Promoting Your Associated Content Articles Through Netscape

Netscape, the company, has been around since 1994. My first encounter with Netscape was through Netscape Navigator, an internet browser similar to Internet Explorer or Firefox. I'd open the Netscape browser, and then navigate to the websites I wanted to visit. Netscape Navigator once had an 85% usage share on the internet, but the company was unable to keep up with Microsoft's push for everyone to use Internet Explorer, and their usage share dwindled to less than 1%. Netscape has since been bought by AOL.

Netscape (as part of AOL) is also a discount internet service provider. Customers pay for their internet access through Netscape, and have email addresses ending in "@netscape.com."

Netscape.com used to be a basic internet portal, similar to Yahoo. Users could go to netscape.com to view headlines, use a search engine, or browse a directory of websites. In 2006, however, Netscape changed its web presence, and has become what it calls a "social news portal." It's now a social bookmarking site for news articles, where users can submit and vote for stories. Stories with the most votes appear on the netscape.com front page.

That's why Associated Content promotes Netscape as a site to which content producers should submit articles. If you mouse over the Share This button at the upper right side of any article, you'll see Netscape in the list of bookmarking sites, along with Digg and del.icio.us.

So, why should you use Netscape in particular for your Associated Content articles? Well, I've found that Netscape listings often show up in internet search results, even if the article itself doesn't. That's a huge benefit, because it will draw more searchers to your article. I haven't had this success with any of the other bookmarking sites so far. No one sees my articles on Digg; it's hard to get noticed over there unless you get a lot more than three votes. Del.icio.us is nice for saving bookmarks for myself, but I'm not sure whether anyone else ever sees what I list there.

With Netscape, however, I have a page one listing in the Google results for "Horsetail Falls Oregon," while the article itself is buried on page two. That's worth submitting the story to Netscape for me.

To submit your article to Netscape, you do need to set up a Netscape account. Go to netscape.com, set yourself up as a registered user, and log in. Then, go to your article, and click on the Netscape link. You may be asked to log in to Netscape again. If you're not logged in already; go ahead and do so.

The submission page is fairly similar to those of Digg and other bookmarking sites. Some of the information may be pre-populated for you. You'll need to make sure you have the URL, a title, a description of your article (make it eye-catching), and tags. You are limited to five tags, and they should be separated by commas.

Tags are one key to getting your listing noticed by search engines. Make sure you use tags that are relevant to your article and that are search terms people use often. You can check sites like Google Trends or Yahoo Buzz for currently popular search terms. Don't use popular tags that aren't relevant; that just makes people mad when they don't find what they're looking for.

You'll click on Submit, and then confirm your submission. You're done! You can also encourage friends and family to vote for your article on Netscape, but I don't know how much difference that makes; I haven't done it so far.

Netscape has changed their products and approach over the years, but they're still offering a valuable tool for internet users and authors. Be sure to use it!