[thelist] Website promotion - basic steps

[Bob Meetin]

Volkan Özçelik wrote:
> Any ideas for mo' betta promotion?
>
>
> Content is the king.
>
> Do you think google gives utmost (as we developers think it should)
> importance to SEO?
>
> Well the hard fact is, it does not.
>
> Don't get me wrong: Google does give importance to well structured, semantic
> markup. But that's only the beginning.
> It's just the tip of the iceberg.
>
> Have you ever checked any google application with w3c validator?
> You'll be amazed that even a single search form (google home page) contains
> dozens of validation errors.
>
> What google gives importance (aside from backlinks) is fresh, unique and
> helpful content.
>
> Try launching a targeted blog and tell the organization's CEO to update it
> at least weekly -- with anything that is important;
> be it a post on how to manage your time effectively, or the organization's
> most recent business success.
>
> You'll be amazed how your unique visitors increase in several months.
>
> Hope that helps,
>   
As designers/developers we "want" to believe that clean validation, good 
semantic markup, web accessibilty and such - will make it happen but 
fact is, Volcan is on target.  It's important to know technically what 
is possible, what are the limits, what constitutes spam, what search 
engine friendly is, but smart content is the king.  Many times I've 
heard folks say something like, "I heard so & so say that we should bold 
font, use italics, h1, h2, etc" to boost your rankings.  SEO books 
talked this. This is important but nuances compared to great content. 

http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=833
http://www.searchengineguide.com/senews/009308.html
http://www.searchengineguide.com/ross-dunn/the-most-common.php
http://www.searchengineguide.com/senews/008922.html

Also - viral marketing - if it's good enough that folks talk about it 
and forward it in email then you have something.

I sometimes wonder if site speed makes a diff.  Your visitors toil 
through poorly enhanced slow sites and are invariably less likely to 
return but do search engines care (aside from bypassing the Flash walls)?

-- 
Bob Meetin
www.dottedi.biz
303-926-0167

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