6 practical ways to promote your site
January 14th, 2010
So you have a brand spankin’ new website. You’re pumped. You think to yourself, “Wow, now I’m feeling really good about people visiting my site. I’m so glad I had it re-designed!”.
Now how to get people to visit the site?
This is a key question. A website is no good if people don’t go see it. I’m not going to go into deep SEO techniques or anything, so don’t worry. These are just a few practical things that anyone should do to get people to go to your website.
1. Start Talking
Simple, yes? Really a website is like any other component of business, you have to get the word out so people know to check it out. Start chatting it up with everyone you know and mention that you’ve just got a killer new site up and that they should check it out. It seems simple, and it is. Sometimes it’s easy to forget to do the most obvious things. So get talking!
2. Put your URL on everything (That’s yours)
Business cards, letterhead, envelopes, email signatures, your car, pens, you name it! Just like a phone number or email it is key to have the address to your site on all physical marketing materials and identity pieces.
3. Send out an email to your clients
This is a great way to generate interest in your site. Just pop a link to your website in a nice little email and send it off to your client list. This makes it effortless for the reader to go straight to the site that you want them to go to.
4. Facebook & Twitter
Facebook has something around 350 million users, and Twitter has millions of users as well. These social networking tools are a great way to get the word out about almost anything. Using them to update people in your social networking circle about your new website is a no-brainer. Facebook has a nice feature where people can comment on your link to your site – giving you instant feedback.
5.Run an Ad.
Some people are saying that all forms of traditional marketing are dying, but I think they are still hanging on and very useful. Online marketing tools will greatly enhance any other marketing you are doing. That said, running an ad in your local newspaper or an industry related magazine about your new site would also help drive traffic.
6. Start an AdWords Campaign
Search Engine Optimazation (SEO) is essential to gain high rank in search engines like Google or Yahoo!, but it takes time. To get exposure on Google quickly you can pay for ads to run that come up when people search for the keywords you specify. This is called Google AdWords You can also set a geographical area to your campaign. This way only people searching within that area will see your ads, narrowing your focus. You also have the ability to set daily caps on how much you are willing to spend, making it easy to budget.
Well, there are a few ways you can direct people to your website. With a little time an dilligence you can get the word out and get people visiting. The fun part is, you don’t have to be a technical genius to do these things!
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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Adveritising, Business, Promotion, Social Networking, Tips, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to “6 practical ways to promote your site”
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Well said. Unfortunately too many clients believe that, if you launch it, they will come. This is almost never the case, unless you’ve had a pre-existing marketing blitz prior to a site’s launch.
These 6 simple steps are a great starting point for anyone looking to “get the word out”.
Interesting article. I will use some of these tips for sure.
@ Erik
Thanks for the reply!
Very true. That’s the main reason I wrote this post. I think we, as web people, forget to go over basic concepts with clients because we feel they probably already know. I think they call it ‘the curse of knowledge’.