A collection of advice to help you focus on software author issues and marketing techniques for search engine optimization and placement -

Search Engine Profile Exchange

The NEW Standard in Technical Documentation

Help & Manual is a documentation tool and content management system for both single and multi-author editing. While it is as easy to use like a normal word processor, Help & Manual gives you the full power of a true WYSIWYG XML editor.

Import From - Output To

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Setup Types - Selective Installations

Setup Types Support for Selective Installations (Setup Types). Group your files into components and assign them to a type of install (e.g. Complete, Typical, Minimum and Custom).

Drag and Drop Setup Scripting Language

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While our File and Search Engine Discussion reference page is a good place to get a quick overview - Visit this amazing web site for an exhaustive collection of advice for every facet of the Software Publishing business!

File and Search Engine Discussion

Editor: David Troxell of Encourager Software (updated August 06, 2009)

The complexities of getting your software and site known are growing daily.

This is a collection of advice to help you focus on marketing techniques for search engine optimization and placement (software author advice also).

In today's Internet world, there is still a certain amount of "legwork" you can accomplish yourself (with enough research), but more and more, it's taking a certain amount of capital to get the work done.

A number of Search Engine Optimization companies are available that can help you ready your web site for better SE placement (both initial and follow-up work to keep your ratings high)

NOTE: There is a lot of activity on the Internet making money for certain vendors in Search Engine placement/consulting/etc. and doing little in the process of true promotion - be Wary!

Search Engine Profile Exchange - Online and Down-loadable data versions available.

A number of references listed below are in the Search Engine Profile Exchange Online version.

However, Search Engine - Web Update version (data version) - can be displayed in a software program - Product Scope 7 - and it contains a special enhanced category utilizing links and short memo descriptions from this document.

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category - Certain references throughout this document will refer to the Search Engine - Web Update version of the Search Engine Profile Exchange. A specific Product Scope 7 window and query will be cited to help you focus on the records that contain information about a topic.

File and Search Engine Discussion

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category:

Window - Browse Products - Memo | File Downloads, Category - File & Search Engine Discussion

File Search Engine Issues (Software Authors)

Professional Organizations to consider joining:

AISIP - Association of Independent Software Industry Professionals

ASP - Association of Shareware Professionals

BSA - Business Software Alliance

ISDEF - Independent Software Developer Forum

SIIA - Software Information Industry Association

Shareware Conferences

Shareware Industry Conference

European ShareWare Conference

Simtel

Download from Simtel site.

SimTel - Software Author Login

Major Internet File Information sites to consider - Upload.com and Tucows

Upload.com (CNET Networks) - Download.com, ZDNet Downloads

Upload.com Listing Options

"Upload.com features a number of promotional packages to expose your software to more than a million unique visitors each day. These packages offer varying levels of support, reporting, and marketing opportunities for your product within the CNET Downloads library, with customized packages that cater to the needs of individual publishers."

If listed on CNET (Download.com, ZDNet)

Referencing the Download.com or ZDNet URL for your software has some advantages - it increases the CNET download count, thus increasing interest and popularity.

Tucows - Author Resource Center

Study the Ratings Guide carefully before initial submit or subsequent submittals for maximum "cow" ratings. Tucows - Rating Guide is available in the Author Resource Center

File Naming

Naming of download file - Depends on where the file is being placed for download. Using a generic download name rather than a specific version naming scheme will help with sites that require the same filename, no matter the version - Keeps a constant reference for when someone downloads an updated version without changing the URL reference.

However, sometimes it's more convenient to your customer to see what specific versioned download they have on their local storage drive. So we suggest for the developer web site, use a versioned filename - you can maintain two filename versions where you host the file for download, providing the best of both File Naming conventions.

