How to Promote Your Website
A Guide for Home/Small Business Website Owners
Many small business owners will be familiar with the need to promote/market their business, and with the offline promotional methods that are available. Such as:
- Yellow Pages
- Sponsorships
- Newspaper Ads
- etc
Having a Business website gives you other ways to promote your business by using online promotional/marketing methods.
Many new website owners fail to understand that having a website is just the start and that in order to get traffic and customers they need to have a promotion strategy.
Some website promotion methods like Search engines (SEO) are almost mandatory, while others; like article marketing, are usually reserved for larger sites and budgets, and are considered as advanced techniques.
However, there are three main methods that are suitable for most small businesses website owners.
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. See SEO Basics for Small Business Website Owners
- Paid Listings -See Advertising on Google- Adwords For Small Business Owners
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 or from other methods? 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,Facebook 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. Facebook is another social network that has many users and many businesses have a fan page but again it seems to be large company tactic.
However they are growing and you should watch out for these. I will myself be doing more research on these topics.
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
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.
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