How to Promote Website

[BradGannaway]

I've been stationed at FT Sill, OK for the past two years, and have been a member of the Oklahoma Shooters Association almost the entire time. It's a site for ALL shooters, not just competition shooters. It's been nice meeting guys, through the website, that live close to me, and to be honest, OSA is responsible for getting me into USPSA......or at least a few of the members are responsible.

Since there was nothing like that for the state of Alabama, and since I'm moving to Alabama, I started a website to fill the gap.

My problem though, is that for one, I'm brand new to web design and if you check out the site, you can see that it's not very "flashy". But, my biggest problem is getting people to the website. The people that do find the site, usually join, if they are from Alabama. However, my site rank is almost non existent, so when people google my site, it doesn't come up.

I've been reading about how to fix this, and one of the best ways is to get other sites to link to my site.

Now we get to my real question...........how to ask someone to put a link to my site on their site? It sounds like a simple answer, but I just don't want to put someone in an uncomfortable situation.

Also, does anyone know anything about getting advertisers? I don't want to make money for me, rather to have contests and pay for members match fees, t-shirts, and stuff like that.

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

BSG

Edited July 27, 2010 by Brad_G

[AzYooper]

I noticed that your Keyword and Description META tags do not have any descriptive text of your site. That would definitely help. I am a programmer and do most of my work on websites. Not so much with design, mostly with the business logic and database functionality. If you have questions about building your site just send me an email.

I do not know how to ask people to have your site linked to theirs, but this posting worked for me. I will post a link on your site on my personal site. For someone that does this for a living I should have a better site, but for now it is just a bunch of links to me and my friends shooting at steel matches.

[TreblePlink]

Don't worry about flashy. Make it businesslike, well written, easy and consistent to navigate through the pages, and keep in mind, the site is just a vehicle for delivering interesting content - this you must have. You must spend lots of time writing and gathering stuff.

Make a "links to other shooting resources" page showing relevant and useful sites - particularly those in or close to Alabama. Send a polite email to webmasters of sites that attract folks with similar interests, explaining exactly what your site is and who it serves. If appropriate and non-commercial, many webmasters will add your link (particularly if you've already linked to their site.)

I do web stuff for ORPCI.org "Home of the world's greatest local matches!"

[benos]

Brad,

I added your site to my site's Links page.

So feel free to link my home page and the forums, if you want, when you get a links page going.

Back when I added a crapload of links to my Links page, I emailed every site owner with just a simple email like... Since our website's have similar content, I added your site's link to my site's link page (and provide link). Since linking to each other will boost both google ranking for each site, if you would add my site to your links paege I would appreciate it (provide link).

Another key thing to improve ranking is to have the page's Meta Tag Description closely match the first key words on the page. I don't know what the backend of your site is built with, but for meta/descrip, the source is:

<meta name="description" content="Please insert Meta Description which contained 1-255 characters." />

... So definitely figure out how to edit that with something from this:

Alabama Shooters Association is a new website designed to promote safe and responsible firearm use and ownership. We also are here to assist in 2nd Amendment rights, especially how they affect Alabamians. The website is centered around the forums, which are managed by a small volunteer staff, but the everyday members are who we rely on to keep the topics going.

There is no fee to join, and we welcome businesses to join ASA and secure a section in the Affiliate area of the forums.

Here's a great site I used to improve the ranking for all my site's pages that I cared if they were found by searching:

http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/

And some more good SEO info:

http://www.seoconsultants.com/seo/tips/

be

[Matt P.]

Brad,

Here are a couple of suggestions. First stay away from bulk submit companies. Google hates them and will penalize you for that.

Here are 4 steps that will improve your ranking substantially.

1.) Install a sitemap

You can get a free scan here http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

2.) Install a robots.txt file so search engines can find you.

you can get a free one here http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/search-engine/robots-txt.asp

3.) start a yahoo and google account and add the sitemap and other stuff to those accounts.

4.) verify your account with yahoo and google.

5.) add search terms to your site and a good description in the meta tags.

These steps will get you indexed far above anything else.

Beware of the bulk submit companies. They can do your site ranking harm and Google will ban you.

If you really wanted, you could do pay per click advertising. That will get you to the top as well.

Good luck.

[davidwiz]

Create a Facebook fanpage for your group. Tell the USPSA.org webmaster so that he can add the link to your site. Link to your Section's website and have them link back to you.

[BradGannaway]

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME!!!!

I will be following up with some of you guys to see if you can do some QC on the work I'm going to do over the next few weeks.

Thanks for the GREAT ideas, and please, if anyone has any more, feel free to share.

And if anyone has any constructive criticism, don't worry, I've grown some real thick skin after 16 years in the Army with multiple combat and overseas tours.

I want to promote shooting and second Amendment rights AS WELL AS USPSA.

Thanks again.

BSG

[Matt P.]

Also,

Be careful when just adding links to your website. Google really not like a page filled with links. In fact, you will be penalized for that. Google sets the benchmark in indexing. All others write to them.

they have several online tutorials but in a brief summary, google will reward you for a quality no tricks web site with good content. All other tricks and gimmicks are recognized and penalized.

Relevant content and meaningful content is paramount for FREE quality indexing. You can always PPC .