At least twenty-three proven tips and ideas for
increasing the traffic to your Website (and hopefully
also it's quality!)
Some of these just cost your time, and some are paid.
This tipsheet also includes a complete set of links to
all the resources that I regularly use.
This is a free service, and is regularly updated.
Changes include new ideas, links, and removing things
that don't work as well as they used to . . .
"Although I'm a fairly seasoned online marketer,
I
still found some very useful tips. The resource links
were particularly
helpful!"
Bryan Noar, Marketing Director, Web Partners,
Inc.
|
Pay per Click
Paid Submissions
Directory Listings
Reviewed Content
Link Exchanges
Paid Advertising
Public Relations
Electronic Mail
Viral Marketing
And finally . . .
Before I start, I'm breaking the habit of a very long
time by recommending a Search Engine Optimization
company.
If you've ever read my articles or heard
me speak, you'll know how wary I am of doing this, but
I am very impressed by
Bloofusion, based in Silicon Valley.
And now, on to the tips . . .
The best tip
for online advertising is target, and target
again! Do some substantive research in your
traffic logs to find your most effective keywords.
-
If you have a larger
budget, Google's
Premium Sponsorships
program gives you enhanced text links at the top
of the Google results page - but the minimum spend for
this is $30,000 over three months.
-
Consider sponsoring
an e-zine. These can have
very targeted audiences, and well worded text can
achieve good response rates.
Ezine-Universe has an
extensive list of e-zines. Search by keywords for
online newsletters with readers who might want your
product or service.
-
If you'd like to bid
on some good rates for e-
zine sponsorships and classifieds, try out the service
at the
Ezine Ad Auction.
[Table of Contents]
Never miss an
opportunity to get the word out!
-
Check out your local
media online. Newspapers,
magazines and Internet radio stations that have Web
sites are always looking for new content.
Yahoo! has a good listing of these, starting at
the
state
level.
N
ewslink lists both national and
international newspapers, radio and television
stations.
-
If you're a good
writer, submit an article to one
of the ever-growing number of newsletter, magazine and
trade journal sites online.
There's a free searchable list of these at
MediaFinder. For a fee, you can
subscribe to their full service, which gives you
access to contact names,
editorial calendars, etc.
Check out
"Articles That Sell" an e-book
focusing on step-by-step instructions for creating an
article submission campaign, plus a list of over
300 newsgroups, e-zines, newsletters and web sites
where you can pitch your writing.
And
EzineArticles.com accepts articles
on a myriad of subjects that publishers are free to
reuse as long as they keep your work and copyright
intact.
- To get serious about online PR, subscribe to an
online leads service, such as
Profnet. These services distribute
daily e-mails of (usually) high quality, and very
varied enquiries from reporters and authors.
If you'd like to pitch for relevant stories, but
don't have time to monitor leads yourself, I highly
recommend Dan Janal's
PRLeads service.
-
And, if you have
real news to trumpet about your
Web site, such as an award that it just won, send out
a press release. A good free resource for this is
PRWeb.
[Table of Contents]
E-mail is
probably still one of the most under-used
marketing tools that you have:
- If you haven't already, create a signature file.
This is a short text file that's automatically
inserted at the end of every e-mail message that you
send. It should contain your name and company, one
line about what you do, phone number, e-mail and URL.
Make sure that you include http:// in front of the
URL, and mailto: before your e-mail address, so
that they'll both be clickable for the recipient.
Check your e-mail program for help with this.
- Don't send spam (unsolicited e-mail)
indiscriminately, but consider sending announcements
via a targeted e-mail service. These have lists of
subscribers who have requested information around many
different interest areas, so you should have a
receptive audience.
One such service is
PostMaster Direct.
-
Look for e-mail
discussion groups (listservs)
that talk about subjects on which you're an expert,
whether these are products or services.
Contribute to the discussions, and you'll make
great contacts as other readers are impressed by your
knowledge, and want to check out more of what you can
offer!
Topica and
Yahoo! have an extensive database of
these groups.
And in the same vein,
Google now helps you to search and
post messages in Usenet newsgroups - you'll use your e-
mail address to sign up.
- Do you have value-added content to support your
products or services, or regular (interesting!) news
about your business? Start an e-mail newsletter, or e-
zine. Include clickable URL's that direct readers to
your Web site.
Use your own database (which is by far the best
set of prospects that you'll have), or purchase an opt-
in list to seed your e-news. But make sure that any
names that you buy are legitimate, and always honor
"remove me" requests.
Alexandria K. Brown, the
"Ezine Queen" offers tips and information on
her site
on how to start and build your own newsletter.
[Table of Contents]
Of course,
nothing carries as much weight as a personal referral
from a trusted friend or colleague, so encourage this
at all times. Include a "Suggest this Site"
button or form, with an option for your visitor to add
comments for the person they're sending the
recommendation to.
I'd suggest that this is done confidentially -
you as the site owner don't get a copy, so that you
can legitimately say that you won't harass the
recipient ;-)
Offline, don't
forget to put your Web address on everything that you
print, all of your advertising copy, and even on your
voice mail message!
And, make sure that you know which of your
promotional efforts are paying off by analyzing the
referring URL's in your traffic logs. Check out my
article "Mining for
Gold" for more
details on this.
