Webmaster Papers








You Have More Web Sites Than You Think You Have: The Importance of Deep Submission


If I ask you how many web sites do you have? You may say "One, yes it is www.mycompany.com " or "two" in case you have a second organization or company. When I first began promoting my web sites I was, like most people, only thinking in terms of one web address, the url of my main page. And I thought that this main page was a difficult one to promote because it was the index page of a magazine that covered a wide variety of fields (environment, arts, science, politics, spirituality, etc). How could I optimize a page for so many keywords, which market could I focus on?

It was only after discussing the subject with another web master, who had a similar site, that I learned that the diversity of all the inner pages of my site was a huge asset. Each of these pages was like a mini-website, and capable of attracting a multitude of visitors using a variety of keywords. Part of my ignorance at that point was due to a lack of accurate tracking data. I had a simple tracker on the main page that told how many visits that page was getting, but I had no idea of what was happening deeper inside the site. Then I was able to get access to the raw access logs of the site and using a log analysis tool I began to see the real picture of what was happening.

I saw that the main page was getting one third of the total traffic of the site. I found out that one article, "The Causes of Tropical Deforestation" was a big hit and consistently getting a lot of traffic. Other articles were also quite popular, but covering completely different subjects. It was then that I realized that I had not one web site, but more than 100 web sites.

What does all this mean in terms of design, optimization and submission? It means that one has to realize that people may well enter your site through the "side door" or the "back door" and you have to prepare accordingly.

For design, it means that the structure of your pages and navigation system should invite the people who enter from the inner pages, to make it to your important pages (about us, main page, or your order page!). For optimization it means that you should take more care about the placing of keywords, description and title tags on all the pages. Have you ever seen websites where the blue line at the top of the browser is showing the title of the page to be "New Page"? Even very good designers become a little bit sloppy on the inner pages, and though they do usually manage to put a proper page title on those pages, they seldom take the trouble to write separate meta tags for the keywords and descriptions. But as I learned, these pages are an asset and can be optimized and promoted to gain more traffic.

The first thing that I did was to redesign my navigation system to take advantage of this traffic and make sure that those who entered through the back door would visit the important departments of the magazine. I also put a newsletter sign-up form on all the inner pages, and to this day these pages are bringing in a steady stream of subscribers to the magazine's e-mail bulletin. The next thing I did was to make sure that the inner pages had proper meta tags, and finally I did a deep submission of the whole site.

What is a deep submission and why is it necessary? When you submit the main page of your site to a search engine, the search engine sends a "spider" to look at your page and put the data on that page in the search engines index. Sometimes the spider will follow the links on your main page and also pick up some of the inner pages (Google, for example is very good at this) but sometimes they don't go deep enough into the site and only one or two of your pages are indexed. To get the other pages indexed you have to submit them all separately, just as if they were other web sites. However, if you have 100 pages you can't submit them on the same day to one search engine. That would be regarded as spamming. If you submit one url per day per search engine you will not get into any problems.

So, think about your site more deeply. Your inner pages are mini-websites and if prepared and promoted properly they could increase your traffic and your sales dramatically.

About The Author

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. Hehas been working on the Internet since 1995, and is currently the director of A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com), a firm providing low cost search engine optimization, submission and web promotion services.

