Seven Ways to Promote Your New Website

by Fei Lim Once you have built your new website, you don't have time to sit back and admire your creation, the work is just beginning. Thousands of web pages are being added to the Internet every day and if you want your page to be visited, then you have to make special efforts to promote your site. No two sites are equal and there may be a particular promotion method that works best for you, however, here are seven methods that you can consider before launching your promotion campaign: 1. Get your site listed in the major search engines. At the present time most Internet traffic is delivered by three search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN. If you want "free" traffic, then your site must be listed in these search engines and it must appear prominently when someone makes a query using a keyword or phrase that is related to your business or your activity. Getting listed is not a big problem as the three major search engines use "spiders"(robotic programs) that scour the Internet constantly looking for new sites. The best way to be found by the spiders is to get a link to your site from a website that is already listed in the search engines. Ask your web designer, your hosting firm, your friends or business associates to link to your new site. After a few weeks check to see if your site is listed in the search engines. If you are not listed then you will have to manually submit your site using these urls: Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html . Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html and MSN: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx 2. Distribute an Online Press Release. In the offline world of business, whenever your company does something new you should let the media know about it by issuing a press release. The same goes for the Internet. Write a one page press release, around 400 words, letting the world know about your new website. Put emphasis on the aspect of your business or website that you think is newsworthy. The press release can be distributed through online services such as www.prweb.com . If you write a good release it will picked up by journalists, by blog publishers and webmasters looking for news. 3. Participate in Forums and Blogs Related to Your Industry The Internet is becoming more interactive with each passing day. If you want to get known then you have to take part in this interactivity. Visit blogs and forums that are of interest to you. Learn something from them, and from time to time leave a comment. Don't try to push your website or business, but add something useful to the conversation, and of course put your website's address in your signature. 4. Write and distribute articles about your area of expertise Webmasters and newsletter publishers are hungry for good content. If you write a 500-800 word article about a topic that is related to your business, then you can easily get it published on hundreds of websites around the net. As with your forum participation, you should not try to directly sell your business or products. Rather, if you offer good information people will begin to respect you as an expert in your field and will click on the link to your site which is usually provided in the author-information at the end of your article. 5. Submit your site to directories related to your website's theme In addition to the major search engines, you should look around and find directories that list sites in your field of activity. For example if you are a web designer, then you would want your site listed in directories of webmaster resources. To find these directories make a search online for something like this: "pet supplies directory", "pet suppliers directory" and you will find strategic places where you can add your link. Just substitute your field for the term "pet supplies." 6. Exchange links with complementary websites One of the oldest forms of promotion on the Internet is the trading of links between two websites. Make a search for websites that are related to yours and propose an exchange of links with each of these sites. The process works faster and more efficiently if you place a link for the other site before requesting a link to your site. 7. Use paid advertisements It takes time for some of the promotion methods to pay off. If you want to start doing business immediately, then you will have to pay for online advertising. The most effective way to do this is to participate in Google's Adwords program. The small advertisements that you see in the right hand column of the Google search results pages, and the advertisements that appear on many websites are placed by advertisers who pay each time someone clicks on the link. Go to http://adwords.google.com to learn more about this program. If you use a combination of these seven methods to promote your website, then you will be more than satisfied with the results. About The Author Fei Lim is the manager of Flizard Technologies which provides web hosting services, sells domain names, and designs websites for personal and businesess. Fei Lim may be contacted at http://www.flizard.com About the Author Fei Lim is the manager of Flizard Technologies which provides web hosting services, sells domain names, and designs websites for personal and businesess. Fei Lim may be contacted at http://www.flizard.com

Domain Name Transfer Information

by Elizabeth Ramer So you have a domain name. Now what do you do with it? Well, the obvious is to get it hosted somewhere. But how do you get it "somewhere"? How does one move their domain from one place to another? Determine where your domain name is currently hosted Domain transfers are without a doubt one of the most confusing things to a domain name owner, especially if you've never done it before and you don't have a clue as to where to start. Unfortunately it's a fact and we can't make it easy for you. But we can try to ease it up a bit. The first thing you need to do is determine where your domain name is currently hosted. To do this you must do a whois search. Go to one of the websites below: http://betterwhois.com http://allwhois.com http://completewhois For this example we will use http://betterwhois.com. Type your domain name in the text box provided. The who is database gives info about the registrant: administrative contact the technical contact and the billing contact, including addresses phone numbers and email addresses. This is available to the public. We want info about http://notreallyadomain.com for this example. This is what you will see: Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: http://NOTREALLYADOMAIN.COM Registrar: TUCOWS, INC. Whois Server: http://whois.opensrs.net Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com Name Server: http://NS1.NOTREALLYANAMESERVER.NET Name Server: http://NS2.NOTREALLYANAMESERVER.NET Updated Date: 07-jan-2004 Creation Date: 08-mar-1997 Expiration Date: 08-mar-2006 The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars. So, in breaking a whois search down: Domain Name-The domainname you have inquired about Registrar-The registrar the domain has been registered with Whois Server-Who is database this info was pulled from Referral URL-The URL of the Registrar -who you need to contact in order to change the domain from one name server to the other: either by physically talking to them or using control panel access. Primary Name Server-The nameserver the domain currently resides on Secondary Name Server-The nameserver the domain currently resides on Two nameservers are generally used: if the primary nameserver breaks then the secondary can take over the primary nameserver duties until the primary is fixed. Updated Date-When the whois record was last updated Creation Date: When the domainname was created Expiration Date: When the domain name expires This domain was registered thru an Opensrs registrar/reseller. Scan the who is database you will usually find the Registrar contact info. In this case the info was towards the bottom: Registration Service Provider: http://Domainmonger.com, service@domainmonger.com +1.425-821-8032 http://www.domainmonger.com We would then go to http://www.domainmonger.com Providing we have our userid and password we could login and change our nameserver info, contact info or any number of functions. Once we have changed our name server info there is generally a propagation periodnas the internet as a whole updates with new dns information. For a new domain name, you can count on anywhere from 12 - 24 hours. For a domain name that is already in existance, and has already been moved, it can take anywhere from 12 - 72 hours. There is no definitive time, unfortunately. There have been instances of propagation taking two weeks or more. Here are some of the different Domain name registrars now available on the net. Recommendations to keep your domain name maintenence hassle-free: Never use your domain name as part of your email address on your contact email for your whois record. Use a web-based email like Yahoo or Hotmail. If you experience any kind of issue, you'll be emailed at your contact email, and if it's your domain name and it's broken, you're out of luck. Use yourself as a technical contact on your whois record. Use a second email address as well. Hosting companies do go out of business, and this could hinder your access should you want to move the domain name. Keep track of the email addresses you use as contacts, the userids and passwords. Keep track of your domain name - when you ordered it, when it expires. If you let the domain name expire, your website will not be accessible through the domain name. Keep track of any userids/passwords associated with domain name maintenence. About the Author Elizabeth Ramer has been working in the web hosting industry since 1997, and enjoys building computers in her spare time. Visit Flawebworks Web Hosting for web hosting and articles.