Where UK business grows
7 Ways to Publicise your Website
It used to be vital to get business cards when you first started. But now it’s more important that people can learn about you & your business online.
A web-site is the most essential marketing device for every new business in 2008.
It takes time or money to get your web-site perfect ,and having invested that time, you’re sure to require a lovely flow of traffic as quickly as you can. Traffic means interested people which should mean sales leads.
Here are three proven online ways to publicise your new business website.
1) Buy traffic
If you need visitors now – today – the only guaranteed way to do that is to buy traffic by advertising online. The UK’s major search engines Google & Yahoo! both run adverts next to natural search results. Booking these adverts is deliberately easy. You tell them which keywords you require (which search results you require your adverts displayed next to), the rough location of your customers, & how much you require to spend (which can be as little as a few pounds a week). Everything else is done for you automatically.
It’s called Pay Per Click (PPC), because unlike traditional advertising you only pay when someone clicks on your advert. Broadly speaking, the position of your advert depends on how much you are willing to pay for each click. As with natural search results the higher the better. When your budget has been spent, your advert disappears.
Getting the best return from PPC requires time to optimise your campaigns. Google for example now picks the order of adverts not on how much advertisers are willing to pay, but on the performance of the adverts. Those that get a better click-through rate are displayed higher. This helps Google show the most relevant adverts to your search.
You can get started with Google AdWords at low risk with a free £30 online voucher.
2) Get more links to your website
A cheaper but longer-term way to build traffic is to get many links back into your website. Speaking basically, Google assesses each page on your web-site & gives it a score, called a PageRank. Although the jury is out on the correlation between PageRank & search result rankings, it is well worth your while trying to get to the PR4 level or beyond. two of the ways you can improve your PageRank is with relevant quality links to your website.
Forget all the “quick fixes” to building links that you’ll see online… the best thing to do is build up a bank of them yourself over time. Take part in business forums, visit relevant blogs & add comments. Don’t try to sell your products or services, add some value to the web-site you are contributing to. But make sure you always have a link to your web-site in your signature.
Also, don’t forget the social networking sites such as Facebook & MySpace. You can generate content among groups of friends that will give you links, & can also spread to your friends’ friends. & on sites like Squidoo you can show your expertise as well as generate links.
You can also build valuable links by buying positions in online directories. The key thing with links is relevance. If you sell shoes online, you require many links from other sites where shoes are relevant.
T best way to shout about your web-site is to write articles about it. Content web-sites sometimes accept original content from experts. There's also many articles, web-sites & free PR sites that accept press releases. Some perform well in Google searches. Remember to stick to writing about your expertise only.
3) Write free articles
One of the best ways to shout about your web site is to write articles about it. Content web sites sometimes accept original content from experts. there's also plenty of articles web sites & free PR sites that accept press releases. Some perform well in Google searches. Remember to stick to writing about your products and services to get the best restults.
4) Send emails
Your new web-site MUST have the ability to collect the name & email address of visitors, so you can send them simple newsletters. It’s an easy way to encourage repeat visits. It’s also worth looking at buying lists of emails, if you are targeting a niche sector or geographical area. Find out how old the data is before you buy it, & remember when you buy lists you have a much lower response rate (these people have not given their permission to hear from you, so are less likely to respond)
Remember to keep your emails legal. Always ask permission before signing someone up to your list, & make it easy for them to leave. You should focus on excellent email content to keep people on your list.
Consider investing in proper email marketing tools that will let you monitor how many emails bounce, who opened theirs & when, & how many people click through. By studying how different content performs in emails, you will soon work out what content your readers prefer.
5) Spread a virus
Ever accidentally spent a whole night looking at videos on YouTube? Or wasted hours playing a simple online game?
It’s called viral marketing, as the message spreads by itself. generating a video can be easy & cheap. It’s vital that it's a surprise or makes you giggle – otherwise it won’t be recommended by others.
Fun games are more expensive but can become a real talking point as an entire office competes against each another. When games support a message, or get people talking such as with this one, they become a powerful weapon.
6) Get aggregated
The key to publicising your web-site online is going where the traffic is. Google News UK is the top 50 most visited web-site according to Alexa.com. & you can normally get your web-site featured in there by writing a press release & submitting it to a quality news wire site. It costs but is a great investment for exposure.
Other sites worth targeting and already mentioned by myself are Digg.com, StumbleUpon etc, where readers decide the story order by voting. Getting on the front page of Digg will give you serious traffic.
7) Grow your website
Get in the habit of rewriting pages regularly, adding links, checking for broken links, & over anything adding new pages. Start a blog, add articles, encourage discussion. Google loves a web-site that’s updated regularly & constantly adds new content.
A powerful long-term strategy is to invest time in your web-site each week. think of it like a house plant – if you never pay it any attention it will whither. Whereas if you care for it every week it will thrive.
