The Field of Dreams Myth

"Build it and they will come."

This famous line from the movie featuring Kevin Costner must be on the sub-conscious of every person who builds a web site.

"Build it and they will come"
- but your page counter only seems to register a few hits a day.

"Build it and they will come"
- but your sales haven't gone up yet.

You begin to have a nagging feeling - maybe the movie lied.

Yes, the Field of Dreams "build it and they will come" is a myth when it comes to web sites. Even in the movie, they never explained how the line of cars that appear, streaming towards Costner's "Field of Dreams" found out about it or decided to all visit the same day.

Just having your site on the web doesn't guarantee that anyone will visit it. You have to tell people to come to your web site. This article discusses some strategies you should plan to use to

Search Engines

Not too long ago, everyone seems to be making a big deal about how to get a good ranking on the various search engines. There are several software packages available that will help you register your site on 100's or even 1000's of search engine sites. Of course, most of these search engine sites are obscure, and you may not even want to be listed on something like "Triple-X Fun Sites."

Now its a little different. Many of the major search engines don't allow automated submission. They also use intelligent robots to crawl your site to make sure your site is about what you said it was about. Other search engines have people review your web site, and they decide how it should be listed.

But given all the different search engines out there, which ones should you get listed on? And how do you make sure your site gets a good ranking on your keywords? Knowing what to do and how to do it has evolved into a specialty called "Search Engine Optimization." You can study the what and the how-to's yourself, or Realm-Net Hosting can work with you to optimize and submit your site to the top search engines to help increase your site's exposure.

So go ahead, register your site on the top search engines. Use meta-tags for keywords and the description of your site. But don't stop there.

Identify with your website

Your web site is your businesses online identity. Everywhere you would display your business's name, phone number or address, make sure your web site is prominently listed. Most people have an easier time remember names than numbers. This is further argument for making sure your web site's name stands out just as much as your business name, and definitely more than your phone number.

Put your web site address everywhere you can. Business cards, stationary, invoices, receipts, vehicles, shirts, hats, pens, checks, etc. If your phone system plays "muzac" while people are on hold, have a recording plug your web site.

By the way, you don't have to list your site's URL the way the browser usually does: "http://www.yourbusiness.com" You can just list "yourbusiness.com" and most people know to put the "www." in front of it. Even if they don't, Realm-Net Hosting configures your site so that it will come up when just "yourbusiness.com" is entered.

Advertising

If you are spending any money advertising, make sure to include your web site! The medium you use depends on who you want to reach. You may have to do some research to find the most cost-effective medium for you. If you don't have a marketing background, or someone on your team who does, I'd recommend reading "Guerilla Marketing" and other such books. But if you're going to advertise, make sure your web site is listed!

This includes your ad in the yellow pages (both the page kind and the online kind) and any other type of advertising you do.