Promotion is a very important step in launching a new website. The goal here is to let potential customers know about your newly designed website and why they should pay you a visit.
There are many proven website promotion strategies as follows:
Business cards and stationery
Although very powerful, many people forget about business cards and stationery as important tools for website promotion. What if every business card that you issued to someone as you go to your daily activities had your website URL? Could not that generate some traffic to your site? You bet it would. On the same note, having your website URL on your office stationery can also generate lots of free traffic for your website.
Posters and flyers
Another great opportunity is to publicize the launch of your site using flyers and posters. You should utilize any space that you have access to and try to get your message out to as many people as possible. Stick a poster up in the window of your business, you never know who might see it.
Press releases
Press releases are also an excellent means of promoting your website. Press releases are intended to get the word out about a newsworthy activity that a company has undertaken or intends to undertake in the future. For example, before launching your website, you can submit a press release intended to announce your plans. If you have also taken on a noble cause, why not submit a press release about it as well? You never know when a press release you submit could generate some media coverage for your website. Submitting press releases also generates backlinks to your site.
Social media
In this day and age, a great opportunity also exists in the explosion of social media. With thriving online social networking the likes of Facebook and twitter, you can unduly get the word out about your website for free. Whenever you submit new content to your site or launch a new website, you can notify your friends by sending a tweet or a status updates mentioning your new venture or action. The "retweet" function on twitter or "like" feature on Facebook allows your message to be passed on to hundreds of people in a matter of minutes.
Search engines
Search engines are also excellent medium for getting the word out about your website and then generate traffic and customers for your products and services. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are currently ranked as the big three but Google is by far the most popular.
You can utilize the power of the search engines in two main ways:
Pay per click listing
You can also rank on the first page of most search engines by paying them to include your ad there. Google AdWords is the most known pay per click advertising system. As a website owner, you first get an account with the service, choose the keywords you intend to use in your campaign, and then set the amount you are ready to pay for each click referred by Google and voila! Google will then place your ad on the right side of the natural search listings or at the top whenever your target keyword is used to search on Google. You can get free Google AdWords vouchers as part of web hosting service packs from several hosting companies today.
Organic search engine ranking
Also referred to as organic listing, this refers to the process of incorporating your target keywords in your site structure and online marketing campaigns, so that you enhance the ability of your site to rank well in search engines when potential customers search using the target keywords. This process is referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are two major types of SEO, onsite which deals with the way you have built your site and the frequency of keywords through, and offsite deals with the number of links directed towards your site. In this article we will only look at the later and how to successfully build these links.
Directories
An equally powerful website promotion strategy is to list your site on online directories. There are many online directories today most of which are free. Two good examples of online directories are the Yell and BT phone directories. You can search on Google for "online business directories" or spy on your competitive sites to establish the directories in which they are listed.
Reviews
This strategy is a bit less utilized but it is equally powerful for website promotion. This works by encouraging people to give feedback on your products and services on such sites as http://www.freeindex.co.uk . Whenever someone searches on the site using a certain keyword, the free index will then rank the listed sites according to the number of positive reviews posted.
Link exchange
You can also promote your website by making an arrangement with other site owners in your niche such that they link to your website and you link to their site in return. This essentially benefits both the sites by sharing traffic. However, desist from overusing this technique as it may affect negatively on your site. On the same note, link only to sites you have confidence with; otherwise you may annoy your loyal site visitors.
Write articles and blogs
Article marketing is one of the most widely used website promotion techniques today, because it is usually free. What you essentially do as a website owner is to write quality articles and submit them to popular article directories on the internet. Such articles are published with a link back to your website. If someone reads and likes your article they may publish it on their own site along with it the link back to your site. Starting a blog on your own website can also help to promote your site and attract repeat visitors who find the content useful.
Engage in your community
You can also promote your website by spending time participating in online blogs and forum communities. By leaving useful comments and forum posts, you can over time attract interest from the visitors of these online communities.
One last thought, be sure to check the impact of your website promotion effort by utilizing the free Google webmaster and Analytics tools.