In this article AJR discusses Ways to Promote Your New Business Website
Having that great website for your business is vitally important. For many customers, it will be the first thing they see of your company while they are browsing online for local business, services or products, so you’ll need to make sure it functions well, is user-friendly, has all the relevant information they need and is aesthetically pleasing. If you’ve already got a website then you’re heading in the right direction, but how you market your website is even more important than just having one: if you advertise it correctly, your returns will be higher.
Some people visit a particular website directly, perhaps through a link they saw on social media, in an email marketing campaign, or in a blog post they read — but the majority, about 60 percent, begin by entering keywords into a search engine.
If prospective customers don’t see your website through online searches, or through your other marketing channels, you’re not going to see much site traffic, and you’re not building your business.
The bottom line? There’s not much point in taking the time to construct a new website if you don’t have a plan to promote it.
How Do You Measure Success?
There’s lots of metrics and stats you can use to measure the success of your website, from bounce rate to incoming traffic sources to keywords and conversion rate. Arguably, however, the most important factor is how much traffic your website is getting. After all, if no one people visit your site, those other metrics and stats don’t make much difference.
The amount of web traffic you should get depends on the type of business you have, and the size of the business. for instance, Business to Business (B2B) businesses with 10 to 25 employees get an average of 269 unique visitors each week. Business to consumer (B2C) businesses of the same size get 685 unique visitors.
Whether your website hits that average benchmark, or does better or worse, is a function of how well you promote it, and that requires smart planning.
To help you on your way, we’ve put together some free and easy ways you can promote your website…
Google My Business
Google my Business is a great starting point. It’s a quick and easy way to show your customers that you’re open for business. All you have to do is add your business to Google’s map, make sure your information is up to date with opening hours, contact details etc and you’ll be able to control how your business appears in Google’s search results.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is another great way to ensure your site is fully optimised for Google. You can access it by adding your site to Webmaster tools via your Google account. Once there, you’ll find an easy to use dashboard which will provide you with data on how Google is crawling your site index. If your site has any problems such as 404 pages, Google Webmaster Tools will let you know about them so you can take appropriate action.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is another free tool from Google that will let you know just how successful your site is. It provides you with key data on how many visitors your site is getting, how long they are staying on your site and it even breaks down your user data into demographics. Once you know the type of person who visits your site most, you’ll be able to adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.
Keyword research tools
There are a wealth of keyword research tools available on the web and they’re really easy to use. By using a keyword research tool, you’ll be providing yourself with the keywords your site needs to feature in order to improve your search ranking.
Free directory listings
These are another great resource, once you’re up and running on Google, you’ll want to make sure you’re in as many free directory listings as possible. Potential clients will sometimes search high and wide for the business to suit their needs, so being listed in as many directories as possible gives you the best chance of being found.
Regular updates to content
You should always make sure your site is up to date. If you have a new product or a new pricing structure, ensure it’s added straightaway. If you have some news about your business you would like to share, make sure that’s on the site too. Updates to content are vital for maintaining a good search ranking.
Adding alt tags to website images
This is often overlooked but adding alt tags is vitally important for increasing traffic. If a user is searching using Google Images, its the alt tags of the images that determine what comes up in their search results. So the more descriptive your alt tags, the better chance you have of getting their attention.
Add a blog to your site
You will probably have noticed that a huge number of local business sites feature a blog. This is because they want to keep updating their content. If Google sees a site that has been stagnant for quite a while, it will push it down the search results, so you need to make sure your local business site keeps things fresh with a blog. It’s also a great way of incorporating keywords.
Social media
Social media is another great way of driving traffic to your site. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram, your social media presence should reflect your business and give users a reason to visit your site.
Hit the streets
With local businesses, being active in the community is vitally important. So if you’ve got something to share, go and share it with your potential customers by hitting the streets. An old fashioned bit of leaflet distribution, perhaps to promote an offer or a new product, is another great way to drive traffic towards your website.
Email Marketing
The success of email marketing is all about growing your contact list, segmenting it to appeal to different groups of customers, and providing valuable content to encourage recipients to stay engaged. Always link to your website in your email call to action, and encourage repeat visits to your website by sending fresh content on a regular basis.
Personal Email Signature
You can include a link to your homepage or a specific landing page you want to promote. If the link is to your homepage, make sure it works like a landing page.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO, which will improve organic search engine rankings, is a complex process which involves optimizing your website for keywords, providing authoritative content, and increasing quality links to your site. By enhancing SEO, your website will appear near the top of search results for your specified keywords.
Pay-Per-Click Ads
Create paid ads to appear on search engines. The most popular paid ads are through Google AdWords. You tell Google how much you’re willing to spend and only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This is called pay-per-click advertising. Make sure that your ad links to a landing page that matches the copy in the ad (you don’t want to advertise hiking boots and send visitors to a page featuring umbrellas).
YouTube
About 1 billion people use YouTube every month. That fact, combined with the enormous popularity of video, makes YouTube a natural for promoting your website. Be sure to include a call to action in your video with a link back to your website, and give viewers a good reason to go there.
Guest Blogs
Identify leading websites in your market niche and offer to write guest blogs for them. Be sure to include a link to your website in the blog post, for example, in your bio at the end of the article.
If you don’t consider yourself much of a writer or are just getting started with content marketing, here are some content marketing basics to get you started.
Retargeting
If you shop at Walmart online, you might notice ads for the products you just purchased, or similar Walmart products, on other websites. That’s achieved through retargeting, a cookie-based technology that involves inserting a special code on your website. When visitors come to your site, the code attaches a cookie to that visitor’s browser. That makes it possible to display ads for your website on other sites across the web, increasing the visibility of your site and the products and services you offer.
Conclusion
Promoting your website to increase web traffic and boost sales in a multi-step process that requires careful consideration, thought, and planning.
The first step in the process is finding the right domain name and choosing a host for your website. Take the first step by visiting one.com today to set up your domain name and web hosting. AJR can always design and build your website on your one.com hosting platform. If you prefer AJR can set this up for you so you don’t need to worry about a thing!
Always check back with this list to make sure you’re promoting your website everywhere you can!.
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In the past i have worked for a leading IT Solutions & Managed service provider in Rotherham dealing with a range of IT platforms, such as - on site field engineering and remote support, dealing with all types of servers such as Virtual & Physical, Hyper–V, VMware, Windows server 2012 R2, SBS - Small Business Server 2008 2011, SQL, Terminal, Exchange, Active Directory, Group Policy, TCP, IP, DNS, DHCP, VPN, RDP, hybrid & cloud, Office 365 and managed security solutions such as Antivirus and Spam filtering.
Prior to this, I worked for Wickersley School & Sports College as the Lead IT & Network Technician and also supporting local primary schools with IT Support and engineering visits & Project Management, while also running my own company AJR Solutions, providing IT & Creative Solutions. In addition to my full-time career, I’m very creative and have a huge passion for design and love how design can have a massive impact on a business image, presence and value