Chapters 11 and 12: Notes

I am still back on Chapter 6 and style sheets. It's hard to believe. But, I've gone ahead and read Chapters 11 and 12 so that I can at least be timely in my note taking this week.

Chapter 11: Notes on Attracting Visitors:
Advice to heed: Entice visitors to come back with fresh content and add-on features.
Perfect you meta tags, both description and keyword. These go in the HEAD section. Put them in every page you create. Description should be a couple of sentences; keyword 25 words or less.
Submit site to web directories and search engines
Use hit counters and server logs to monitor traffic.
Find other websites like yours and establish reciprocal links. These will help your ranking.
Taking part in a web ring is another possibility, though you could end up in a ring with hideous sites. Be careful who you associate with.
Building a community, through forums, promo events, and newsletters help to keep your site viable.
Add a favicon (easily recognizable in a Favorites list)
Submit and application to ODP, the Open Directory Project. See page 299 for tips on how to do it the right way. Hint: don't be obnoxious. Other directories are Yahoo and Looksmart.
PageRank: the value of your site is determined by how many others link to it.
Another way to boost self: Google AdWords. Typical cost of a click is 35 cents.

Chapter 12 is about letting visitors talk to you and each other. In other words, give your site life by transforming it into a community.

Good tips: Be dynamic in the meta description part. Address what the site hopes to accomplish.
Add discussion forums and chat boards.
Advertise new content before adding it. Links to new content should be on first page.
Promote regular events.
The rest of the chapter explains the HTML necessary to create forms and check boxes, and how to manage a group.

I am far off from this last part. In fact, I can't imagine having the time to keep up with it. MacDonald suggests creating things like forums with threads that perpetuate themselves.

That's all for now. Back to remedial training.