The Birth of a Professional Web Site Part
Ten
Promoting Your Web Site
Creating a successful Internet
presence involves much more than designing a great web site or having
the "perfect" product. Listing your web site with the Search Engines is
your first step; however, you must not solely rely on the Search Engines
to bring you traffic.
You must design a complete promotional strategy and work it every day.
If you're launching a new web site, your first step will be to submit
your site to the Search Engines and Directories.
Although there are many auto-submission software programs available on
the Internet, make sure you manually submit your site to the main Search
Engines and Directories:
Google
(Although you can submit your site map to Google, you will receive a
higher ranking by allowing their robots to find your pages on their
own.)
The Open Directory
Project
AltaVista
Lycos
Hotbot
Once you've manually submitted your main pages, visit
SelfPromotion.com to automatically submit your pages to a number of
additional Search Engines and Directories.
A good way to organize your promotions is to set up a web page, for your
personal use, that will contain your complete strategy. This page should
be stored on your hard drive and not uploaded to your server. Your page
should contain four sections.
1. Daily Promotions
2. Weekly Promotions
3. Monthly Promotions
4. Miscellaneous Promotions
Each of these four sections should contain the appropriate information
for each of your promotional resources, such as web site name, user ID,
password (if applicable) and hyperlinked web addresses for each web site
you plan to use for your promotions. This will enable you to open your
web page each day and visit the sites you have listed.
Daily Promotions
Discussion Boards
Visit some popular discussion boards and share your expertise. Although
you may not advertise on discussion boards, you can include your
signature file with your post. Before you begin posting to discussion
boards, make sure you lurk a while and see exactly how the board
functions.
Visit
Web-Source.net for a complete listing of some of the top discussion
boards.
Weekly Promotions
Ezine Advertising /
Ad Swaps
Your weekly promotions should consist of placing a paid ezine
advertisement and/or arranging ad swaps with fellow publishers.
Visit the
Directory of Ezines for a complete listing of hundreds of publishers
and contact information for advertising.
To organize your ad placements and swaps, place the publication names,
publisher names, ad dates and hyperlinked web addresses within your
weekly promotions list.
Monthly Promotions
Your monthly promotions should include writing an article in the area of
your expertise, promotional exchanges with similar web sites, and
offline promotions.
To organize your monthly promotions, place the names and hyperlinked web
addresses for each of your promotional resources within your monthly
promotions section.
Writing Articles
Writing articles that may be freely published with your bylines is one
of the best promotional methods online. Your article may be published in
hundreds of ezines, on web sites or even in magazines.
For further information on writing articles, visit:
http://www.web-source.net/write.htm
Promotional
Exchanges
Cross promoting is a powerful technique used by many Internet marketers
to increase the exposure of their products, services or publications.
You simply decide what type of promotional exchange you would be
interested in and contact fellow marketers to discuss an exchange.
The most effective technique used in cross promotions is
recommendations. By providing each other with a personal recommendation
you can increase your response rates tremendously.
Here are some popular cross promoting techniques you can use to boost
your business:
Link Exchanges
Exchange links with web sites similar to yours, but not in competition.
Many Search Engines are now utilizing a system that tracks and ranks
sites according to the number of quality links pointing to a particular
web site. By exchanging links with similar web sites, you will not only
increase your Search Engine ranking, but you will also increase your web
site traffic.
Ezine Ad Swaps
Exchange subscription ads with other ezine publishers. Ezine advertising
is one of the best forms of advertising on the Internet. By swapping ads
with fellow ezine publishers, you can run your ad in other publications
free of charge.
Subscription Exchanges
Exchange subscription information with fellow ezine publishers. Provide
recommendations within your ezine's welcome message, thank you page and
even on your multiple subscription ezine form.
Ezine Column
Partner with a similar publication and provide content for each other.
This may be a weekly tips column, question and answer column or whatever
you'd like.
Ebook Exchanges
Partner with fellow Internet marketers and create free ebooks to freely
distribute. The ebook should mutually benefit and promote both of you,
while providing valuable information for your visitors.
Ride Alongs
A ride along is any extra information (advertisements) sent along with a
direct mailing. You can use this same technique with any ezine solo
mailings you may run by including an exchange recommendation within your
mailing. In addition, you can include recommendations within your thank
you letters you send out when you deliver your products.
Up sells
An up sell is used when your customer is in the process of ordering your
product. Another product is introduced, for a small additional cost,
just as you're closing the sale. This technique is used with many
infomercials when the customer calls in their order. The operator will
introduce an additional product for a minimal extra charge. You can use
this same technique on your order page by trading product
recommendations with fellow marketers.
A quality recommendation will pull a much higher response rate than just
a link or banner. Cross promote with individuals you truly respect and
believe in, as your professional reputation is on the line.
Offline Promotions
Promoting your web site offline is another great way to increase your
traffic. Below are several resources to assist you:
Put your web address on your vehicle.
IDit Plates are a great way to continuously promote your web site.
They're triple chrome plated and blend in well with your vehicle.
Visit iPrint for
your printing needs. From business print items to promotional items,
iPrint has it all.
Place ads in newspapers, magazines, on the radio, or on TV. Visit these
links for complete listings:
Gebbie Press
Newspapers Online
For even more promotional products,
PromoCity can
add your logo to any one of over 500,000 items.
Miscellaneous Promotions
Your miscellaneous promotions might include paying for traffic, text and
banner advertising.
Visit the following web addresses for further information:
http://www.web-source.net/ad_camp.htm
http://www.web-source.net/pay_traffic.htm
Once you've implemented your promotional strategy and continuously work
it each day, you'll be amazed with the results of your efforts.
Consistency will be the key to driving massive traffic to your site.
Copyright © Shelley Lowery 2003. |