Don't get in a rush to start listing your site. Some of the information you will be placing into databases
throughout the world will live a long time, and errors you make now will haunt you for a long time (seems like
forever.) Go out and learn about the web. Learn about the search engines. Learn about your competition. Set your
policies about cross-linking. More than anything, practice begging, groveling and going without sleep.
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When you are ready to start your promotion, build your promotion toolkit. 'What toolkit?' you ask. Ah, good
question. Here is the one I use and it will provide a decent starting point for your list. No two sites are alike,
and no two toolkits are alike.
· A small GIF graphic, not animated, to represent your site. Stay at under one inch high by two inches wide.
Make it legible and meaningful.
· A complete list of each page on your site that should be indexed. With each page, have a meaningful title
and a short description (under 50 words) for the page. Some indexers require you to input each page and some only
need the home page and they find the rest automatically.
· A description of your site in each of the following words counts:
· 10 words
· 15 words
· 25 words
· 35 words
· 50 words
· 75 words
· 100 words
· A list of keywords for the site. Put them in order by their importance, so that when you run into a site
that doesn't allow your full list, you can submit just the front portion of the keyword list.
· Fully contact information:
· Company name
· Address
· Phone numbers
· Fax number
· Contact name and email address
· The purpose of your site in three different word counts - 15, 30 and 75 words.
· A description of the audience for your site or its products.
· You will want easy access to all of the above information readily available to you. I keep mine in a text
file that can be opened by a small text application (Teach Text on my Mac) and kept open in the background anytime
I am surfing the net or promoting a site. This allows you to cut and paste the information each site asks for without
having to retype it each time. Other people I know keep this data in a fancy multi-item clipboard or in a small
data base. Whatever your style, just make sure it is readily available when you need it.
Another tool you will need is a method for keeping track of all of your efforts at site promotion. You will want
to track each attempt you make. You need a quick way to go back to the site and determine if they got you listed.
If so, thank them. If not, remind them again. When you have trouble getting listed, it will usually turn out to
be your fault. Read their FAQ (If you don't know what a FAQ is, go back 3 spaces and lose one turn) and their rules
again. Find out what you are doing wrong. Maybe they don't list your type of site. Maybe they limit listings to
a specific industry.
I keep my efforts in a small 'flat file' data base (Filemaker Pro) that allows me to add information each step
of the way. Again, like the data work-list above, I keep this application open in the background of my system so
that I can get the URLs to go back to and post results or notes.
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The fields I use in my file are:
· URL (address) of site
· Name of site (Yahoo, Joe Hot List ....)
· Date of initial submission
· Description of the site
· Description of my submission (category, etc.)
· Date verified that I am listed
· URL to find my listing
· Obligations involved with this listing (ie: must link back to the other site....)
· Room for several notes with follow up comments and dates. This allows me to keep track of where I am with
each submission.
This may seem like a lot of data to track, but keep in mind that you will be visiting at least one hundred (to
several hundred) sites in order to promote your site. That is just too much to keep track of in your head. Trust
me on this one. I tried it the other way and got hopelessly lost.
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