How to Promote Your Website -Tips and Techniques

A Guide for Home/Small Businesses

Many small business owners will be familiar with the need to promote/market their business, and with the offline methods that are available.

• Yellow Pages
• Sponsorships
• Newspaper Ads
• etc

Having a Business website gives you other ways to promote your business by using online promotional/marketing methods.

Some methods like Search engines (SEO) are almost mandatory while others like article marketing are usually reserved for larger sites and budgets, and are considered an advanced techniques.

There are three main methods that are suitable for most small businesses.

They are:

• SEO-Search Engine Optimization
• PPC- Pay Per Click (Google Adwords)
• Email Marketing

Some businesses will use/prefer one, others will use two, and others all three. Which ones you use will depend on your business, your budget and your expertise.

Search Engine Marketing

Both SEO and PCC are part of the process of search engine marketing, that is, using the search  engines to attract visitors/customers.

Search Engines can provide your website with traffic from two distinct sources

• Organic Listings- This is purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimization/Optimisation) so as to rank high on the “so called” natural listings, and get “free” traffic.
• Paid Listings -Using PPC (pay per click) advertising like Google Adwords

So which is best? and which one is for You?

The answer - It is not a question of either or, but  usually of both; provided that the traffic can be obtained at a reasonable cost ( i.e. that results in a profit).

Email Marketing and Bulk Email

SEO and PPC are used to get traffic to your website.

However what happens to the visitor that you get from these traffic sources? They visit your business site and they hire you or buy your product! Well most won’t do either, instead they will leave and probably never return.

So how do you stay in touch with those visitors and get them to return? ..You capture their email address and send them emails.

How about those that do buy? Well surely they would be interested in similar products or future upgrades?

Email is a vital tool for staying in touch with your customers and future customers and it is very easy to implement- Email Marketing and Bulk Email

Other Site Promotion Methods

The big three are not the only ones, but they are most popular, and easiest for the typical small business. However there are others that you should be aware of and that I will mention from time to time they are:

Video- YouTube

Video can be a very effective method of promoting your site. I use YouTube a lot and have received lots of traffic from the videos that I have placed there. I hope to cover video in more detail later.

Social Networking- Twitter etc

There is a considerable amount of hype especially surrounding Twitter. I don't consider it suitable for a small business owner and as I don't use it myself i am unable to comment at the moment

Advertise in  Newsletters

This is an advanced technique and one I have never used because I don't try to sell any particular product,  if you would like more detail then I suggest you visit http://www.ezinehub.com

Blogging

A website blog can be used has a promotional tool as well as serving as a website in its own right. The blogging section has more details.

Banner Advertising

Here you pay a website owner to host a banner advertising your website. Rates vary considerably, and as I don't use this form of advertising I won't comment any further on it.

Mastering some of these techniques will give your website a big advantage over your competitors.