Marketer’s Corner - Web Site Promotion Strategies for a Small Business Web Site
July 15, 2008 :: Steve FisherYou are ready to start your web business and make millions of dollars. Awesome. Now what do you?
It may seem like all you need to do is put up your web site and watch the customers come rushing to your door. As with any business, you must let people know that you are open for business and that you have something they want to buy. The web is a unique selling channel because it reaches so many for a very small investment. The advantage of this is that what you invest in it can not only bring a reasonable return, but in some cases a gigantic one.
So before you start, you should think through how you might be able to reach people and let them know about your business. This is what is called a “Promotion Strategy” and here are the various strategies to create one:
Traditional Promotion Strategies
There are traditional ways of advertising your website like having your website’s URL placed on all stationery, cards, and other copy. Developing a free service, such as a periodic marketing report or contest, is a very traditional advertising method that can assist your website advertising efforts. You can also take the old fashioned advertising route and place your business in newspapers, flyers and billboards. It can be extremely expensive and a waste if done wrong. But, if they are part of specific campaigns or an overall branding campaign they can effectively target a specific audience in your local area.
Linking Strategies
Linking strategies, submitting your site to directories and industries that are specific to the business and writing keyword rich content in a subtle fashion that link to your site and that other online businesses can use in their newsletters. Blogging on business sites and press releases also helps in advertising, and can work wonders when it comes to the visibility of your website.
Fresh Content Strategies
People love new content and information that helps their business. This kind of stuff keeps your brand and products/services top of mind. This transforms your web site into a direct fresh content channel. Newsletters are probably the lowest hanging fruit because you can find good lists and use your web site to gather leads to send it to subscribers. You should not send newsletters very often unless you state boldly that it would be frequent and getting information at that frequency is relevant. It should also have the ability to opt-out as easily as it was to opt-in. If not, people will start to view it as spam and that has completely the opposite effect on promoting your company. You can also offer free reports, white papers or product demos on your site in exchange for email addresses. Another popular way to keep people aware of your company and its offerings is to start a blog. This allows you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and also announce new releases and products in a channel people choose to subscribe to and keep coming back. It is important to note that you must not use blogs as a blatant sales pitch otherwise people will become turned off to your company and what it has to offer them.
Search Engine Marketing
Everyone these days uses search engines as their starting point when they want to find anything on the web. Google is the market leader and has built their business on essentially capturing all pages on the web and using their proprietary algorithm to make a search term or phrase relevant. In fact, according to Marketing Sherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. Of that number, 63 percent look only at the first page of results and usually the first few entries.
This means that you must be on top of your game to make your web site accessible by search engines of all types so your Search Engine Marketing strategy must be a solid part of your overall marketing plan.
Many people talk about Search Engine Marketing in very loose terms but it is essentially separated into two parts - Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click Advertising. I advise you to take a look our “Marketer’s Corner” article on Search Engine Marketing for a more in-depth look at this very hot and complex topic.
What Has Been Effective For You?
So have you tried any of these strategies that have been listed above? What has worked? What hasn’t? Are there other creative ways that you have promoted your site and seen success? Let’s hear them. That’s what the comments are for…
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