Gateway Pages

What gateway pages are

Gateway pages are free one-page websites that link to your original homepage. They are an alternate way for people to find your website, other than through your homepage. The whole purpose of gateway pages is to make your website more visible on the search engines. So instead of people having to find your website only through your homepage, they can find it through multiple pages.

In order to be found in the search engines, you must rank in the top 10-30 matches found. To do that that requires the creation of pages that appeal to each search engines' preferences. These pages are often called gateway pages, doorway pages, splash pages, or bridge pages since they act as a doorway or an alternate entrance to your website.

Methods of utilizing gateway pages

There are two main methods of utilizing gateway pages:
To focus on different keyword phrases
To build pages specific to certain search engines’ preferences

1. To focus on different keyword phrases
Remember back in the first marketing strategy when you read about what search engines look for? The emphasis was to build your homepage focused on a couple keyword phrases so that the search engines will rank you higher. Creating gateway pages allows you to build multiple pages focusing on different keyword phrases. So instead of an Internet surfer only being able to find you under a couple keywords, he or she can find you under many.

For example, if you are in the competitive category of "travel" and find it too difficult to obtain a high ranking on the word "travel," then create pages that describe in detail one particular destination or activity. Perhaps create a gateway page discussing "sailing in the Caribbean.”

Most people try to be specific in their search engines today because they know if they don't, they will get back thousands of pages that they aren't interested in. Therefore, you can create gateway pages for specific elements of your website to allow for a higher ranking in the search engines. A great website to help you research keyword phrases is http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion.

2. To build pages specific to certain search engines’ preferences
Every search engine is different and looks for different elements in ranking pages. No single page can rank well for all search engines because all search engines are different. Therefore, you must customize your gateway page to the different search engines you are registering at.

For information and tips on what the specific search engines look for, go to the www.searchengines.com, www.searchenginewatch.com, and www.searchengineforums.com.

Steps to setting up a gateway page

There are three main steps to follow in setting up a gateway page:
Find free web space
Put together page
Register page to the search engines

1. Find free web space
There are many different resources that offer free web space that you can take advantage of on the Internet. Many of these places are online builders that do not require you to know any HTML to build a page.

Some of those websites that you can use are the following:
www.freeservers.com
www.homestead.com
www.thefreesite.com

Many Internet service providers also give out free web space as well for using their services. In choosing a place to build the page, make sure the URL that they give you is not just the domain name of the site and then /whatever at the end of it. The domain name must look something like www.camping.freeservers.com instead of like www.freeservers.com/camping. This is primarily for the search engines. Many search engines are ignoring domain names that look like free sites, like in the second example.

2. Put together page
In actually building the page, you will set up a gateway page just like you would set up a regular homepage. You will want the text laid out introducing your website and products. You will also want a keyword phrase that you are focusing on to be repeated throughout the text and meta tags.

You will also want graphics on the page to make it look more eye appealing. A consistent logo on each gateway page would be a good idea so that people know that they are at the same place. As well as similar color schemes on the gateway page and your actual homepage.

The main difference between a gateway page and a regular homepage is that with a gateway page you don't need working navigation buttons. You'll usually have Click here to enter in a couple places on the site, which, when clicked on, would link to your original homepage or whatever page you'd like it to link to on your site.

3. Register page to the search engines
Once you’ve got the gateway pages built, you are now ready to register them to the search engines. The fastest and easiest way to do that is to use free submission sites like www.jimtools.com.

Online websites and resources

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
www.searchengines.com
www.searchenginewatch.com
www.searchengineforums.com
www.freeservers.com
www.homestead.com
www.thefreesite.com
www.jimtools.com
www.webposition.com offers a very advanced software program that automatically creates gateway pages to rank high on search engines for you. The program is called Web Position Gold.
Some great articles on gateway pages are at www.searchengines.com/doorway_pages.html and www.wordtracker.com/articles.