First, I would like to thank Mark Brownlow of the Internet Business Forum for his review of PromoteNewz on the ibiz Newsletter web site posted on November 29, 2000. You can read his review by clicking here and let me know if you agree with Mr. Brownlow.

Whether it be good or bad I think that all criticism is important and should be viewed as constructive. Saying that, I would like to know what you think and if you have any ideas for me that will help this ezine to become the top resource for anyone wishing to advance their web site promotion.

In today's PromoteNewz, Roger Burke is going to show us how he was able to achieve the top position on both AltaVista and Yahoo on his very first try. I, myself would be very happy if I could get this premier position on what are the two hardest directories to get high rankings on.

As always, if you have any articles or stories that you would like to share, send them to me and I will try to include them in an issue of PromoteNewz.

As always, if you have any articles or stories that you would like to share send them to me and I will include them in an issue of PromoteNewz.

Sincerely
Patrick Stoddard,
PromoteNewz Editor

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It came as a pleasant surprise to me recently when I managed to achieve what most people say is impossible: get listed in Yahoo within three weeks and get top position for my keywords, both on my first attempt.

And, as a bonus, I'm on the first page of relevant search results in Altavista also!

I didn't use any tricks, I have no hidden links - in fact I have almost no links to speak of--I didn't stuff my metatags or ALT parameters with junk, and I didn't generate hundreds of gateway pages.

The most important thing I did was to develop a unique product for a particular niche. And, I did that only after researching the net and making sure that nobody else had the same thing. There *are* some similar products, but none with the exact same features. Hence, my particular product *is* unique. It took a long time to develop (three years), but it was a laborious task (the product will *never* be finished really, and it is now my task to maintain it).

With the product ready, I then designed and coded the web pages, building an entire domain around this one complete idea. I didn't want any extraneous issues or offers to detract from the domain's raison d'etre; I would use *other* domains to promote my affiliate programs and other products.

The design is simple to the point of Spartan; the coding is so basic, a beginner could do it easily. Just as well, as my knowledge of CGI scripting, Javascript and the like is abysmal. However, I wanted *nothing* to get in the way of my message and what I wanted to market.

Before developing the code, I wrote out my sales letter in Word, doing the layout as I wrote, working out the headlines, and getting the look and feel of my page the way I wanted, before I converted it to HTML.

When the sales letter and basic coding was done, I then turned to the TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS within the HTML code.

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There has been a lot written about those three and no doubt there will continue to be much said. I don't profess to be expert at all, but I do know this:

1. The TITLE must be relevant and must make linguistic and logical sense when read by a human. If it contains two or three powerful keywords, so much the better.
   
   
2. The DESCRIPTION must be relevant also and should contain your most powerful keywords, but should not merely repeat your title. The length of the DESCRIPTION should not exceed that required by Yahoo. The very first headline of the sales letter should be *exactly* the same as the DESCRIPTION.
   
   
3. The KEYWORDS used must appear in the sales letter, but only in a certain ratio to the total words on a page. Depending upon who you read, that ratio can vary from 3% to 10% (my home page has about a 4% ratio). I'm not totally sure what the right figure is, and I suspect that very few people are. Also, from material I've read, opinion is roughly split 50/50 about whether keywords should be in upper or lower case. I've opted to use all upper case, separated by commas with no spaces.

I spent a lot of time getting the title, description and first headline right and went through many variations before I stopped. (But, I don't have to stop -- they can be modified any time at all if I choose.) Only when I had finished that process though, did I then develop my final keyword list.

Each page for the website was treated in the same way. But, although each page -- and there are only ten -- is thematically similar, the TITLE, DESCRIPTION, KEYWORDS and first headline are all different (content for each page is different also, of course!). By doing so, I ensure that I can submit all pages individually, should I choose, without being accused of spamming the search engines (although, with only 10 pages, that was not likely anyway).

When all of this was done, I submitted the information to all of the majors manually i.e. the top ten, which includes Yahoo and Altavista. (I used an automated service to submit to hundreds of other SEs). In three weeks, the new domain was listed in Yahoo and Altavista, and none of it cost me a cent.

SUMMARY: Perhaps the most important lesson I've learnt is that a unique product or idea for a niche category or market is crucial, being the sine qua non for high ranking. This cannot be stressed too strongly.

Secondly, the whole domain was developed with the KISS principle as paramount. The people who read through the domain will be interested in *only* what I have to *say* and will judge it accordingly. And, that's how it should be. (Other products may require more page embellishment e.g. fancy video games and such like.)

And, finally, I've given the search engines and directories what they want: content rich web pages in a specific niche, directed to targeted, interested people. And, isn't that how it should be also?



If you're interested in finding my ebook product, go to Yahoo or Altavista and punch in 'homonym + dictionary' or 'homonym + homophone' in the search box.

With thanks to Yahoo and Altavista, I'm on the first page.

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Roger Burke has been involved with computers since 1967, covering most aspects. He, and his wife Sherry, are now actively engaged in online self-publishing and promoting specific affiliate programs at http://online-wealth.com.