Most people find evangelistic sites through links, particularly on search engines. It is important to learn how to get a high 'ranking' on search engines for particular keyword searches that relate to the subject of your site. Understand the way people string search words together, by obtaining good access statistics for your site.
Include a good informative 'title' tag which contains all the words people are likely to use to find sites on the subject of your page. Use up all the space available - up to about 90 characters. You may repeat a really important word - but not more than once.
Explain more of the content of the page in an enticing 'meta description tag'. Along with the title, this is what search engines will display to describe your page. For 'bridge-type' pages, it may not be wise to mention there is any Christian content on the page.
Make many of your pages into logical entry points to the site. Each page should have its own different, carefully written, 'title' and 'meta description' tags.
The 'meta keyword' tag is no longer very important - but use it anyway. Do not repeat any word more than three times.
H tags The other page component that search engines check, to find out what a page is really about, are the words contained in the first few headline tags and in the first few paragraphs of text. So ensure that tags contain keywords relating to the subject of the page, and include these words in the first few paragraphs more often than you would expect in normal language.
Even if you are using Style Sheets, continue to use <H> tags at the beginning of the page. It remains true that words in the title tag and the tags are the most important in giving your page a high ranking.
Also use 'ALT' and 'title' tags for all the graphics on your page. These should be several keywords relating to your page: not too many words per tag - perhaps 3 or 4. It also helps if graphics have a meaningful file-name which is a keyword that would be used to find the page. The title tag of a graphic will display as a tooltip on mouse hover. Alt tags should be a description of the graphic so that visually-impaired users with a screen reader know what the graphic is.
Page popularity Search engines increase your 'ranking' by taking into account the number of sites which link to your page. This makes it hard when you start with a new page! Take time to ask for links from other sites, especially those on a similar subject. If you have other sites of your own, make sure to link across to each page of each site from the other sites.
Page submissions Submit all your pages (not just the home-page) to the main 8-10 international search engines, plus Open Directory Project and Yahoo if your pages are in English.
Submit to the main directories in your country and continental area.
If your page is about a secular topic, there are probably specialist subject directories to submit to.
If you have a church or local interest page, submit it to national, regional and town directories in your country.
There are 'pay-for-keyword' options on some search engines if you have a promotion budget. Consider GoTo and Google which offer a keyword purchase option which can appear above its normal free listings). But these are added extras - there are many ways of getting visitors for free!
Research Buzz - news of search engines, particularly specialist subject directories
Encourage people to link to your site with a 'please link to this page' reminder, and offer the coding and perhaps a choice of graphics to help people do this easily. There are also good ways to encourage people to bookmark the page, or even make it as their browser start page. See these offered on this site.