support@a1-optimization.com

RELATED ARTICLES


How to Boost Your Traffic and Profits with Content!
Are you aware of how vitally important and valuable CONTENT is to your online business? In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.
Gaining Additional PageRank
Google is the major search engine webmasters have to deal with in regards to gain traffic from a search engine. Yes, Yahoo and MSN are big, too - but they are only follow-ups compared to Google's popularity. While you can gain significant traffic from these 2 great search engines, having a good spot in Google is critical for a website's success.
Do Not Drop Your Web Site Off the Search Engine Cliff
If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the side of some remote jagged mountain in the blazing hot sun and concerned you're facing "mission impossible", chances are you own a web site.
Anatomy Of A Top Ranking Web page
Optimizing web pages for high rankings in the search engines involved two main processes. Firstly there is the on-page factors which include what keywords you place where on the page itself. The second, and more important process is getting the off-page factors right - incoming links.
4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing
The biggest problem that most are running into seems to do with getting INTO the search engines. Rankings aside, you need to first get them to index you. Here are the four main ways to assure yourself fast indexing:
Commonly SEO terms and Jargon used by Search Engine Gurus
What does all this SEO jargon mean.
How to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
When people think of search engine optimization, they immediately think of time consuming very tedious tasks that are way beyond their capabilities. That might be true if they put no time and effort into it. I do agree that improving search engine rankings in competitive niche markets require a good deal of knowledge and expertise. It's TIME to learn the basics of how to improve your search engine rankings. There is huge need for search engine optimization experts, but most websites don't find themselves in a very competitive niche market. Many websites can achieve top rankings by applying my optimization basics. All you have to do is put in the time learning and applying them.
Content Is King
Over the past few years, there have been many debates about different search engine optimisation strategies, though it is highly important that a range of strategies are pulled together as one to form the best optimisation program possible. There is one particular factor that is becoming ever more important when it comes to reaching number one in the search engine results pages. That factor is "content". It seems search engines in their quest to provide ever more relevant results are giving site content more and more weight in their ranking algorithms. These days we are seeing web pages packed full of relevant text as opposed to the wonderful, graphical pages that used to adorn many a company's web sites.
Its The Same Deal For Both Search Engines And Real Estate
It's all about location, location, location!
Creative Search Engine Optimization ? A Case Study
Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.
Search Engine Optimization, Positioning: Is Chasing Google Algorithms Worth It?
Google is the undisputed heavyweight champion of search engines. Most SEO (search engine optimization) companies pitch their tent around Google. Apart from being the king of search engines, unlike Yahoo and MSN, Google does not serve sponsored results on top of its search results, drawing away considerable attention/traffic away from the search results. Hence ranking high with Google is worth all the trouble it takes to get there. Little wonder then, that most SEO revolves round Google. When Google sneezes, the SEO world catches cold. When Google tweaks its search algorithms, SEO experts scamper back to the trenches to gaze at their crystal ball, to figure out what Google is up to.
.com Not Listed in Regional Yahoo? Don?t Despair!
If you're a non-American business with a .com web address, and your regional Yahoo ranking is important to you, then my story might interest you.
A Link From An Ugly Duckling Website With A PR=1 Could Give You 10 to 80 Times More PageRank
Whether you want to start a business and sell on the Internet or you're an old pro and want more Internet sales, here's the easy way to do it.
SEO Expert Guide - Free Site Promotion (PR) (part 6/10)
In parts 1 - 5 you learnt how to develop your proposition, identify your key words and optimize your site and pages. You were also introduced to our mythical Doug (who sells antique doors, door handles, knockers, door bells or pulls and fitting services) in Windsor in the UK.
Local Search Optimization - A Guide to Getting Started
While searching the web these days, it's hard not to notice all those little Local tabs sprouting up in the vicinity of the search field on virtually every major search engine. Within the past year, the race has been to integrate a plethora of advanced features into local search capabilities.
The Hottest Tip On Getting A Web Site Listed Quickly by Yahoo, Inktomi, MSN, FAST and AltaVista
Every webmaster knows that the free search engines are a major source of traffic.
Ranked #1 at Google for Invisible Entrepreneurs But No Traffic?
I am ranked #1 for that silly phrase at Google. So What?
How To Make Your Website More Successful? (Part II)
In part I of our series of how to make your website more successful we already showed you some important tricks to build a more successful website. This time we are going to expand the scope a little to further improve your website and to make it work harder for you on the Internet.
SEO Expert Guide - Proposition Development (part 2/10)
It is literally amazing how many people start their online business presence by buying a domain name (close to their business name) and building a brochure-ware page. Only later do they turn their mind to optimizing their site for (i) their audience and (ii) the way their audience find them. Fewer still take a long, hard look at what their competitors are doing first.
Five Ways To Win The Favor Of Search Engines
You've got a cool new website with all the works: cool Flash presentations, eye-catching colors, informative text, easy-to-use layout, and an interesting topic. You think your site is amazing, and you know that others will agree with you. If only they know it exists.