Promoting your website.

[Rye1]

I've noticed that several of the participants of this site always include their website address in their signature. Does this help with the promotion of the site?

I've had my local chamber of commerce link to the site. I've read somewhere that the more sites that link to your site, places you higher in the search engine queue.

Any other helpful tips?

Robert Billings

http://www.newrivereng.com

 

[kchan711]

Hi Robert,

I sure hope it does. Through tracking, my number one referrer is Eng-Tips.com. Plus, I just clicked your site simply because of what you wrote and the link was in your signature. I say every little bit helps.

Yes, your website is ranked by number of referring sites among other various metrics. I too am trying to grow my marketing ability as many other engineers on this site. However, I truly only consider my site a "getting to know you" release, while actual work is done through reference and proposals.

Kyle

Kyle Chandler

http://www.chiefengineering.net

"To the Pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the Optimist, the glass is half-full. To the Engineer, the glass is twice as large as it needs to be!"

 

[zdas04]

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big industry right now. One of the things that improves your ranking is the number of incoming links. Every post you make that includes your signature counts as an incoming link. I get found by Google and Yahoo searches a lot these days, and for a technical question about pigging or screw compressors I often show up high on the first page.

The first four years I had my website up and running, I got a lot of hits (several hundred per day), but so far this year I've gotten three new clients from people finding me at eng-tips.com. Billing in 2008 that I can directly attribute to people who found me here is in excess of $100k. Right now I'm in a hotel in downtown Brisbane because a guy liked my response in a thread in eng-tips.com, followed the link and downloaded all of the samples documents and found them useful, then printed my CV and forwarded it to his boss. The rest is rapidly becoming history.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts" Patrick Moynihan

 

[Rye1]

A marketing person also told me that SEO (Thanks David) also looks to see if your site is growing. They recommended adding a News Release page on your site that you added to every month or so. This way the search engine spider sees a growing site and ranks your site higher.

Thanks for the great advice.

Robert Billings, PE

http://www.newrivereng.com

 

[Pressed]

More quality links are best. If you use firefox there is an add-on that will indicate the page-rank of the web-page you visit (as well as other info). Websites and other software will give similar data.

If you link, willy nilly, then the search engines might put you at a lower ranking. There are rules to certain search engines and it's bad to violate them. Join a webmaster forum to keep up to date.


Oh, in the link to your site, it can be better if there is hot-text linked to your http:\\ that describes your keywords, like "Hydro Testing"; if that happens to be your specialty.

===================================
Forging

http://mech.e.tripod.com

-------------------------------------------------
Ddraig Breuddwydia....

http://www.tailofthedragon.com

 

[SylvestreW]

Guess it's a case of "every little bit helps"

-
Syl.

http://www.aercoustics.com

 

[Rye1]

Yes, every little bit helps. Most of my buisness (99%) has came from word of mouth, so I'm not sure how the website helps. It doesn't hurt anyway.

And, I've climbed to number two on google with a new river engineering search.

Robert Billings

http://www.newrivereng.com

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Typing in the name of a company and having it appear in the top search results means practically zero. Typing in common keywords and getting the same result... now that is useful. If the person already knows your company, Google just helps them find the webpage. It's the people who don't know your company that you want Google to push in your direction.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Rye1]

Good point Dan. I think it is a "learning and building" curve. I've moved my company name up, now I've got to figure out how to move my key words up.