A web-site is the most essential marketing device for every new business in 2008.
It takes time or money to get your web-site perfect ,and having invested that time, you’re sure to require a lovely flow of traffic as quickly as you can. Traffic means interested people which should mean sales leads.
Here are three proven online ways to publicise your new business website.
1) Buy traffic
If you need visitors now – today – the only guaranteed way to do that is to buy traffic by advertising online. The UK’s major search engines Google & Yahoo! both run adverts next to natural search results. Booking these adverts is deliberately easy. You tell them which keywords you require (which search results you require your adverts displayed next to), the rough location of your customers, & how much you require to spend (which can be as little as a few pounds a week). Everything else is done for you automatically.
It’s called Pay Per Click (PPC), because unlike traditional advertising you only pay when someone clicks on your advert. Broadly speaking, the position of your advert depends on how much you are willing to pay for each click. As with natural search results the higher the better. When your budget has been spent, your advert disappears.
Getting the best return from PPC requires time to optimise your campaigns. Google for example now picks the order of adverts not on how much advertisers are willing to pay, but on the performance of the adverts. Those that get a better click-through rate are displayed higher. This helps Google show the most relevant adverts to your search.
You can get started with Google AdWords at low risk with a free £30 online voucher.
2) Get more links to your website
A cheaper but longer-term way to build traffic is to get many links back into your website. Speaking basically, Google assesses each page on your web-site & gives it a score, called a PageRank. Although the jury is out on the correlation between PageRank & search result rankings, it is well worth your while trying to get to the PR4 level or beyond. two of the ways you can improve your PageRank is with relevant quality links to your website.
Forget all the “quick fixes” to building links that you’ll see online… the best thing to do is build up a bank of them yourself over time. Take part in business forums, visit relevant blogs & add comments. Don’t try to sell your products or services, add some value to the web-site you are contributing to. But make sure you always have a link to your web-site in your signature.
Also, don’t forget the social networking sites such as Facebook & MySpace. You can generate content among groups of friends that will give you links, & can also spread to your friends’ friends. & on sites like Squidoo you can show your expertise as well as generate links.
You can also build valuable links by buying positions in online directories. The key thing with links is relevance. If you sell shoes online, you require many links from other sites where shoes are relevant.
T best way to shout about your web-site is to write articles about it. Content web-sites sometimes accept original content from experts. There's also many articles, web-sites & free PR sites that accept press releases. Some perform well in Google searches. Remember to stick to writing about your expertise only.
3) Write free articles
One of the best ways to shout about your web site is to write articles about it. Content web sites sometimes accept original content from experts. there's also plenty of articles web sites & free PR sites that accept press releases. Some perform well in Google searches. Remember to stick to writing about your products and services to get the best restults.
4) Send emails
Your new web-site MUST have the ability to collect the name & email address of visitors, so you can send them simple newsletters. It’s an easy way to encourage repeat visits. It’s also worth looking at buying lists of emails, if you are targeting a niche sector or geographical area. Find out how old the data is before you buy it, & remember when you buy lists you have a much lower response rate (these people have not given their permission to hear from you, so are less likely to respond)
Remember to keep your emails legal. Always ask permission before signing someone up to your list, & make it easy for them to leave. You should focus on excellent email content to keep people on your list.
Consider investing in proper email marketing tools that will let you monitor how many emails bounce, who opened theirs & when, & how many people click through. By studying how different content performs in emails, you will soon work out what content your readers prefer.
5) Spread a virus
Ever accidentally spent a whole night looking at videos on YouTube? Or wasted hours playing a simple online game?
It’s called viral marketing, as the message spreads by itself. generating a video can be easy & cheap. It’s vital that it's a surprise or makes you giggle – otherwise it won’t be recommended by others.
Fun games are more expensive but can become a real talking point as an entire office competes against each another. When games support a message, or get people talking such as with this one, they become a powerful weapon.
6) Get aggregated
The key to publicising your web-site online is going where the traffic is. Google News UK is the top 50 most visited web-site according to Alexa.com. & you can normally get your web-site featured in there by writing a press release & submitting it to a quality news wire site. It costs but is a great investment for exposure.
Other sites worth targeting and already mentioned by myself are Digg.com, StumbleUpon etc, where readers decide the story order by voting. Getting on the front page of Digg will give you serious traffic.
7) Grow your website
Get in the habit of rewriting pages regularly, adding links, checking for broken links, & over anything adding new pages. Start a blog, add articles, encourage discussion. Google loves a web-site that’s updated regularly & constantly adds new content.
A powerful long-term strategy is to invest time in your web-site each week. think of it like a house plant – if you never pay it any attention it will whither. Whereas if you care for it every week it will thrive.
Last updated by UK Business Network (UKBN) Oct. 12, 2008.
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