Promoting Your Web Site

Lots of businesses that I have worked with, sweat and work hard to get their company web site up and running, then sit back and wait for the business to flood in.

But it rarely works like that, you have to work hard to keep your web site in the mind of your potential customers.

One way to do it is to promote your web site URL in many different forms, here are some ideas:

Online Promotions

Search Engine Submission

Remember to submit your site to all relevant search engines, this isn’t always necessary for the more popular search engines, and most of them will easy find your site anyway from other links to you, but its still worth doing, AND looking at specialists search engines that you can find.

Paid Advertising

If you're still desperate for more exposure, you can explore search engine marketing, whereby you pay to have a text ad appear when visitors search for certain keywords. Google is probably the most popular, but also look at Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), it has a large network and many million of searches, you will probably pay less per click too!

Newsletters

Send out a regular e-mail newsletter to registered site members that offers tips and the latest news related to your company or industry with links back to your site.

Free stuff

Offer free content to other sites or on your own site. It's a win-win situation .. the other site gets free articles to beef up their content and you get a link back to your site.

Emails

Send a well-planned, customer-focused e-mail promotion to a targeted list of potential visitors and offer a discount toward the purchase of anything from your site. Spend time on your email's look and content. You want to offer value to customers and not have it appear to be spam.

Link Exchange

Create your own link exchange by asking sites complementary to yours (but that don't compete with yours) to put your link on their pages and you'll do likewise.

Affiliates

Another paid for service. Affiliates Advertisers will publish banner and text ads, you pay the affiliate for clicks, unique visitors, sales etc, it can be an extremely cost effective way to gain extra visitors and sales. Look at companies like Trade Doubler, Affiliate Window, Commission Junction etc.

Forums

Get active in online discussion groups and chats and always include your URL in your signature. Don't do any hard selling, though. Most groups frown on such behaviour and are likely to ban you, not very good for yourbrand image!

Social Networking

The use of Web 2.0 sites (i.e. Bebo, Facebook etc) is becoming inreasing popular for not just consumer brands and bands, but also for big business.

Confirmation Emails

Any time someone orders a product from your site, send them a confirmation email to remind them of yours services.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing can get costly and but a simple technique is to include an "e-mail this link" on every page of your site.

Offline Promotions

Stationery

Always put your web site URL on letterhead, business cards and in e-mail signatures … wherever potential visitors are likely to see it.

Uniforms

If your employees wear uniforms, put your URL on them so every one of your customers sees a walking advertisement of your web site.

Promotional Items

Include your web site URL on all promotional items you give away; coffee mugs, T-shirts, key chains, calendars etc. If you use items people can keep on their desk, then you provide a daily reminder to them, and it is a good way to get people to visit your site.

Public Relations

Be sure to include your Web site URL in all press releases you send out to members of the media. By having it at their fingertips, they may be more likely to include it in articles they write about your company.

Directories

Don't forget to put your Web address in your Yellow Pages ad. That's one place people see it every day.

Advertising

Always ensure your URL are on your printed advertising.

Vehicles

If your company has vehicles, then be sure to include your URL on that too.

Conclusion

There are lots of opportunities for you to promote your web site, if you just do a fraction of these very well then you will bring a lot more visitors to your site- you just need to convert them then!

If you want to talk to us about any element of your web site, whether you want a better ranking, need us to get more visitors to your site , or want to know how to make more revenues online, then get in touch with us via this handy form.