Website promotion: Priceless

It does not matter what industry you are in, or what service you provide, if you own a business you likely have a website. Websites are an essential business tool if you want to be successful in business today. 

However, even if you recognize that a website is important, you may not be utilizing it to its full advantage. If you do not promote your website, how will anyone know that it exists? In order to take full advantage of the selling power that a properly designed website can provide, you need to know how to promote it. 

There are a few different ways that you can go about promoting your website and both methods are equally important. Online and offline website promotion should be used jointly in order to drive traffic to your site. 

Promote your site online

The three largest search engines are Google, Yahoo and Looksmart. When you list with these three search engines, you should begin to generate some solid hits to your site. It is important to check out each site specific guidelines before submitting your sit for evaluation. 

Typically, search engines want to see a website that is full of content. This means that you will have to fill your site with pages of content that are relevant to your product or service and utilize common keywords. You want search engines to pick up your site when people type in their keywords. Therefore, you need to write content that contains as many relevant keywords as possible. 

Once you are listed with some search engines, you should look into having your site listed in all of the relevant popular internet directories. Usually these directories do not charge a fee to list with them, and you will have free advertising of your URL. 

Take advantage of reciprocal links on your website. Investigate some other companies that offer a product or service that complements yours and exchange links with them. In exchange for posting their link on your site, they will do the same. This is an easy and inexpensive way to generate more traffic and it will also boost your link popularity and may increase your site ranking to attract the search engines. 

It may sound simple, but do not neglect your email address. Use an email address with your domain name in it instead of a generic one. For example: joe@visitmywebsite.com instead of joe@yahoo.com. And do not forget to create an email signature. By adding a signature with your name, company, company slogan, phone number, address, email and URL you will have free advertising, and you never know who is going to see it. 

Don’t be afraid to promote offline

The most obvious technique may also be the most overlooked. Put your URL on every single piece of printed promotional material you have. This includes business cards, flyers, brochures, signage, manuals, packaging, letterhead and anything else that may have your company name on it. Even when it may not be practical to have all of your contact information printed, you can simply add the URL. 

An excellent way to promote yourself and your website is by looking for publications that target your industry or niche market and contacting them to contribute an article. By using your expertise, you can write an article for them to publish free of charge, and in exchange you will have your name, company name and website address printed in a publication that will be read by many in your market. 

No matter what other techniques you use to promote your website, it is important not to forget a very basic trick, networking. Networking is one of the most effective ways to promote yourself and your site. By talking to as many people as you can, handing out business cards and information, word will get around and you will start to see traffic on your website. 

When a website is promoted properly it can be a highly effective marketing tool. By using the internet you can save money, allow customers to stay informed and offer many more services then you could otherwise. Spend the time and energy to properly market your site, by increasing the number of hits; you are increasing your cash flow.