Thursday, December 18, 2008

Online Web Site Marketing Strategies

By Stewart Woyo

After weeks of putting in endless hours of production time, you have finally created the perfect website. With vibrant pictures and professional graphics, you know that this site is going to bring in a lot of money. The first thing you do after unveiling the site is release it to the top search engines, expecting to get an overflow of new web traffic. But unfortunately, it doesn't take you long to realize that the search engines alone aren't getting the job done. What you must realize is, the only way to significantly improve web traffic is to develop a comprehensive online promotion strategy.

While there are countless was to promote your website, I will outline 5 of them for you to implement.

1) "Move the free line," is a phrase for a popular website promotion tactic. Offering a sample or service for free is a proven method of generating increased traffic to your site. Be sure that your company's information is included on your sample. In this manner, visitors who love your sample will constantly be reminded of where they got it, and be able to come back to your website again. Give the visitor something of value for free, and include a call to action.

2) If your company has budgeted some money for you to spend on increasing traffic, the best way to get more visitors is to pay for them. Many search engines offer pay per click services that charge only when a user ends up at your site. This tactic is a very effective way to target a high quality audience.

3) Network, network, network! Networking is one of the oldest and most successful tools of business. Focus on building relationships with related businesses, but not direct competitors. The trick is to find businesses that offer similar products and services as your own and share the target audience. Exchanging links with your partners can lead to more conversions for everyone involved. Having unbroken links to quality sites will help improve your search engine rankings. You can also exchange your customer email lists to increase the effectiveness of your email newsletters and direct marketing. This may be the most valuable tip in this article.

4) Content is king! Think about the sites you visit most often. They could be news sites, or weather sites. Maybe a site related to one of your hobbies. Why do you visit them often? Because each time you visit you read or see something new. Your content doesn't have to live on your website alone. Write articles and submit them to other websites and directories. Make sure they always reference, or better yet link back to your site. The person that was interested in your article will most likely be interested in your site. Before you know it you'll have created an endless stream of web viewers. Plus, as long as you update your contentthey'll keep coming back.

5) Marketing is often a visual concept, so online video creation and syndication is a powerful tool in your arsenal. Online video generated traffic is considered the most responsive traffic. Invest your time into making as many online videos as you can. These videos should be syndicated and submitted to more than a dozen of the web 2.0 video sites populating the internet. Not only will this method generate traffic from the viewers in the online video community, but it provides free search engine traffic as well due to the videos being ranked high in the search engines. - 15634

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