12 More Ways to Promote Your Website

How do you get visitors to your website? What do you do to get increased traffic? Here’s a list of 12 more items you need to consider. You may be doing many of these already.  Others you meant to do and forgot about.  Still others you’ve never heard of.

Here are 12  more ways that are in addition to my previous post here - 10 Ways to Promote Your Website

Linking Strategies

Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic.  But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (”link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines.  Google has a measure called PageRank ( PR ) that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links.  All links aren’t equal.  Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites.

11. Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic.  A directory is not a search engine. It is a listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory.  Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com), overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don’t get listed right away, don’t be impatient and resubmit, or you’ll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.

Yahoo! Directory (dir.yahoo.com) is another important directory.  Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given.  Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don’t have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping.

12. Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories.  Ask for a link.  Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.

Some directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.

13. Request Reciprocal Links.  Find websites in your general niche and request a reciprocal link to your site.  Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites so you don’t send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front door.  Your best results will be from sites that generate a similar amount of traffic as your own site.  High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don’t have anything to gain.  Look for smaller sites that may have linking pages.

When you locate sites, send a personal e-mail using the contact e-mail on the site or to the administrative contact listed in a Whois Directory .  If e-mail doesn’t get a response, try a phone call.

Warning: Only link to complementary sites, no matter how often you are bombarded with requests to exchange links with a mortgage site that has nothing to do with your teddy bear store.  One way Google determines what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It’s not just links, but quality links you seek.  Reciprocal linking as hard, tedious work, but it doesn’t cost you a dime out of pocket!  Keep working at this continuously, a little bit at a time.  Patience and persistence will get you some good links, so keep at it.

14. Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters.  You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail newsletters or their websites.  Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article.  This is an effective “viral” approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site over time.  You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week.

15. Issue News Releases.  Find newsworthy events and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in your industry.  The links to your site in online news databases may remain for several months and will temporarily improve traffic to your site and increase link popularity.  Use a online news release service such as PR Web .  Placing your website URL in online copies of your press release may increase link popularity temporarily.

Two additional linking strategies, discussed below, are to ask visitors to bookmark your webpageand to develop a free service, which will greatly stimulate links to your site.

Social Media

Our next type of website promotion comes from the mushrooming field of social media, in which people are encouraged to interact with each other, and respond to each other’s blog postings and comments. You should be aware of four types of social media: (1) blogs, (2) social networking sites, (3) social bookmarking sites, and (4) forums. Don’t be upset if the distinctions between types of social media tend to blur. Social media help promote your site by sending direct traffic, producing links to your site, and generating awareness.  The subject is too diverse to go into detail here.

16. Begin a Business Blog.  Want links to your site?  Begin a business blog on your website, hosted on your own domain.  If you offer excellent content and regular industry comment, people are likely to link to it, increasing your site’s PageRank.  Consistency and having something to say are key.  If you have a blog on a third-party blog site, occasionally find reasons to talk about and link to your own domain.

17. Become Part of a Social Media Community. Some of the best online communities for business include Facebook , LinkedIn , Buzz and Twitter . In addition, you may want to participate in a social bookmarking community in which members share with each other information about websites, articles, or news items that they like (or don’t like). These include Digg , PyraBang and StumbleUpon .  Search engine spiders troll these sites looking for links to something new and relevant. You can usually place a link to your website in your profile, but the biggest gain comes when other people mention you (which generates traffic to your site), link to you (which increases your PageRank and brings traffic), or bookmark you (which increases your PageRank and brings traffic).

One important reminder, don’t join a community to spam them or talk incessantly about your business.  Like any community you must listen, comment, and make a genuine contribution for the good of others.  Don’t hog the conversation. Or else your self-serving links and comments will hurt your reputation.

18. Promote Your Site in Online Forums and Discussion Lists — “old school” social media. The Internet offers thousands of very targeted e-mail based discussion lists, online forums, and groups made up of people with very specialized interests. Use Google Groups to find appropriate groups.  Search online for blogs or other forums.

Don’t bother with groups consisting of pure spam.  Instead, find groups where a serious dialog is taking place.  Don’t use aggressive marketing and overtly plug your product or service.  Instead, add to the discussion in a helpful way and let the “signature” at the end of your e-mail message do your marketing for you.  People will gradually get to know and trust you, visit your site, and do business with you.

19. Ask Visitors to Bookmark Your Site. It seems simple, but ask visitors to bookmark your site or save it in their Favorites list.  I use a widget called AddToAny. When you put the AddToAny Script on your webpage, it automatically determines the title and URL of that page.  When visitors click the button on your page, they are automatically taken to a page that allows them to choose which bookmarking service they prefer, and then pre-populates the appropriate form with the title and URL of your webpage.  I use AddToAny throughout my website, as well as in my newsletters.  If you have good content that people want to bookmark, this can generate hundreds of links to your site and significantly raise your rankings.

Traditional Strategies

Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.

20. Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL.  And see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct. In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and including only the “domain.com” portion if possible.

21. Promote using traditional media. Don’t discontinue print advertising that you’ve found effective. But be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages, etc.  View your website as an information adjunct to the ad.  Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers’ attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order.  Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals.  Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising.  Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc.  TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.

22. Develop a Free Service.  It’s boring to invite people, “Come to our site and learn about our business.”  It’s quite another to say “Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site.”  Make no mistake, it’s expensive in time and energy to develop free resources, but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site and a motivation to link to the site!  Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business.  Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.

I hope this list helped some.  I am thinking of adding some more about email marketing.

Feel free to throw some of your ideas into the comments.