Wouldn’t it be great if you could publish your website and then just sit back while scores of visitors come to check it out?
This is known as the ‘build it and they will come methodology’ of promotion.
It has never worked.
Even back in the day, it did not work. In fact, people and large corporations have been spending a lot of time and a lot of money trying to figure out how to get eyeballs to their websites. Because, really, what is the point of putting the time and effort into building a website if no one ever visits it?
Thankfully there are a number of legitimate ways to promote your website in order to get visitors. Here are some of the more important ones.
1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Promoting your website through organic search is free promotion. When someone searches for platinum cogs, if you sell platinum cogs, then hopefully your site will come up.
Of course we all know this. But overlooking the important details of SEO can lead to a lot of missed, free traffic for your website.
You would think that as Google has matured, that SEO would become more and more difficult. The reality is however that Google’s modifications over the years have made it easier for legitimate websites to market themselves. The primary aim of Google’s updates has been to weed out the fraudsters and con artists who have been trying to game the system.
Follow some simple guidelines, promote a legitimate website, and Google will eventually reward you with traffic.
2) Email Marketing
If you have a website, then collecting emails should go hand in hand with it. There is a saying that ‘the money is in the list’. More importantly, engagement is in the list.
Your goal should be to give people to opportunity to offer you their email addresses any way they can. This will primarily be through your website. However, there are a number of ways you can collect email addresses. You can hand out business cards, create partnerships with colleagues online to cross promote each other’s products or services.
If someone gives you their email address, then they are saying they agree to a relationship with you. So once someone gives you their email address, be sure to treat it with respect. That is, treat it as though there is an individual at the other end (because there is).
Send regularly, send with integrity, and honor all requests to remove people from the list.
Your email list is one of the most important ways for you to stay in touch with your website’s visitors.
3) Blogging
If you want to stay fresh with the search engines, if you want the community to know that you are an individual and not just a corporation, and if you want your audience to know that you are knowledgeable in what you do, then a good way to do that is to write about what you know.
I never know what mechanic to take my car to when it needs to get fixed. However, if I received a Tip from a local mechanic on a regular basis, it would give me the feeling that he cared and was not out to just find something expensive that is wrong with my car.
Blogging does not have to be a time-consuming activity. Depending on your industry, short posts, published on a regular basis are enough. Of course if your website is about teaching people to blog, then you might want to publish more extensively.
4) Social Media
If you are on a computing device of any kind, then chances are pretty good that you are on at least one of the social media channels. And no matter what industry you are in, you have a lot to gain by exploring the options to attract visitors to your site by promoting it on at least some of the more popular social channels.
Just about every social media site now allows you to create a page for your business or brand. Be sure to visit the major ones and claim your brand name. Even if you do not plan on using the channel, it is a good idea to get your name, your site name, or your company name locked in before someone else takes it.
The social media sites you choose to promote yourself on depends to a large extent on your industry.
5) Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking is all about forging connections with others. The goal is to share what you have with other websites. You link to them in some fashion, and they link to you.
This goes beyond simply exchanging text links. You could do a guest blog post on another site, or write an article for one of the major sites such as the Huffington post, as well as others.
You could offer to have others write a post for your site, and in return they will promote your site through theirs.
6) Paid Advertising
There are a number of channels through which you can pay to promote your website. These include Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, with Google being the most familiar through their Adwords system.
However, Adwords are not the only channel for paid advertising.
Social Media channels have become large resources for online advertisers to attract targeted referrals to their websites. Facebook is leading the way and should be on your radar if you have any money for advertising and want to targeted visitors.
Advertising tied in with your website are yet another great way to build your email list.
7) Engagement
The web has always a medium for people to connect. And as much as it has become a medium for business, it has managed to flourish as a channel that allows us to communicate and interact as individuals.
If you want your website to succeed online, then you have to think of it as an extension of yourself. You cannot hide behind it and assume that people will not pick up on the fact that your site is a soulless entity.
Our BS meters are pretty high these days. Just about everything that can be tried to trick us online has been tried and we all have a pretty good idea as to what is a scam and what is legit. When you promote yourself with integrity and sincerity, it comes through.
That means you need to engage with your peers online. Talk to people – make connections. Talk to others in your industry, talk to your customers.
Conclusion
Your website is an extension of your goals online. There are a number of channels you can use to promote your website. Anyone can harness these channels, and it does not take a lot of time. Put in a small amount of effort into each one on a consistent basis, and you should find that after a short while your efforts to get more visitors pay off.
What channels do you use to promote your website. What have you found to be the most successful for you?
Images: Walker
