10 Ways To Promote Your Website Online

You know your website doesn’t work all by itself, but what do you do to promote your site?

This article is a list of ways, some free and some paid, to promote your small business website on the Web. And don’t miss the list of “Four Things Not To Do” at the end.

You don’t need to do all these things to find success. Definitely submit your site to free search engines such as Goggle and pay for Yahoo. (Together they command about 70% of all search traffic.) Then, pick one these online strategies or an offline strategy to test out.

Study the strategy you select by reading a variety of online articles and analyze whether it’s a good fit for your business. How much time and money will it take? Would you be willing to do it in the long term if it works?

On to the article. Best, Karen

10 Ways To Promote Your Web Site Online -- 2008

1. SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO MAJOR AND FREE SEARCH ENGINES

Every site should be submitted to Google (still free), but not everyone needs to be included in allshoessearch.com (before you try that site – it’s a made up name). That said, if you have some time, even links in search engines that don’t get a lot of traffic can add to your site’s link count and make it more visible. So do sign on to some other search engines as well.

2. SUBMIT YOUR SITE TO YAHOO!

Yahoo! is a directory of web sites, not a search engine like Google. Every page it lists has been evaluated by a live Yahoo! employee for relevance to the category in which it appears. This can be very useful for someone looking for a service or product in a particular geographic area. Therefore, it can be a good site for generating qualified hits to your site from people in your area.

Also register with DMOZ.org. It's free unlike Yahoo! And it can enhance your visibility, even though it does not see as much traffic as Yahoo!

3. EXCHANGE LINKS WITH OTHER SITES

Increasing the number of links to your site can increase your search engine ranking. It can also just bring you more traffic if the sites you are linked to have a good deal of traffic. If you just want more links, you could pick web sites around the country in the same profession as you and ask them to exchange links. But I think the better approach is to could look at businesses that are local, non-competing but relevant to your clients and exchange links with them.

Remember when you are linking to other sites that visitors will assume you are endorsing that business. Don’t link to junky sites or businesses you don’t have confidence in.

4. SIGN ON FOR PAY PER CLICK

In the current search engine landscape there are only two ways to improve your search engine ranking (and get more traffic from search engines.) One is lots of links to your site and the other is paying for higher rankings. The great thing about Pay Per Click or PPC is that small businesses can get qualified leads for small amounts of money and don’t pay unless they are getting hits or visitors to their site. You open account at Google or Overture and then bid on two or three key word phrases. Keep costs down by staying away from the most popular phrases

5. ADD AN EMAIL SIGNATURE LINE TO YOUR MAILS

An Email signature is really an online business card that accompanies any message you send out. Include everything you’d but on a business card like your name, company name, phone and email. Then put a brief promotional line about your product, service or eZine and your URL. You can also add borders using characters on your keyboard to attract attention to the promotional part.

Example:
Karen Nierlich, co-owner
Almost Everything Communications
510 527-9920 (office & fax)

********************************************
Make sure you sign up for Web Strategies, our free
weekly eZine full of advice and how-to information
on designing and promoting a profitable Website.
www.AlmostEverythingWEB.com
********************************************
Helping independent businesses be impressive on the Web.

5. JOIN A DISCUSSION GROUP

Join a group that is relevant to your business. Share resources and valuable advice. It’s okay to use your signature line, but otherwise don’t self promote. Try http://groups.google.com. Joining a group can take time, but it can also be fun and educational. I have found clients this way.

6. PUBLISH ARTICLES

Read other eZines and submit your article for possible inclusion when you find a good fit. Submit your article to article portal sites. You can get lots of traffic for free with expert articles. There are many portal sites. Here are two for example, www.articlecentral.com/ www.goarticles.com.

7. PUBLISH A PRESS RELEASE

Is something newsworthy going on or always going on with your business? Are you one of a kind or bringing some unique changes to your clients’ lives? Write it up and submit it to a PR portal site like www.prweb.com.

8. BUY OR EXCHANGE BANNER ADS

Free help for Banner Exchanges are TrafficX, Link Buddies, and Smart Clicks.Search Google for “banner exchange programs.” There are also paid ads, but some Web marketing experts think click throughs are diminishing on banner ads.

9. SIGN ON FOR AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

If you sell a product, you can start your own affiliate program. By paying others commission to sell for you, you increase traffic to your site and create more links to your site. See http://www.clickbank.com/build for example.

10. USE FREE CLASSIFIED ADS

If you have a knack for writing short ads and a product with wide appeal you may be able to increase your site traffic this way. Place ads where you believe your target audience will see them. To advertise in eZines visit The Directory of eZines.

Below you will find, “Four Things Not To Do To Promote Yourself Online.

Four Things Not To Do When Promoting Your Website:

1. Don’t send Spam or bother buying a direct email list to send ads to.

2. Don’t rush through submitting your site to Google and Yahoo. Do it at a time when you are relaxed and focused.

3. Don’t bother with cheap auto-submitters that advertise submitting your site to 100-500 search engines. You can do it yourself at www.self-promtion.com or www.submitit.com

4. Don’t try to trick the search engines to get a better search engine ranking. You might see newsgroup discussion on how to create invisible pages etc. but search engines can bar you. Do use META tags, keywords in titles and body text, etc.

Websites succeed to the extent that they offer sites with valuable information to visitors. Make it easy for search engines to find you, but the best strategy is to build a useful, informative site.