Linking/Driving people to our website

finding sites on which to put a link to our site

[Sheena_Mac]

The company, for whom I am technology transfer officer, has a website which lists technology/spin-off companies available for licensing, investment and general commercialisation oportunities. We desperately need to drive people to our site - does anyone know how you can find portals/sites where we can simply place a link to our site? An example would be to put a link on a electrical engineering focussed site/portal, so that industrial parties would see the link and could be diverted to our site - any tips? As an academic insititute we do not have the financial resources to invest in PPC routes.

I've had some advice from a UK-focussed site but also want to consider wider scale.

[edited by: heini at 2:38 pm (utc) on Mar. 18, 2003]
[edit reason] no site names and urls allowed / thanks [/edit]

[ukgimp]

Hello Sheena

As a academic related site you should be able to get a few top links from your institution. Academic sites have a heavy weight presence.

>>where we can simply place a link to our site

forget that, that is called a link farm or a free for all (FFA). Think directoties, like odp, joeant, goguides and Zeal. There will be loads more who you could track down. Dont bother placing a reciprocal link when some of the smaller directories ask for one.

Get some academics onside to place links on their pages with good anchor text.

Read these forums and ask questions.

Just a side note but you may want to delete the specific mention of what you are trying to promote, not really allowed :)

Cheers

[georgeek]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Sheena!

We desperately need to drive people to our site...

I took a quick look at your website and you desperately need all round SEO. If you really are short of funds then you will have to train someone up internally and give them the responsibility. Start them off with a a few days reading on WebmasterWorld!

[heini]

Getting links from directories specializing in your areas is certainly a good approach.

You say you are a noncommercial academic site - usually in an environment like that it should be no problem to get some links from other institutions in your area, area defined by locality, or by topicality.

Generally the question is what kind of traffic do you need and what are you willing to do to get it.
The most cost effective way to drive traffic are search engines, especially Google. Is your site indexed by Google? What about other search engines?

I have to agree though, it looks like you could do with some professional, or at least dedicated, help with promoting the site.