Search
engines are by and far the largest supplier of
traffic to
your web site. Moreover, its targeted, meaning
the visitors that
arrive at your site were looking for
information that you are
delivering. At least this is the goal of the
search engines: to
deliver high quality results to web
surfers.
Recent major changes in Google, Yahoo and MSN
have put the
internet market however in a frenzy. As the
search engines battle
it out to be the one producing the highest
quality results by
frequently altering their index algorithm,
search engine
optimization has taken an almost obsessive
importance.
The problem I see is that the battle is not
going to end soon and
repeatedly trying to stay ahead by optimizing
after each re-
indexing is truly a never ending battle. A
balance must be struck
between search engine advertising and other
online venues.
Starting out with an online home business
business is
intimidating. There is pressure to build a
quality site, offer
valuable information, promote, build
subscribers,...and the list
goes on and on. Having a few different forms of
advertising that
you slowly utilize can payoff big in the long
run. With a market
that can change on an hourly basis, you musn't
focus too heavily
on any single form of site promotion.
Think of it as your advertising bag of goodies.
You reach in and
pull out one method and give it a try. Don't
dump all of your
resources into it. Spread them out. Reach in
and pick another,
until you have a few in the works. Now pause
and see which is
working. Tweak a bit here and there and sit
back again.
Continuously re-evaluating your advertising
campaigns, you will
begin to grow a deep feeling as to which works
for your online
business.
Here are a few types of advertising for your
home business you
should consider:
(1) Classified Ads - cheap and short to
write.
(2) Article submission - write an article and
post for free.
The rewards reaped can be enormous in the long
term.
(3) Paid ads in E-Zines - hit those seldom used
small niche
markets!
(4) Link exchange - can you bring in traffic
from another
site? You betcha!
(5) Newsgroup and Discussion lists - join in on
discussions
and pass out a small blurb about your business
at the end.
(6) Sig files - after all your online! Make use
of all of the
emails you send out daily.
(7) Flyers - yep, offline!
The bottom line here is not to stagnate. Search
engines are
important but not the only way to promote. Its
better to balance
your site optimization with other promotion
strategies. If one
method fails you at least have others to fall
back on.
About the
Author
Dan J. Fry is an
independent researcher and owner of
e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted to providing
resources for small
budget home businesses. He has a PhD in Physics
and is married
with two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to
his free E-Zine on
home business resources at
mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or by
visiting his site at http://www.e-kinetic.com .
He can be reached
at mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com .