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I recently started working as a consultant for MarketFinders, a Ventura County/ Santa Barbara marketing company in Southern California. Lynn Sarkany, founder and principal, communicated her interest in knowing more about web marketing as the interest in this "arcane art" is exponentially growing.

I said "arcane art" because, unlike conventional marketing, the approach can be quite different and unpredictable. In this article, I will review a few things that should or shouldn't be done in order to improve your site's prominence.

Let's assume that you do not have a website. Your first task is to hire a professional designer. Why do you ask? You could use one of those great designing programs, right? Well, you may have heard this before and it's not a myth: most of these programs generate unnecessary code that does not need to be there and may very well hurt your website. Search engines do prefer up-to-date clean code and a professional web designer is one of the most qualified people to do this. With a strong structure, your site will also be liked by spiders and bots (these are the programs gathering info for search engines) thus making it easier for it to be ranked at its value (given the algorithm used by the specific spider/bot). The higher the value and relevancy, the more likely others will view your site.

If you already have a website, several factors come into play, including age of site, website design, content dynamics, and any type of web marketing. A website professional should analyze your site, including its age, history, structure, and previous marketing attempts. From that point on, he/she should be in a position to tell you if your site needs structural work and how you should proceed to optimize your site.

Next, make sure search engines know who you are and where you are. In other words, make sure your contact information is complete with street address, phone number(s), fax (optional), and email address(es). Telling visitors who you are increases your site legitimacy and search engines, starting with Google, are starting to pay attention to that. The 'where' is also important since some search engines, and most directories, offer local searches and listings; some phonebooks even have online versions! Why pass on this opportunity for additional traffic?

The first step after a design, or redesign, is to submit your site to search engines and directories. Some people will tell you that it's not necessary or that it could even hurt an existing site. Until I see concrete proof supporting these facts, I'd rather be safe than sorry and submit my sites! Furthermore, search engines, at least the major ones, will not penalize you for submitting your site after a redesign; how could they consider it spamming?

Linking (or getting other websites to point to your website) is an ongoing process. You need a consistent linking strategy where links are added progressively. Adding a few relevant links (for example, from MD sites if you're a physician) regularly (weekly or monthly) will show your site is growing at a healthy pace, free of spam and unethical tactics.

In a similar fashion, 'black hat' tactics (things that some people do to trick search engines in order to achieve better rankings) should be avoided at all costs. Your site may end up being banned from search engines all together. I don't think the long term consequences are worth the immediate profit.

These two points are quite important because algorithms will sniff out (hopefully sooner than later) sites who use link farms (large amount of links pointing to one site) for sheer 'unethical- profit and spamming, or sites that use 'black hat' tactics.

The same way you need to build inbound links (those coming to your site), you need to develop relevant content, which visitors should find of interest. When it comes to marketing your site, nothing is more true than 'Content is King.' Good, fresh, content will not only keep visitors coming back but search engines may very well index the corresponding pages.

If your content is newsworthy, or specific to an industry, you may consider doing a press release. This is a tool that may bring your site and your business great exposure.

You may also post on forums and blogs in your field of business but please, do not spam other websites and respect their posting rules and policies. The goal is to build relationships which could lead to more traffic and links.

Most strategies rely on several tools: Search Engine Optimization, forum posts/blogging, press releases, linking/tagging (where people eartag your site within a community), email newsletters and/or mass emails, MySpace account (or similar), online ads, and paid advertising.

Quite simply, the web is so large that you'd loose your marbles if you tried everything to market your site. My advice to you is start small and build up on your results. Above all, track the return on any strategy you may use and determine whether or not it is a viable option for your business. People like the idea of advertising on the web and get caught up in the frenzy but sometimes forget the essential: Did it get my business noticed? Was it worth my investment?

Feel free to email me at Stephan at http://www.hamptonswebsitedesign.com if you have any questions.