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Web Marketing Tips
With literally millions of web pages out there, you need to make potential customers aware of your site, explain why they should visit, and detail how to get there. Promoting your site-- and ultimately building traffic-- requires its own set of strategies and tactics. Here are some tips to get you started.
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If your competitors are putting up websites, you might want to do so as well. Take a close look at their sites, with an eye toward making your site better. Search on a few keywords relating to your business and see which of your competitors you find. Your customers will be finding them too. Are they finding you?
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Use your telephone voice mail or answering machine message to promote your website. Especially useful for after hours messages. "Please leave a message after the tone, or visit our website at <your company> dot com."
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E-mail newsletters are a popular way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects, as long as they have subscribed themselves.
If they haven't asked to be on your list and you send them email news, they may consider it junk email, which could do
more harm than good.
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Wearable Web Addresses
An Oregon-based athletic wear company has made quite a bit of money by charging people for the privilege of wearing its logo. You may have heard of this outfit -- it goes by the name of Nike.
Operators of many online businesses have taken Nike's lucrative business strategy to heart and are now selling their own logo shirts, caps, socks, you name it. Nothing like getting other people to pay to advertise your World Wide Website.
Other e-preneurs are simply giving the wearables away, hoping that the positive "free tee shirt" PR will work in their favor. Whether you sell your "dot-com" clothing or use it as a customer gift, the end result is the same. It's called "getting your name out there.
Make sure your web address is on all your giveaways.
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Another wearable is Little League
jerseys. For less than $200 you can sponsor a team. Instead
of your company name, have your URL printed on the team jerseys. You can
have YourName.com on the back of 15 little shirts all season. And it
doesn't end there. Those shirts are worn for years after the season.
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Remember to list your web URL wherever you can. (Letterhead, envelopes, brochures, business cards, invoices, receipts, television, radio and print ads, fliers, newsletters, checks, giveaway souvenirs, the side of your company vehicle along with your company name, your email signature, billboards, on your delivery boxes, etc.)
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Some businesses are getting great results by advertising their Web URLs in the newspaper classifieds. Just a URL and a one-line explanation of the website is all you need. The money you save by getting smaller less expensive ads could pay for your web site. The same goes for Yellow Page ads. You can only squeeze so much into an ad, but you can put as much info as you want in your web page.
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Go to your local print shop and have them make a stylish little rubber stamp with your web URL on it. Then you can stamp the backs of your business cards. You can also stamp your checks, invoices, envelopes, and what the heck, why not stamp the hands of visitors to your trade show booth?
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Use other websites to cross-promote your own. Exchange links with vendors, suppliers, customers, and other sites. Not only will this result in more free exposure, it could help significantly increase your traffic if you're cross-linked with other highly popular sites.
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Write a letter to the editor of a favorite magazine or journal of your target industry-- don't forget to include your email address and URL!
Tip: When promoting your URL, use upper and lower case to make it
more readable. www.PullenInc.com
instead of www.pulleninc.com, www.YoungsFarmInc.com
instead of www.youngsfarminc.com.
You might also want to poll your site visitors. Set up a small one- or two-question survey box on your homepage to ask visitors questions that give you a better handle on the kind of people coming to your site. Don't be afraid to ask them for feedback either. Their advice is often the source of the best ideas for site improvements.
Use your website to solicit feedback from customers. Find out what they like and dislike and obtain valuable suggestions on how to improve your products or services.
How can you serve your audience in terms of education? Give something of real value to your target audience. In return, they'll be more interested in learning about your products and services and they'll have a better
impression of you as a company.
Back to Web
Site Pricing Information.
(Some of these tips were found at other
web sites.)
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