE UNIQUE AND RELEVANT. If you enter the same keywords/description on every page, you might as well not bother at all.
And, as others have said... ditch the frames - that'll impact page rankings.
You won't spot a difference in rankings too quickly by making any of these changes - it'll generally take a week or two, even if you've set revisit meta tags on the site.
<meta name="revisit-after" content="15 days">
Although, I'm not sure that is actually supported by any major search engines, as I've never seen any evidence to show it in action.
Most search engines will visit your site and pick up any changes you have made on an ad hoc basis. It largely depends on how many links exist to your site from other sites and how highly a search engines regards your site. Ideally your site should be reindexed every few days.
Although, I'm not sure that is actually supported by any major search engines, as I've never seen any evidence to show it in action.
Most search engines will visit your site and pick up any changes you have made on an ad hoc basis. It largely depends on how many links exist to your site from other sites and how highly a search engines regards your site. Ideally your site should be reindexed every few days.
Certainly it sounds like your web presence needs to be boosted but it's probably wise to also consider non-net ways of promoting the website. For example, is the web address prominently displayed on the vehicles, and on all of the literature of the company?
Perhaps you could also use ideas such as a "recommend a friend" scheme - ie pass out business cards to existing pupils to give to their friends, then both people get a £10 discount on their next lesson for example.
Perhaps you could also use ideas such as a "recommend a friend" scheme - ie pass out business cards to existing pupils to give to their friends, then both people get a £10 discount on their next lesson for example.
egomeister said:
Certainly it sounds like your web presence needs to be boosted but it's probably wise to also consider non-net ways of promoting the website. For example, is the web address prominently displayed on the vehicles, and on all of the literature of the company?
Perhaps you could also use ideas such as a "recommend a friend" scheme - ie pass out business cards to existing pupils to give to their friends, then both people get a £10 discount on their next lesson for example.
Perhaps you could also use ideas such as a "recommend a friend" scheme - ie pass out business cards to existing pupils to give to their friends, then both people get a £10 discount on their next lesson for example.
That is good advice, see if you can get some local PR or print up a load of flyers and shove them in every car you see with an L plate on it. Is there anyway you could do some sort of deal with local schools, or 6th forms whereby pupils get a small discount or summat?
D
<html>
<head>
<title>MSM Driving Tuition</title>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="revisit-after" content="5 days">
</head>
<frameset rows="100%,*" framespacing="0" border="0" frameborder="0">
<noframes>
<body bgcolor="" text="">
No wonder no-one found the site, nothing to search for it
Results 1 - 8 of about 14 for msmdrivingtuition is good if you know the site name
"driving lessons in Biggleswade" brings up 12 sponsored links, the other advice is good, but when people cant find it...
myapace is good, I have an account, but for gods sake dont spam the forums, have the site name and description in signature soevery time u reply people see the sig but it is not in their face
said:
<html>
<head>
<title>MSM Driving Tuition</title>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="">
<META NAME="revisit-after" content="5 days">
</head>
<frameset rows="100%,*" framespacing="0" border="0" frameborder="0">
<noframes>
<body bgcolor="" text="">
No wonder no-one found the site, nothing to search for it
Results 1 - 8 of about 14 for msmdrivingtuition is good if you know the site name
"driving lessons in Biggleswade" brings up 12 sponsored links, the other advice is good, but when people cant find it...
myapace is good, I have an account, but for gods sake dont spam the forums, have the site name and description in signature soevery time u reply people see the sig but it is not in their face
Is this due to the frames on the page? I updated the site with keywords the other day so they should be visible. I'll look to getting rid of frames ASAP.
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