Software Marketing

A number of marketing newsletters exist to help you increase your sales. Some examples are:

Al Harberg's Software Marketing

Shareware Marketing - Dave Collins

File Download Sites

Actually file information sites with possibly reviews, promotional advantages, etc. Being listed in these sites increases your Search Engine index visibility (this is related to Link Popularity)

Basically you post your "software program information" to them, either using their information submittal forms or using the PAD format (great time saver, and gaining in popularity) or using a file submission tool. The file download sites reference your program download location (either your web-site, or Simtel).

I would concentrate on the PAD Submittal sites and the major File Download sites in the beginning to maximize exposure. The Association of Shareware Professionals has a listing of PAD acceptance sites file download sites and products supporting PAD.

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category:

Window - Browse Vendors - Views, Category - File - PAD Submittal

File Submission Tools - If you want to get more exposure by posting to a LOT of download sites, consider using a good file submission tool, and making more efficient use of your time.

Software Marketing Resource Submissions Tools List

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category:

Window - Browse Products - Memo | File Downloads, Category - File Submission Tools

Check out the major search engines - What are the major file download sites that get listed? - THEY are the ones who know how to get the Search Engine's attention for their download site, thus increasing your software's exposure as well.

Here is a major listing of file download sites for posting your software product information.

Software Marketing Resource Software Sites Listings

Software Author Resources

Special Note: Sharon Housley has created an enormous amount of references for software authors:

Vendor Name - Software Marketing Resource, Contact - Sharon Housley

Primary ID - Extensive Listings for Software Authors

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category:

Window - Browse Vendors - Views, Category - Software Author Resources

PAD Files and PADGen - Freeware Program to generate PAD Files

PADGen - Freeware Program to generate PAD Files

The PAD format is an extremely important tool for those who create software products.

Q: What is PAD?

A: PAD is the next generation dataset that will allow Authors to communicate specific and most often requested information regarding their products to the Online Communities and Vendors abroad. PAD was designed with the future in mind.

Search Engine Optimization

Hand submit to the major search engines - some will require payment (refer to the Search Engine Submission Budget topic for suggestions)

Search Engine PE - Web Update - Category:

Window - Browse Vendors - Views, Category - Search Engines - Major - Submit Web Site

Here are some articles, issues, and tools to consider for search engine optimization

Link Popularity

Measuring Link Popularity by Danny Sullivan, Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com Updated: Oct. 26, 2007

Discussion includes how measure link popularity at popular crawler-based search engines, link popularity tools, etc.

Some Link popularity tools:

Marketleap Link Popularity Analysis

Widexl link popularity tool

Search Engine Submission Budget

Your Search Engine Submission Budget - Part 2 of Essentials Of Search Engine Submission

By Danny Sullivan, Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com Updated: October 12, 2007

Search Engine budget considerations discussed include Yahoo, crawler-based search engines, and paid listing programs. Those with software programs need to consider in their budget the promotional listings by CNET Networks (Upload.com), Tucows and others.

Search Engine Optimization

Bruce Clay, LLC - URL Ranking Methodology and Promotion Tools

This web page includes a number of Search Engine Optimization suggestions including a very useful Search Engine Relationship Chart (this can be downloaded as a PDF). This chart has links to other web pages that provide a wealth of information about submitting to each search engine.

This web page also contains a step by step process for search engine optimization to help you prepare your site (s) and follow up work for maximizing your search engine submission efforts.

Keywords for Search Engine Optimization

Another major concept is keywords - used with and/or in good page titles and content (real text, not just images, scripting, etc.) and inbound links.

Wordtracker is one of the most popular subscription services to create keywords

Product Description - Wordtracker, MFG - Rivergold Associates Ltd

Internet Link - http://www.wordtracker.com/

"We compile a database of terms that people search for. You enter some keywords, and we tell you how often people search for them, and also tell you how many competing sites use those keywords.

Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered.

Once you have found all the words that relate to your business, you can check these words in our popularity database.

Find the balance between the total number of competing web pages for each search engine, and popularity of the search term."

Keywords Resources

Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker