Promoting Your Web Site
I was having a
conversation with a so-called Internet marketer some time ago. I asked
him about his Internet marketing techniques, hoping to pick his brain.
He looked at me
and said: "Traffic exchanges."
Okay, although
traffic exchanges are quite useless for some sites but since his site is
about Internet businesses, I conceded that traffic exchanges is a viable
marketing tool for his site.
"But, how about
your better ideas? Maybe those that takes a bit of time that you haven't
gotten round to implementing yet? Maybe we can work together."
He looked at me
with a blank stare and I realized that he has been solely using traffic
exchanges to promote his site.
Unfortunately, a
lot of marketers fall into his category. They will concentrate on one or
two techniques, to the exclusion of all others. Don't be like them.
There are a
thousand and one ways to get visitors and most of them are free. You
will still need to do a lot of work to get the visitors, but this is the
arena where your ingenuity really comes into play. Learn about the basic
techniques and concepts, combine them if appropriate, add in some of
your own ideas, and you will have a killer marketing plan.
Let me go through
some of the more common marketing techniques.
Search Engines and Directories
For search
engines, I would recommend just getting a list of the top 10 search
engines and submit your url manually to all of them. If you want to
submit to the smaller engines, see if you can find an automatic
submission service.
The traffic you
get from the smaller engines are minimal and it's just not worth the
time to submit individually to them.
Unlike search
engines, which will crawl your site and index it automatically,
directories are run by human editors. Again, just pick the top
directories and submit manually to them.
Do take the time
to read their submission guidelines so that your submission will not end
up in the trash. And don't forget to start the title of your site with
an "A", if possible. ;)
Spend a bit of
time looking for directories that caters to your particular market. Such
directories may receive a lot of targeted visitors and a listing could
make a big difference to your bottom line.
Traffic Exchanges
As a member of a
traffic exchange, you visit other members' sites, and earn credits. You
assign the credits to your own site so that other members will visit
your site.
Traffic from these
exchanges are usually not of a high quality, as most are webmasters
seeking to earn credits for visits to their own sites.
PTR Sites
Or
paid-to-read-email sites. These sites pay their members to receive email
from you, or to visit your site. As with traffic exchanges,
effectiveness is limited as the members are more interested in getting
paid than in your site or your email.
Pay Per Click Search Engines
You pay a certain
amount for each click from the search engine to your site. Can be pretty
effective in some cases but try to go only for the bigger engines. There
is a greater chance of fraudulent clicks from the smaller engines.
When you are
writing your advertising copy for PPC engines, be mindful that you are
paying per click. Word your copy in such a way so that only people who
are interested in your product will clickthrough.
Link Exchanges
Many sites have a
link exchange directory. The webmistress will link to your site in
exchange for a link from your site to hers. The idea behind link
exchanges is that the more inbound links you have to your site, the more
the search engines will favor you and the higher you will be in their
results.
Newsletter
Let's face it,
most visitors to your site will never return. Either they don't like
your site, or there are too many similar sites for yours to stand out,
or they forgot your domain name, or one of hundreds of other reasons. A
newsletter is a good way to remind them of who you are and what you
stand for, and to get them to visit your site again.
Signature
You know the few
lines found at the end of an email detailing the sender's web site,
email address and maybe a short advertising message? That's the sender's
signature.
Unsolicited
advertising is usually frowned on on the web but a signature at the end
of an email message, or forum posting is perfectly acceptable.
Participating in Forums
Find a forum or
forums relevant to your site or business. Lurk for a while to be
familiar with the rules of the forum. If you feel that the forum members
are your target market, then start participating.
Remember that
useful and constructive posts are going to win you more friends and fans
than blatant advertising. By all means, include your web site in your
signature, but in the forum posting, bring up your web site only if it
is relevant to the discussion.
In time, you will
become a respected member of the forum.
That is the best
advertisement of all.
Writing Articles
Writing articles
is a great way to get traffic for your site. Post the articles on your
site, and include a small resource box at the end of each article with
your name, url and a short description of your site. Allow other
webmasters to reproduce it on their own sites provided the articles
remain unchanged, and your resource box is included.
Conclusion
The techniques
outlined are among the more commonly used. Most are effective to
some extent, but they can be much more effective when adapted to your
particular site.
For example, I get
many link exchange requests at my site at
WeGazette.com
Rather than just linking to them and forgetting about them, I include
their name, email and site details in a database. Every time I start a
new site, I can include their site in a link directory and email them
inviting them to exchange links. If I have an ebook to promote, I can
also include it in
the signature of the email.
