As soon as you launch a web site, you will not all of a sudden get lots of traffic and visitors. That's not quite how it works no matter what infomercials can make people believe. Think of it as getting a new phone number... you get a new phone and it just doesn't start ringing - you have to tell people about it, right? The same for websites. You have to get that address out there so that people know about it. So how do you do that? There are a number of ways.

1. Buy traffic. If your domain name is new (less than a year old) and Google somehow organically finds your site (which is better than submitting it to Google - I'll talk more about this in directories - below) you might not get a great ranking for a while. Sometimes you do, but if your market is saturated, then probably not. So you'll need to buy traffic. One of the best ways to do that right now is Google AdWords. Search the web and you'll find lots of articles on how to set up a campaign, so I'm not going to do that now - maybe later.
   
   
2. Get listed in web free directories. The best, most trusted, free directory to get listed in is DMOZ.org. It's often hard to get into, but definitely worth trying. Be careful about getting listed into "link farms", which are pretty much directories full of spam ads. If your web site is local, then definitely see about getting linked into some local website directories (like MadisonClick.com for the Madison, WI area). These sites show up well in search engines and act as an in between tier between your site and sites like Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
   
   
3. Get listed in paid web directories. This seems to be the best strategy for building solid links for long term success. Doing this should increase your PageRank, which is definitely what you want. The best kinds of links to get are one-way links where a top ranked site links to you but you don't link back to them. These are stronger links and carry more weight. Think of a link to your site from another as a "vote". You want more strong votes instead of weak ones.
   
   Here is a list of web directories that you can pay to get into. Most are just one-time fees. Again, it's important that they just link to you and you not link to them (these all open in a new window / tab):
   
   
   1. Yahoo Directory - it's $299 per year but is a most trusted directory.
   2. Business.com - $299.00 for a listing.
   3. Best of the Web - a $249.00 one time fee or $99.95 per year.
   4. GoGuides - a one-time, $69.95 fee.
   5. Uncover the Net - a one-time, $49 fee. They seem to have a lot of higher ranked sections, so don't skip this one.
   6. Gimpsy.com - a one-time, $49 fee.
   7. Joe Ant - a one-time, $39.99 fee.
   8. Site Sift - a one-time $49.95 fee or $29.95 annually.
   9. MadisonClick.net - an annual cost of $29.95 or a one-time listing fee of $89.95.
   10. WisconsinClick.com - a one-time $24.95 fee - for Wisconsin websites only.
   11. Net Guild - a one-time, $14.95 fee.
   12. More can be found listed by PageRank (PR) at OneWayTextLink.com and at MadisonClick, Inc.
   
   Be sure to look at the page that you'll be listed on and see what PageRank that page has. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then download the Google Toolbar for your browser.
   
4. Get linked on blogs. There's differing opinions out there on this. Some people say that just about any link from another site is good and some say that Google is even starting to ignore links on blogs. But Google isn't the only search engine out there, so others may do it differently. So why not?
   
   What you do is find an active blog that has to do with your web site and then comment on a post and include a link to your site. That comment will then stay on that page a long time, if not forever. Make your comment meaningful though.
   
   
5. Ask for links. If there are sites that you've found hat have high PageRank and are relevant to your site, then it doesn't hurt to just ask the webmaster of that site for a link. They may get a lot of these emails or they may not. They may even offer really cheap advertising or give you a permanent link for just a few bucks.

The big thing to remember here is that you're only going to get out of something what you put into it. Free link submissions aren't a lot of work, so you're not going to get much back from those (and I personally don't even use them since they could hurt your ranking). If you want something good that will last, you'll have to work a little or pay for it or work a lot or pay a lot. This can be fun though. Watching traffic stats, PageRank and sales go up is fun and gives you the feeling of accomplishment. It's addicting, really. So have fun with it.

I'll write more about this later in another post, but Google AdWords, if used properly, can really be the winning ticket (first you'd need to know how much each visitor to your site is worth - again, more about this in another post). It's good to get linked up but don't spend too much time doing it - you'll end up getting the warm, fuzzy feeling that you've done a lot of work and it'll really help but it's not doing that much good. The point here is, you need to set up these links when a site launches for long term success and use Google AdWords for the near term and daily success.

So just think... if you work hard, get your site ranked high, people will be asking you and paying you for links!

If you're completely new to this whole world, it may seem overwhelming to you - I understand. So a good company that can help is the one I work for: Webstix, Inc. Check out our site and give us a call.

What I've found is that when people try to quickly buy a domain name and then immediately launch a web site, there isn't a lot of traffic generated from search engines like Google for at least 6-12 months. This is often called the "Google Sandbox" effect.

Basically, Google knows when you bought a domain name (they're officially a domain name registrar, but they don't sell domain names that I know of - they just did that to get better access to domain name information). So if a newly purchased domain name all of a sudden has 300 links pointing to it, then they figure something's fishy. For a site to naturally get a lot of links pointing to it, it'll take 6-12 months.

So, Tony, are you saying you have to wait 6-12 months to launch a web site?

No, you can do it right away but you'll have to rely on buying advertising to get traffic to your site versus organic search engine results.

