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Publicizing your Web site is probably one of the more daunting aspects of any Web development project. It's an area where project teams spend the least amount of time and thought. It helps to adopt your own standards for Web page development so that your site has the best chance of being consistently indexed across the major search sites. Use of these standards has the benefit of not only optimizing search engine indexing, but also indexing performed by your own internal search engine. Understanding how queries are processed and relevancy established is important for those seeking information, but it is even more important for Web site developers and content writers who can directly affect how their Web sites and Web documents are indexed by the different search sites. Understanding he subtle indexing differences among search engines will help integrate the very best Web development practices in order to publicize a Web site effectively.

Sounds easy, publicizing your Web site, but in fact it's probably one of the more daunting aspects of any Web development project, particularly for the techies among us. It's an area where project teams spend the least amount of time and thought. They'd rather integrate the latest Web site bells and whistles than plan a marketing strategy to get the Web site recognized. Writing wellstructured content and behind-the-scenes metadata doesn't appeal to them as it probably should.

I suppose we focus on what we do best-marketing is not entirely in my comfort zone. However, the critical interaction between Web technology and our ability to market and promote a Web site relates to how users find valuable sites. Most users still rely on search engines to navigate the Web. To some degree, your marketing strategy will require you to understand how search engines work. However, thinking you can win the search engine indexing game to always end up on top may require more time and money than you can afford. Search engine optimizers create entire companies to help Webmasters get high rankings from search engines. Can we amateurs imitate this?

It helps to adopt your own standards for Web page development so that your site has the best chance of being consistently indexed across the major search sites. Use of these standards has the benefit of not only optimizing search engine indexing, but also indexing performed by your own internal search engine (if you offer one). After all, once users get to your site, you want to be sure they can continue to drill down and find what they need, using whatever search mechanism is provided. A strategy to optimize indexing via page standards takes into account proper content organization: the pyramid writing principle, an understanding of search site indexing, use of metatag information, and appropriate subject area knowledge to properly assess how and where publicity efforts have the most impact.

The good news is, search engines aren't the only means to publicize your Web site. Just because it's a Web site doesn't mean you can't employ traditional marketing efforts.

SEARCH EIMGIIMES AIMD METASEARCH

One of the most effective ways to publicize a Web site is to list it with the most popular search engines, Web directories, and guides. Each indexes and categorizes information differently. Almost all of us have used a search site to locate information and we each likely have our favorites bookmarked for repeated use. Although searching the Web can be frustrating, given its sheer volume, a search site helps make the task of hunting for information manageable. Over the past few years, several search sites have risen to the top as the most comprehensive and user-friendly within this highly competitive market. Google, Yahoo!, and Ask Jeeves/Teoma each provide a huge database of indexed Web sites.

To greatly oversimplify, most search sites and their back-end databases work in a similar fashion: A user submits a query, usually a keyword or word phrase, which is checked against the site's indices. Web pages are evaluated for relevancy based upon a number of factors, depending upon the search engines' individual algorithms, but most include popularity in their analysis. The result is a list of "hits" arranged in descending order of relevancy. The topmost documents are considered most relevant compared to documents appearing further down the list. Understanding how queries are processed and relevancy established is important for those seeking information, but it is even more important for Web site developers and content writers who can directly affect how their Web sites and Web documents are indexed by the different search sites. Understanding the subtle indexing differences among search engines will help integrate the very best Web development practices in order to publicize a Web site effectively.

Search engines use indexing software programmed to travel the Internet in search of new or updated Web sites and their associated pages. Sounding more like an entomologist's watch list, indexing programs or agents, sometimes referred to as "spiders," "crawlers," "robots," "ants," or "worms," go from page to page following internal and external links from the page. Essentially, their programmed task is to visit "every" Web page on the Internet, which doesn't actually happen, and download indexing information used to describe the page. Indexing varies among search engines and their associated spidering programs. Some gather information contained within the <HEAD> </HEAD> HTML tags, others index words found in the introductory text, or collect every word contained in the document; still others extract a limited combination of all of these. The end result is an enormous, keyword-searchable database, comprehensive in scope, but lacking the necessary human intervention to effectively balance recall (number of hits) and relevance (quality).

Where search engines offer a product comprised of indexing agent, database, and searching tool, metasearch engines offer more service than product. Their service is simple: A user's search request is queried across several search engines simultaneously and pulls between 10-50 hits from each, removing the duplicates. Metasearch engines don't index Web sites or create and maintain their own database, but facilitate the search process by configuring the user's search request in a format recognized by other search engines.

ADOPTING WEB DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS

Lack of indexing standards places the burden of indexing a site squarely on the shoulders of the Web project team members, who should prepare well-structured content and use appropriate HTML and metadata. Adopting Web development standards for design, HTML use, metadata, and content structure (writing) is an important part of the overall Web development strategy. These standards enhance findability by search engines. Enforcing them is often achieved through the creation of a Web development style guide, or a formalized set of policies and procedures to ensure consistency across the site. The larger the Web site and the more decentralized its development, the more important these development standards become.

