Getting listed by search engines

posted by Scott Andrew Bird

Once you start to realise the benefits of sharing your genealogical search via the internet, you'll start to wonder how to get more people to look at your site. Here's how :

Search engines

Being listed by the search engines is certainly not the only angle to look at, but it does help. As a minimum, ensure you have meta tags for keyword and description on every page of your site. A suitable list of keywords would include the surnames you are researching, the names of major locations involved, and possibly some common misspellings of the surnames. The description should include major surnames, locations and approximate time period.

It will probably take a while for the search engines to find you if you leave it entirely up to them. Consider using a utility such as Submit Wolf to automatically register your site with many search engines at once.

Links on other sites

Whilst the search engines are responsible for some of the traffic to your site, much more traffic is generated by having links to your site on other sites. Not only does this provide direct traffic to you, it increases your popularity in the eyes of search engines.

Getting the webmasters of other sites to add a link is often simply a matter of asking, and offering them a reciprocal link on your site. Make sure your site has something to offer their visitors which lies outside the scope of their site. You might both be researching the same surnames but covering different time periods for example.

Avoid using 'link exchange' facilities, as these simply fill your site with links to completely unrelated sites. No-one benefits from this. Instead, focus your attention on gaining links from related sites - sites which contain information on the same surname or location for example.

Forums

Forums can be great places for discussing your research with other people looking into the same surnames and locations. They can also be great places to casually give other people the address of your site. This doesn't mean spam - you're not direct marketing here - simply the inclusion of your site url in postings, particularly when you're able to help someone else.

Genealogy portals

There are a number of large sites which contain numerous genealogical resources, including links to sites which focus on a particular surname or location. Register with these.

Keep a record of your activities, such as registration with genealogy portals, and monitor the traffic to your site. You will soon see which activities generate the most traffic.

Always keep in mind the reason people will continue to return to your site as you do these things - it contains valuable information. Keep the information on your site fresh and up-to-date, and people will keep coming to visit.