Information and How-To on Website Promotion
Updated August 12, 2016
What is Website Promotion?
Website promotion is a collection of tactics, actions and techniques that serve to drive traffic (visitors) to your website.
Why is Website Promotion Important?
Websites offer a multitude of benefits. For some online entrepreneurs, they are storefronts selling goods. Others earn income through advertising, sponsorships and affiliate marketing. Others are marketing tools in and of themselves, providing information about the business and how to best get in touch for services.
While all these website options work, they only fulfill their purpose if people visit them. If you think of a website like a storefront, that store doesn’t make money unless someone walks in and buys. If a website is like an online magazine (such as a blog), it only makes money if people visit and buy from advertisers. As a marketing tool, websites deliver information about your business only if they know about it and visit it.
Web promotion is how online businesses get the word out about the website. The more targeted traffic (visitors who fit your target market) a website receives, the better the chance of making sales, earning ad income and gaining clients.
How is Website Promotion Done?
There are endless ways to promote your website, and new methods continue to arrive. Websites can be promoted in a variety ways both online and off.
Online Website Promotion
Anything that allows you to include your website URL can be considered promotion including an email signature line or participating in online forums.
Here are a few common website promotion tactics:
Offline Website Promotion
Some offline website promotion techniques include:- Direct mail
- Publicity
- Networking
- Public speaking
- Television and radio advertising
- Newspaper advertising
Best Practices for Website Promotion
The ideas listed above are not the only strategies you can use to promote your website. Because there are so many different ways you can market your website, it can get overwhelming. Further, without a plan your promotional efforts can be a waste of time. As you prepare to market your website, here are few things to do and keep in mind.
- Know your target market. Your goal isn’t just in getting as much traffic to your site as possible. A million visitors means nothing if none of them are interested in what you offer. Knowing and understanding your target market will allow you to focus your marketing efforts on those activities that put your message in front of your most likely visitor in a way that entices them to visit.
- Use search engine optimization strategies, but don’t rely on search engines alone to deliver traffic. Making it easy for search engines to understand, index and rank your site is a no-brainer. It’s free and not that hard to do. At the same time, you don’t need to spend a fortune in SEO services or hours and hours studying SEO. Checking your website stats and keywords every month or so will help you understand how people are using search engines to find your site and other information in your business area.
- Promote where your market hangs out. If your market isn’t on Twitter, you don’t need to tweet. When considering how and where to promote, think about where your market turns to get similar information and resources related to what you offer. This isn’t just other websites or social networks, but also, offline sources such as groups and print media.
- Hook your market with a message that speaks to them. That means opening with a hook that entices and intrigues your market. It should be benefits oriented in that it promises to solve a problem, improve life, or be entertaining. The better your promotional copy, the better and bigger the results on your marketing campaign.
- Track your efforts. You’ll save time and money if you know what promotions are delivering results and which aren’t.
Also Known As: online promotion, website marketing, web site marketing, Internet marketing, online marketing.
Updated June 2016 by Leslie Truex
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