Web Site Marketing Strategies

You should start working on different web site marketing strategies as soon as your site is online. It is natural to want to hold off on promoting your website until it is finished, but this is a mistake.

First of all, a website is a work in progress, so it is never really finished. You should begin using some of the more basic marketing strategies as soon as you have your home page up, the main sections established, and a few content pages online.

Basic Web Site Marketing Strategies

Below you will find the main ways to promote your site, listed from the free and easy, to the more involved methods that will cost money.

1. Submit Your Website to the Top Ten Search Engines
   If you are not in the major search engine indexes, your website is basically invisible on the internet. The main search engines that you want to submit your website to include Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, and Ask.
    
2. Submit to the Open Directory Project
   Submitting to the Open Directory Project requires a little more effort than submitting to search engines, but it is worth it due to the traffic and ranking increase that you will receive.
    
3. Submit to specialized Directory Search Engines
   It is to your advantage to submit your website to the specialty search engines and directories. If your website is listed in a directory that focuses on your particular niche, it will appear more relevant and credible to both visitors and search engines alike.
    
4. Article Submission: A powerful website marketing strategy: 
   When you write new content for your website, consider distributing your material to other webmasters for reprint. This method of strategic internet marketing often works well, and can send you targeted traffic for free.
    
5. Building Link Popularity: 
   Increasing the number of relevant incoming links to your site is one of the more important web site marketing strategies to work on. Links to your website from other related high traffic websites not only brings in more visitors, but will also increase your site ranking due to link popularity.
    
6. Search Engine Performance advertising: 
   With paid advertising, you can get targeted traffic to your website very quickly. If it is financially appropriate for your business, consider using pay per click ads on Google and Yahoo. You can also pay to be listed in portal sites, as well as run newsletter ads and banner ads on other websites.
    
7. Using Newsletters For Business Development
   People searching on the internet have short attention spans and may forget about your website after they leave. If you can get them to sign up for your newsletter, you can stay in touch with them in an ongoing basis. You can alert them to new articles and special deals, which will bring them back to your website.
    
8. Join High Traffic Forums and Message Boards: 
   Participating in online discussion groups can produce traffic to your site if it is done properly. You want to choose a forum that focuses on your target market and post helpful advice. You should never blatantly advertise your product or service, but most message boards will allow you to include your website name in your signature file.
   

You should start working on your web site marketing strategies as soon as you have your home page up, the main sections included in your navigation, and a few content pages online. This will help you to begin building traffic to your website. It is absolutely essential to your business success that customers can find you, because if you don't get visitors, you can't make money off of your website.

Set Aside Time to Market Your Website

Marketing an online business won't require a lot of experience, but you will need to invest some time, and possibly some money to get traffic.

When you are just starting out, it can be difficult to find the time to work on the different kinds of web site marketing strategies, but it is worth the effort. Don't let yourself become overwhelmed by trying to implement everything at once. Master one promotional method, and then you can work on one of the other web site marketing strategies.

Always Market Your Website

The secret to building a successful website is to put effort into both website creation and promotion on a regular basis. While there other web site marketing strategies which can be used, these are the main areas you need to concentrate on. The most logical place to get started is by submitting your website to the main search engines.

Next: The Top Ten Search Engines
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Previous Section: Web Site Design

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