It's important to incorporate standards into Web development by integrating information contained with the header portion of the document. Although lack of indexing standards persists among search engines, one consistency among most of them is the use of metatags for indexing. Historically, this has been the most important information you can provide to have your site and pages indexed properly and to reap the publicity you deserve. Most search engines provide detailed information about how they incorporate the use of metatag information, including the number of characters or words that can be used in the keyword or description metatag. Good metatag use does not guarantee your page makes top billing within a search engine, but it does increase how your page will be weighted for relevancy. It will not substitute for quality information on your site, since SEO companies have learned how to manipulate metatagging to "fool" search engines into indexing sites that don't live up to the metatag billing.

Search engines also automatically or manually extract information and keywords from a Web page's initial content or any of the text appearing between the <BODY> </BODY> tags. Structuring the writing of content from general to specific is called the inverted pyramid writing method and facilitates the reader's ability to read content to the desired level of specificity. Behind the scenes, the pyramid writing method accommodates search sites using initial page content and keywords for indexing. As part of a search return following a query, initial page content is often used as a very short descriptor or abstract, along with the site's title, relevance ranking, date of last modification, file size, and Web address. Structuring your content using this top-down method benefits both the user of your site and the searcher.

SUBJECT AREA KNOWLEDGE

Another option for publicizing a Web site is to become familiar with your subject area on the Web. This knowledge impacts several levels. Subject area knowledge should influence the keywords used in both the metatag information as well as in the top-level content of your site. In the field of healthcare, Web pages with audiences of both healthcare professionals and healthcare consumers should include both medical terms, and where applicable, the layperson equivalent. For example, a Web page with content on myocardial infarction should include both keywords "myocardial infarction" and "heart attack." A library Web page on document delivery should use both library terminology-interlibrary loan, document delivery-and also language for the layperson-borrowing.

Subject area knowledge also determines how and with whom you index your site. Find a guide on the Web specific to your subject area or find individual Web sites with similar subject coverage and ask that the Webmaster set up a reciprocal link-I'll link to you, if you link to me. Identify newsgroups or discussion lists to announce new areas of interest to your users.

ANNOUNCING YOUR SITE AND KEEPING USERS COMING BACK

Indexing your Web site with multiple search engines represents only a small fraction of what can be done to gain recognition for a Web site. Many more options offer a more targeted approach to getting the word out. This applies not only to announcing the initial launch of your site, but also announcing new additions to the site, or updated content. The following is a list of ideas that may be useful to market your Web site:

* Request that your Web site address be listed with any article about the organization or its departments appearing in publications occurring in-house and in the community.

* Incorporate your Web address into all outgoing paper materialsletterhead, business cards, brochures, etc. Also, include your Web address as part of your e-mail signature file.

* An online newsletter works well to keep users coming back after the initial visit. Allowing users to subscribe/unsubscribe directly from your Web site is a low-cost alternative to keep users up-to-date on the latest offerings from your site.

* Introduce your Web site as part of an open house or conference. Provide a booth with workstations or a kiosk for those who want to browse your site; kick off new site features, services, or products with special events.

* Develop and maintain a discussion list of users interested in content changes that occur on your site. Periodically e-mail this group with special announcements of interest, such as new class announcements or newly added Web resources. Segregate these audiences as needed to focus your messages accordingly.

* Keep the page design consistent, incorporating sensible navigational elements, along with information zones reflecting page author, modification date, and complete contact information. Keep the site content current and provide a means for users to comment about the site.

Publicizing a Web site is an ongoing activity closely tied to the organization's overall public relations and marketing efforts. Assuming the organization's audience is already defined, the next steps require developing publicity objectives, determining publicity activities and budget, and assessing how to measure the effectiveness of these efforts. For many of us, the objective is simply to educate user audiences about the resources and services available from the organization's Web site. We want our Web site to be recognized as valuable for information dissemination.

Closing the PR loop requires ongoing assessment of these efforts. Ask Web site users how they heard about you, pay close attention to the statistics you already collect for possible spikes, and remember to read your Web site's log files to determine if specific efforts are paying off. Assess your behind-the-scenes publicity efforts by searching for your Web site across several different search sites. Is your site found with appropriate keywords or word phrases? Is it suitably ranked with proper description? If not, step back and reevaluate how your Web page is constructed and review the sites listed as more relevant in a search return. Read the SEO literature to learn how optimizers assess search engines. Reassess how the search site indexes its resources and determines relevancy.

Your Web site PR campaign has two faces: one occurring behind the scenes related to the development of your organization's Web site content and code, and the other reflecting the public exchange of information taking place between you and your user audience. Developing a plan to deliver both sides of this strategy has the greatest potential to efficiently integrate the Web site into existing business operations and effectively serve the organization's users.

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[Author Affiliation]

Kim Guenther

Director, University of Virginia

Health System Web Center