Promoting your web site

Now that you have a completed web site, you need to set in motion plans to promote it, to generate interest from potential visitors. Otherwise, it's a bit like having a pile of colourful new brochures in the corner of the office, with no means of distributing them to potential new clients.

You really don't need to throw much money at this objective, but you do need to invest some time and thought in order to get lots of prospective new clients to your web site. Here are some guidelines.

Printed material
Include your web address on all your printed material, including all your letterheads, brochures, business cards, appointment cards, invoices, receipts etc. If this material is normally printed as needed from your computer, then add it to the standard template.
Where you also use externally preprinted material, like letterheads or continuous stationery, make a note to add the URL when you next reprint (Put a note in the file now , while you still remember!)

Emails
Add the web address to the bottom of all your emails (Outlook allows you to do this automatically as a “signature”). If you have several computers in the office, then don't forget to change all of them. Email contacts are probably those people most likely to view your web site.
Contact all your present (and past) contacts, customers and friends and invite them to visit your web site. Get them involved by asking for feedback and comments. Include the full web address as a link in any emails that you send.

PR Activity
Use PR to promote your web site. Most local papers are quite willing to consider news items about local businesses or people, particularly if there is a story line woven into your approach to them and a good photo opportunity. Invite the publication's local journalist to visit your business. Public relations is by far the most cost-effective way to launch the web site.

Advertising
If you already use regional advertising, like Yellow Pages, then add your web address to future advertisements. However most newer web sites offering advertising (paid-for links) are unlikely to be cost effective, because they lack the volume of traffic..
Think about paid-for advertising. There are a few , well established web sites that are Directories of businesses. Reference sites like this can be worthwhile, if they have an established volume of visitors, but most other offers you will receive may not be cost effective.
If you are listed in any printed trade directories or local business directories, ask them to include your web address, alongside your phone number, Fax and address.

Links to your web site (*KEY ACTIVITY)
If your customers or suppliers have their own web sites, ask them for a link to your site, together with a short phrase that describes your business (for search engine use. Use the phrase that you see at the top of the browser of your Home page). Most people are very willing to accept an offer of a link exchange.

If your business comes mainly from the local area, make time to search the Internet, looking for other businesses in your area who have established web sites. Offer them a link exchange.
Look also for local community web sites.

Now think about the types of customer that you attract typically to your business. Where else do they look on the Internet? Consider public information web sites or web sites with content that is likely to be of interest to your customers. Ask for a link exchange.

This is a key activity. The more good quality links that you have to your site, the more traffic you will get and the higher up the search engine rankings your site will be listed.

Search Engines.
Over 60% of Internet users now find their information using search engines –of which Google, Yahoo and MSN account for over 90% of all searches. I will register your web site (manually) with these 3 search engines and also use a service to submit your site to a batch of other search engines. There is no guarantee that your site will appear near the top of search engine rankings. Competition is fierce and Google alone has recorded 8, 300 million pages on the Internet.
Search engine ranking is important. Search engines use clever programmes (known as web robots – or “bots”) to look for new web sites, analyse their pages, determine what categories of information they contain and make a judgment on their likely popularity -- and then apply a ranking . It takes time for this to happen (weeks, sometimes months). The ranking decision depends on some fairly complicated algorithms related to your site's content, site description, page descriptions, meta tags, keywords, whether the content is likely to be of general public interest, site activity = how often the site is revised and crucially, how many good quality links there are to the site.

Internet Advertising.
Google Adwords are a paid service worth looking at, as is Google's developing local directory searches.
You will receive many offers of submission services and various other promotion services that “guarantee” to give you a high ranking. Most will fail and prove to be a waste of money.

Final thoughts: You job hasn't finished just because the web site is completed and published live. Think of it as a conversation with your customers (present and future).

So you need to keep it alive with interesting content and regular changes that will bring visitors back again – and make them want to add it to their list of Favorites / Bookmarks in their browser.