Middle Ear Media

5 Ways to Promote your Website

December 31st, 2009

As the new year rapidly approaches, you might want to think about how to pro­mote your web­site bet­ter. This is the per­fect time to set goals and make plans. So, I’ve com­piled five tech­niques that you can and should be using to increase traf­fic to your web­site. Some of them are free and some require money. Some are quick to do and some require an ongo­ing process.

1. Include Your URL on all printed material.

Includ­ing your URL (aka your web address) on all of your other pro­mo­tional mate­r­ial might seem like an obvi­ous thing to do, yet there are many peo­ple who don’t take full advan­tage of this technique.

Your URL should be printed on any­thing and every­thing pos­si­ble includ­ing sta­tionery, busi­ness cards, brochures, invoices, lit­er­a­ture, store-front signs, and even vehicles.

By doing this, you are max­i­miz­ing the use of exist­ing mate­ri­als to adver­tise your site as well as rein­forc­ing your brand to all exist­ing clients.

2. Social Media

First of all, what is Social Media? This is a term that includes blogs, social net­work­ing sites, social book­mark­ing sites, and forums. These sites encour­age peo­ple to inter­act with each other and make it very easy to get your mes­sage out to the masses.

There are mil­lions of peo­ple using social net­work­ing sites such as Face­book, MySpace, Twit­ter, and LinkedIn every­day to make com­ments, share per­sonal infor­ma­tion, and share links.

Social book­mark­ing is a way to share, orga­nize, search, and man­age book­marks of web resources. Social book­mark­ing sites include Digg, Stum­ble­Upon, Red­dit, Tech­no­rati, Deli­cious, and Slashdot.

So, go cre­ate a pro­file for your busi­ness at any or all of these sites and use it as a way to expose more peo­ple to the con­tent on your site. Of course, this will be even more effec­tive if you actu­ally engage in con­ver­sa­tions and inter­act with other users rather than just “spam­ming” them with pro­mo­tional links.

3. Sub­mit your site to Online Directories

There are a ton of dif­fer­ent direc­to­ries online. Some are all inclu­sive, some are indus­try spe­cific, and some cater to local businesses.

Two free options for list­ing your local busi­ness are Google Local Busi­ness Cen­ter and Yahoo! Local . These are both great ways to make sure peo­ple can find your site when doing a local search.

4. Tra­di­tional Advertising

Yes it is true that the print media indus­try is declin­ing as more and more peo­ple real­ize how much more effi­cient and effec­tive the inter­net is. That being said, print media is still impor­tant. This is even more so for local businesses.

Many peo­ple still read news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines for their news and a nicely designed print ad could draw them to your site. Another tra­di­tional form of adver­tis­ing is the radio. Radio ads can help attract lis­ten­ers to your site as well.

Keep in mind that these meth­ods may not work well for cer­tain types of busi­nesses. It is impor­tant to know your intended audi­ence before shelling out the cash for tra­di­tional advertising.

5. E-mail Marketing

When I say e-mail mar­ket­ing, I don’t mean unso­licited mass mail­ings, also known as spam. I’m talk­ing about things like start­ing a Newslet­ter, or includ­ing a cus­tom sig­na­ture at the bot­tom of all e-mail correspondences.

A peri­odic e-newsletter is a great way to keep peo­ple inter­ested in what you do. It is impor­tant to include and empha­size a sign-up option on your site. Make sure it is easy to sign up. Also, using a well designed HTML e-mail tem­plate will make your newslet­ter more appealing.

A cus­tom sig­na­ture at the bot­tom of all e-mails should include your name, busi­ness name, URL, with an active link to your site and can also include an image of your logo or a cus­tom designed ban­ner ad. This sig­na­ture will be seen by every­body you com­mu­ni­cate with through e-mail. It will make it easy for them to get to your site and rein­force your brand.

After doing all these things, how will you know if they are work­ing? The best way is to use some sort of sta­tis­tics pro­gram to track activ­ity on your website.

Most com­mer­cial host­ing pack­ages include sta­tis­tics track­ing abil­i­ties, but I rec­om­mend Google Ana­lyt­ics because of its great depth, flex­i­bil­ity and visu­ally appeal­ing reports and graphs.

If you need help set­ting goals or ana­lyz­ing your data, I offer this as one of my ser­vices. Please con­tact me to dis­cuss in more detail.

Tags: E-mail Marketing, Google, Google Analytics, HTML, HTML email, Increase Traffic, Online Directories, Social Media, Traditional Advertising, URL, Website Promotion

This entry was posted in the Marketing category.