So, you've finished your website. Your meta tags are in place, your forms are operational, and you can take payments online via credit cards and online checks. Now the hard work begins: You need to submit your site to the various search engines, directories, FFA pages, and anywhere else that can help visitors find you in the vast jungle of information we call the Internet. I use to do all of this the hard way until I learned a few tricks of the trade that have made my endeavors a lot easier, which I will share with you now. All you need are the right tools. The first one is a text editor such as Notepad. (You remember Notepad right? It's in there with your Windows Accessories.) Use this to type some standard information about your site so that working on your listings will be a simple matter of cut and paste. Here is the primary information you should have ready: 1) Your name (or business name) 2) Address (City, State, Zip) 3) Phone/Fax 4) Title of your Website 5) Short Description of your site (under 20 words) 6) Long Description of your site 7) Keywords 8) One or two Short Ads you can use for Advertising If you have a newsletter that needs to be listed in ezine directories, you should include the following information as well: 1) Ezine Name 2) Ezine Description 3) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe 4) URL of Archives (if available) 5) Does your Publication accept Articles? 6) If you Accept Ads -- what are the Rules? 7) Newsletter Category 8) Date Ezine was Started 9) Number of Subscribers 10) If copy available by Autoresponder 11) Two short ads that tout the benefits of your ezine that you can use online or in swaps with other ezine owners. The beauty of all of this is that once you type all of this into Notepad, you're done. Simply save the text file to your desktop, then when you start your submissions, open it up, and cut and paste the information into the required fields. Trust me on this, it saves a lot of time. Why type the same data over and over? Of course, there are some Freeware and Shareware programs available that also will help in your marketing efforts by storing all of this data. My favorite is TypeIt In Pro: http://www.wavget.com/typeitin.html This program for Win 95/98 and NT will fill out forms on the Web using text you have assigned to individual buttons. If you promote more then one site, you can set up individual groups of buttons for each one. I really love this utility, and no one is paying me to say that. It is free to download but if you decide to keep it you need to pay the 17.50 registration fee. Another one called "Fillout Manager" allows you to drag and drop your text into forms. It's freeware to download at: to http://www.theill.com/fillout/default.asp Don't waste another day typing and retyping the same text. Follow my advice and the time you spend promoting your site will be cut in half. |
