I'm getting closer and closer to my publishing date for my WebDesign/Hosting/Web Template site and I've not even touched the marketing side of things. I've briefly read a few SEO articles and advice on the web but to me it seems like a very long process.
Would you advise that I start a marketing campaign asap, before the website is even published? If so, what exactly should I get doing? Or would this just be completely pointless...

Also, I don't know exactly how I would start out a SEO campaign... I understand that you can never have enough backlinks, and for such a competitive market as mine, I will need hundreds/thousands if not more - but how do I go about getting these?

As I understand SEO is very limited, and probably very unrealistic! Would I be way off if I was to assume that it's a case of 1, Finely Optimised META tags 2, Inside links (don't know the real term, but basically a sitemap) and 3, backlinks... anything else?

I wouldn't start marketing your site until it is done. The first thing you need to do. And have hopefully done before building your site is keyword research. Here's a bit of info on it:

http://www.webpuffs.com/2006/03/17/keyword-research/

After that, you can submit your site to directories. If you have the cash, you can hire someone to do that for you. If you enjoy doing it and have the time, you can do it yourself. Secondly, after you get some page rank on your site people will be more willing to trade links with you. You can then go to forums and ask for link exchanges or you can email people asking them if they want to exchange links. You can also submit articles about your site with links to your site.

SEO takes some time about 6 months to a year to get up in the serps in the good SEs Google and Yahoo. A great way to get quick traffic to your site is to go to forums that allow you to have a signature and post frequently. Keep in mind the whole reason to be in forums is to learn and help others, so don't spam.

The other option to quick traffic is to pay for it. Good luck!

And for that niche, you'll probably need to spend money.
I suggest adwords campaigns for low cost keywords.

Originally Posted by mcfc4eva

As I understand SEO is very limited, and probably very unrealistic!

SEO is very important for ranking in search engines and for getting traffic.
if you practice it well, it will realise your goals.

How do I find out the 'cost' keywords (google adwords) ?

You mean how much they pay for each keyword? There are sites that show that but I'm not familiar with the names off top of my head sorry.

you can go here and click on the "keyword selector tool" to see how many times a particular keyword is searched and then on the "view bids tool" to see how much people are bidding to be in the first, second, etc. position for that keyword. Of course, this is Yahoo not Google.


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WebCodingHelp.info

OK have everything planned out first and make sure your site is complete. Make sure you have all your necessary keywords, have a precise well written but short description of your site, submit to web directories. When submitting to search engines dont submit countless times, by doing this you're asking to be banned. Find sites with relevant keywords or sites with relevant backlinks and exchange links. Remember trade with relevant sites, this has alot more power than ordinary links from any old site.

You might want to read some more seo articles at my site: SeoMax

Do not launch a gigantic back link building campaign at the beginning. There is a negative effect on Google. Site can be penalized, if Google notice back link building rate is very high. So do not worry much about back links now. But try to build a quality site which can really give something to visitors.