When I think of a domain name that I might want to eventually develop or sell sometime in the future, I've always just set up a parked page (of my own, which is one step better than the one given to you by the domain registrar maybe) and put a Google AdSense ad on it to try to make some money while it just sits there. The problem is, that page didn't have any real content on it and it never changed. The other issue is, Google, Yahoo! or MSN doesn't send their spider to visit sites that don't change very often. There are billions of web pages out there and they're only going to daily spider the ones that change most often, right?

Content is really what people go on the web for, right? If they somehow get to a site that offers no content, they'll just leave right away, not bookmark it and not click on any ads on that site because it's not what they're looking for. Traditional domain name parking offers no value to visitors, it provides little reason for a visitor to return to your website and it will only diminish a domain name's value over time. Visitors are quickly becoming used to seeing the same parked pages with little or no valuable content.

So what's a web developer / entrepreneur to do, you ask? How about this... park a domain name at a place where you can instantly create content-rich web sites based on your keywords and get free hosting.

Oh sure, easier said than done, Tone! It takes time to come up with content and I have 50, 60 or 100 domain names to do this for. That doesn't seem worth the time at all. I've got other sites to tend to - ones that are actually developed, which is too much work by itself.

The solution: set up your domains at WhyPark.com where you get:

• Real content articles (based on keywords you choose) automatically added to your website daily. This keeps search engines coming back to spider your site and see what's new all the time.
• Keyword rich titles on every page.
• Easy to follow index pages and automatically updated site maps.
• Pages with high keyword density, making your domain name relevant for the keywords that you've chosen.
• A selection of templates to choose from with images automatically included
• Page layout and code optimized for search engines.
• Free hosting. They host it for you.

With WhyPark.com, you can:

• Create custom pages for your web site - thus adding in your own content and links.
• Put in your own ad affiliate programs like Google AdSense and you keep 100% of the revenue.
• Change your keywords at anytime and your site is updated automatically - no technical knowledge required.
• Free professional support and helpful tips - they help you build traffic to your domain names.
• Add in stats code - like Google Analytics - to keep accurate statistics on your web site and domain.
• Set up a link to sell your domain names or decide to develop your web site later - and when you do, you'll have a site that's been active for a while and already gets attention from search engines.

This is really a no-brainer. Here's a sample site of mine to check out: www.MadisonRenting.com

What you get is an account to host up to 100 domain names (or add more later) with hosting and automatic content updating for just $99.95. That's less than $1 per domain per year - wow, that's an amazing deal. Doing this will save you time and build value on domains that are just sitting there, doing nothing. Oh, and you'll easily make that cost up just by running something like Google AdSense ads on your sites.

Yeah, truly a no brainer. You can thank me later. Gift baskets full of money are always accepted. :-)

Click Here to Sign Up or Find out More About WhyPark.com

OK, it used to be cool but now it's just tacky. Let's cut this out please, all you webmasters and designers.

-T

No, I put those ads there myself. My blog software (a Joomla CMS) is built on templates. much like a WordPress site or other kinds of blogs, so I signed up with Google AdSense and walked through a wizard to generate some HTML code to put into my site's template. Google then puts ads that they think will work well on my site and I get a portion of the ad revenue when someone clicks on an ad. Sweet!

You can even decide what kinds of ads you want on your site. They can be text or images. You decide the color scheme of text ads. There's even a way to put ads in YouTube videos that you put on your site as well.

To make it successful, it's best to come up with a blog that centers around a central theme or several themes, like I do. My interests are cars, skiing, Macs, Music, Global Warming (how much of a hoax it is) and Politics. So in my blogging software, I set up different categories for each. I then make new posts when I feel like it and assign the post to a category. If it doesn't fit in any of my categories, no sweat, I just put it into a general "Blog" category.

What makes a really good blog post, which will attract some attention from search engines, is "how-to" articles. I post them from time to time, usually after I took the time to do some research online to find out how to do something. I usually have to go through several articles to find my answer, so then I'll create a blog post and put it in my own words, which is legal to do. It's like a min book report kind of, but much more fun. That's all you do.

Some more tricks include getting blogging software that puts the URLs of your stories into real text instead of just a bunch of letter and numbers. This is what is called making "Search Engine Friendly URLs" or SEF URLs. Search engines like it when they're meaningful and end it .html and have dashes between words.

There are a few other tricks, too, but what is most important is content. You need good content and you should blog consistently. Do at least 4 posts a week. The more you do, the more of your friends and other people will bookmark your site and make it one of the sites that they always check out when they are online. You also want to try to keep things upbeat and fun. I sometimes use my blog as a soapbox and those posts don't get as much traffic, but that's fine - it's my blog. I can do what I want.

It's a lot of fun to blog. The blogging software makes it easy, so you just login, create a new entry in what looks like a word processor in your web browser and then click on Save and then it's live on your site, first thing on the home page. All the other items move down automatically. Pretty slick!

I think you have to like to write stuff and your spelling and grammar has to be decent. I have a number of clients that I would not suggest a blog to, but hey, we're all created differently.

Another tip is not to write too long of an entry so I'll take my own advice and call it quits. If you're interested in getting a blog started, let me know. Below is a link to Google AdSense if you're interested in that.
-T