Directory

A holistic search engine optimization (SEO) campaign for promoting a site to rank better in search engines is sometimes not easy to do, as we may concentrate on one aspect of our SEO campaign and neglect other equally, or even more, important aspects of our SEO campaign. Therefore, we have compiled below a list of activities that would be beneficial to sequentially perform as you try to optimize your site to rank better in search engines and gain more organic, or natural, web traffic from search engines.

(1) Get some type of web analytics or web statistics software to analyze the referrers of your website to see where they are coming from. AWStats, Statcounter, and Google Analytics are some good examples. Seeing the latest visitors who came to your site is also good, and many web hosts offer this type of web statistics for free.

(2) Make sure that the content on your site is unique and not obtained elsewhere from the internet. Of course, it’s difficult for anything to be totally unique, as there is always some degree of information sharing, but try to be as unique as possible. It will be quite hard for your site to rank well if your content, script, or program is not unique.

(3) Find some free web directories to which to submit your site. The Open Directory is generally quite good, but the wait times can be long, if not forever. Perhaps a niche directory in your area would be free, so submitting to one of those would be ideal. The problem with free directories is that they can take quite a long time to get accepted, but it’s definitely an avenue to pursue.

(4) Find some of the best paid web directories that are especially search engine-friendly to which to submit your site. These directories generally have excellent backlinks, which funnel their significance to your site. Since your site is generally accepted quite quickly in these paid directories, they allow your site be crawled sooner, or more often, as you engage in other more time-consuming marketing strategies for your website.  Our directory here offers an example of such a method of building these backlinks.

(5) Write some unique articles, and submit them to a good article directory. EzineArticles is perhaps the best known, and ranks quite well in search engines.

(6) If you would like to have more repeat visitors so that your visitors return to your site more often, you can set up RSS feeds to allow visitors to subscribe to them, thus potentially increasing your repeat visitors.

(7) Post in relevant forums. Some forums allow you to have a signature with a link to your site after so many posts, or have a place where you can promote your website. Spending some time in forums can therefore help you gain more organic web traffic to your site.

(8) Search for a similar site in your area. Contact them to see if they’re willing to do a reciprocal link exchange. Alternatively, they may have advertising spots available for you to purchase.

(9) Do a few of the more esoteric or exotic search engine optimization campaign activities. For example, you may want to promote your site using the latest available technology or the latest technique in SEO. You can also use some of the social networks like Digg, StumbleUpon, or Twitter to promote your site. Set up a new profile in some sort of network like Squidoo. Ask a website to do a review of your site. See what new or innovative idea you can come up with to increase web traffic and visitors to your website.

(10) Wait. Do something else with your life. Sometimes, all you need to do is wait. After you have done your part to market your website, just wait. Don’t get too anxious. Sometimes, it might take a long time before your site suddenly appears. It may take months, but one day, out of the blue, it may suddenly appear in the search engines, or its ranking may improve significantly. Therefore, just wait.

Rinse and repeat for other sites, or to promote your first site more heavily.