Web Site Promotion

Promoting Your Web Site

There are many ways to promote your online business, some better than others. The better methods are described briefly below, with links to more information, how-to guides, or services for your use.

Email Signature

First, the simplest (and free) method is to use an Email Signature. It is the email equivalent of stationary. This is just a short (usually 3-4 lines, 45-60 characters each) message at the bottom of your email that has a little promotional message, like this:

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Easy Web Services for Small Businesses
www.RALTechnologies.com

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All the free email services (Yahoo, Hotmail) use this method very successfully. You can too, and it won't cost you a dime :-).

Search Engine Listings

Search Engines are still the best way to get quality traffic for an online business. The visitors found you because they are actively looking for your product or service, and they are coming in with an open frame of mind -- not as skeptical as if they found you through an ad.

The main challenge is that it is very competitive getting a good listing on a search engine for many terms. So two good alternative strategies are to (1) use less common and therefore less competitive terms, or (2) buy your spot.

By "buying a spot" I mean subscribe to one of the PPC (Pay Per Click) search engines where you bid for placement by term. You get charged your bid amount every time someone clicks on your listing. So someone who bids 25 cents will be listed above someone who bids 22 cents for the same search word. If you know how much your visitor is worth to your business, you can bid for traffic very profitably.

Ezine Advertising

E-zines are online newsletters that are sent to subscribers and many of them accept advertising. E-zine ads can be a very good investment because you can pick ones that are related to your business so the readers are likely to be a good target group of prospects for you.

Even better is to write a short article for an e-zine on a topic related to your business. E-zine editors are often looking for content, and if you can write a good article (does not need to be long, but needs to cover a real topic related to their newsletter and not just be a sales pitch) they will often publish it. Then you can include your name and signature at the end of the article and get some good PR. 

Slightly more complicated (unless you already have an affiliate program) is doing a joint venture with an ezine publisher. This is where you split the profits with the publisher for sales due to their promotion of your product. If your product/service matches up with their focus it is a true win-win approach.