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Promotion after your site goes 'live'
Ok you've got yourself a new website, now what?
Many businesses spend lots of money setting up a new website what
with Domain Name Registration, Website Hosting and most importantly
the Website Design; some customers can be out of pocket thousands
of dollars.
The role of the website designer is to construct an eye catching
and appealing website backed by good programming and W3C compliance.
If your designer is any good, they would hopefully construct your
site pages with Search Engine Optimisation in mind even in cases
where it hasn't been explicitly applied for. In other words instead
of naming your Company Information page file as 'about.htm' being
a little more creative with SEO in mind and name it 'business_lawyers_sydney.htm'
for a Business Law Firm in Sydney, therefore capturing keywords
in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS).
Anyway getting back to our topic, you have spent hours compiling
information and images for your new site and your designer has pieced
together the puzzle and you now have a brand new website online
and raring to go…..now what!
Many businesses wrongly presume that once their website is online
they can sit back and watch the dollars and clients roll in as they
are now 'online'. Well let me tell you it isn't that simple (we
all wish it was!), but the truth be told this world wide web of
ours is truly that WORLD WIDE and with millions of websites all
competing for your clients hard earned dollars you need to make
sure your website is seen and visited by as many as possible.
Don't panic, this task may be easier than it seems with only a few
easy to apply changes to your current business practices you can
make your site a popular spot for web surfers which will lead to
future business prospects and customers and their all important
dollar.
Domain Email
I am surprised by the number of businesses still using a hotmail, gmail
or aol free email account for the main business email contact. You've paid for a new domain
name and hosting for your business why not put it to good use and create a email address
for that domain.
Plenty of my customers don't want to part with their @free_email
as 'everyone knows my email address'. Well heres a tip, people are
smart and if you tell them you have a new email address and only
use that new email account to send emails etc, they will start using
it to reply to your messages too. I'm not saying get rid of your
@free_email account all together but to use your new domain email
as the primary contact for all outgoing correspondence.
What's the difference I hear you ask, well those people that don't
know about your website or maybe even your business, will have an
easier time finding your site when your domain name appears after
the @ symbol. You'll be surprised the amount of times emails are
received and the first thing someone wants to do is check out your
site for more information, well here's one way which will help.
Email Signatures
You know the ones, those easily programmed options in Email programs
which add your name and phone number at the bottom of the page for
every new, replied or forwarded email. Well how about adding your
website URL Address to this signature as well, that way every email
sent will be advertising your website address.
Email Blast
By now you would certainly have amassed a large contact list of
customers and associates, so why not notify them of your new website
and ask them to comment on its design and ease of use, you never
know you may actually get some more business or sales just from
this simple email.
Business Cards
You must hand out 100's of these little cardboard cards every time you meet a new business
associate or prospective client so why not add your website URL Address here as well.
I can't tell you the number of cards I have received which don't feature the business
website; it seems criminal that there is such an omission
Signage
Be it moving or stationary, signage advertising your business is
paramount to getting your name, brand or logo out into the public
consciousness. So why not add your website to your current signage
or even on the rear window of your car, truck or van and become
a moving billboard.
Competitions
Think about running regular competitions on your website where visitors
must find certain information contained 'somewhere' within your
site. Using letter drops, print media or email blasts, ask your
customers and associates to enter and forward the email onto their
friends so they can enter as well and offer a prize worthy of peoples
time while visiting your site.
For Example: Your site may be selling Ladies Fashions and the competition
stipulates that visitors must find and name three brands of clothing
available to enter the competition, thus ensuring those who visit
will be aware of your product line and may even purchase someone
if they like the range.
RSS Feeds
Are you prepared to write articles on your specialised service and
products? Well if you answered yes then you should consider implementing
an RSS Feed into your website. RSS or Really Simple Syndication
allows you to publish relevant information to the WWW community.
With dozens of News Aggregators around ready to pick up new feeds,
your information and website URL will be published on numerous sites
adding to its popularity with Search Engines and your customers.
News Updates
Websites can quickly become stale and tired when nothing changes,
so along with your RSS Feeds why not establish a news information
page with headlines on your home page to constantly update your
customers with latest happenings.
Newsletters
You can create a simple HTML newsletter based on any Word Processing
document which will look attractive to your customers and encourage
them to click through to your website. You can easily paste this
into an email editor and send to your customers and encourage them
to forward or pass on the email to their contacts etc.
If you apply at least 1 of these rules you should be able to increase the popularity of
your site almost immediately. Don't forget that site promotion and popularity is an ongoing
task to keep your website in your viewer's consciousness, so if updating via a Newsletter
works well, make a note to produce it monthly.
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