Promotion Tip:
Coding For Site Promotion

by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.

Develop your Web site promotion plan before you design the site, not after it's launched!

That's an easy statement to make, but it isn't very helpful to most Web designers - especially beginning ones. So many design choices affect promotion that it's easy to get overwhelmed. We narrowed the list down to five of the most important.

Decision #1: Static or dynamic pages?

The answer depends on the type of site you're designing and its overall size. Typically, an ecommerce site consists of some opening static HTML pages that contain the basic information about the site and its products. Visitors can search for more specific information that gets pulled from a database and displayed on dynamically-generated pages.

The problem: unlike human visitors, search engine spiders can't enter queries so a lot of information doesn't get indexed. Fortunately, some search engines can now follow certain types of dynamic links. Others are experimenting with indexing entire dynamic sites.

But the new capabilities are limited and not always reliable. It's best to avoid dynamically-generated pages. If you really need them, always have some static HTML pages full of good text content that you submit to search engines. That makes it much easier for visitors to find your site in the first place.

For more information about promoting dynamic pages, refer to these previous articles:

Invite Search Engine Spiders Into Your Dynamic Web Site

Deep Submit Your Dynamic Pages

Decision #2: Choose a navigation system

Again, the basic choice is static or dynamic? Once again, we recommend static navigation menus because they enhance a site's usability and accessibility.

But if you're designing a large or very complex site, a static menu system may not work. For instance, look at the navigation system used by MSNBC.com. It uses DHTML menus to help visitors jump directly to the subject area they're most interested in. The site is just too large to rely on a static menu structure for primary navigation.

But while you're there, scroll down to the very bottom of the page. Notice that MSNBC's designers added static text links at the bottom. Those text links take visitors to the main page of each section. Visitors with JavaScript turned off in their browsers or visitors using screen readers or other assistive technologies can use the text links to navigate.

Remember that a search engine spider can index every page in your Web site. That makes every page a potential landing page (an entry point into the Web site). That's why we encourage you to optimize your important pages with Search Engine Power Pack and then deep submit them directly to search engines.

No matter where a visitor enters your site, you hope she will eventually want to visit your home page right? Make that easy by placing a link to the home page on every page. Visitors usually expect to find it in the top, left-hand corner of the page or as an image link on the site logo.

Decision #3: Organize the site

If you've decided on a dynamic menu system as your primary navigation structure, make sure you create a good, text-based site map and link every page to it. This helps both search engine spiders and visitors. A site map is a handy way to ensure that search engine spiders find and index all your pages.

It's just as important for human visitors. A well-organized site map helps people create a mental map of your site's organization. They're less likely to get frustrated and lost if they can always return to the handy site map.

A frustrated visitor is apt to click away and find a more user-friendly site if he can't quickly find the information he needs. Always keep the three-click rule in mind when you're organizing the site's structure.

Decision #4: Design a clear page structure

Now that the big decisions are made, it's time to focus on your individual page design. Web pages need to look good but they also need to contain good information. Fortunately, the same characteristics that make a page search engine friendly usually help the page's overall usability and accessibility for human visitors too.

Visitors may like a cool design, but they really love good content! Good organization makes it easier for visitors to scan for important points and find relevant links. Our article on writing for the Web discusses techniques for organizing individual paragraphs and bullet lists.

Decision #5: Content, content, content!

Of course, you have to actually have some content before you can begin organizing it! Use the keyword selection tool that comes with Search Engine Power Pack can help with keyword selection to select the best keywords and keyword phrases for each page. Then, concentrate on writing page content that uses those keywords whenever possible.

Some suggestions:

Good site design, organization, and content help increase your search engine rank - which brings more human visitors to your site. If you consider promotion in the beginning - before you ever write a line of code - you're already a hundred steps ahead of most of your online competitors.