
A Complete Website Promotion Strategy
Everyone is looking for that magic
formula that will propel his or her web site to phenomenal
success. Sooner or later, most people give up their search for
this mythical online marketing secret and accept a mediocre level
of online business performance that they know deep in their hearts
is not what it should be. But a few people discover the secret. As
you now will.
The secret is that there is no super-duper secret method of
marketing that will get you all the success you dreamt of. But
there is a formula which when done in totality, without taking any
shortcuts, will multiply your online business success many times
over whatever it is now. The ingredients of that formula consist
of very basic and low-cost tasks that I am sure you have heard of
before but ignored or applied partially, as most people do. The
'secret' is that you have to apply all the methods correctly and
in totality. You should spend 80% of your daily work time doing
this (or get someone to spend 80% of their time doing this for
you). This article might disappoint you initially because it
pretty much talks about what you have heard before, but please
read through it and you will be glad you did. It shows you the
right way to use that 'old' knowledge for great results. These
results may not immediately come crashing through in a few short
days, but they will solidly build over a few weeks and months to
create a large stable and permanent success base.
Before we look at the methods, let
us briefly take a look at some items or tools you need to gather
for use. You need a collection of:
1. Signature files
- these are simple text files, the electronic equivalent of your
business card and should be no longer than 8 lines long. They
carry your contact details and a quick intro to your business.
Make a few different ones and append one at the end of your
outgoing emails and postings. You can also use them to track the
source of inquiries resulting from your postings and emails.
2. Blurbs
- short one-paragraph text pieces about your business or related
topic that you can post or paste to emails when required.
3. Reports
- these are the longer version of blurbs, detailing your business
or any other related topic. Post these to selected places on the
Internet and provide them whenever required.
4. Newsletters
- for a wide variety of reasons, it is very important that you
start your own newsletter and work at getting subscriptions. There
is a lot of information on the internet about how you can start,
grow and manage a newsletter, so I won't get into it. The only
idea I would like to give you is this: actively ask your current
subscribers to forward your newsletter to their friends. Offer a
free gift that has true value to those who forward the newsletter
to 20 friends. Doing this will get you amazing growth in
newsletter subscriptions and sales! You can start one free at www.listbot.com.
5. Banners
- make sure you have professional quality banners of different
sizes. My favorite place to get custom professional banners at an
affordable price is www.buyabanner.com.
6. Press Releases
- create professional press releases for everything about your web
site, from new product announcements to site changes. Post them in
appropriate places on the Internet and to press release services.
7. FAQs
- Frequently Asked Questions files. Create a few of these about
your industry or any other related topic. Make them in a
question-and-answer format and post them in appropriate newsgroups
and email them when necessary. They should not be blatant
advertising of your products but they should have your signature
file at the bottom and maybe a 'Created By...' line at the top to
get you the recognition. A well done FAQ can find itself copied
all over the web and referred to by thousands!
8. Autobots
- if appropriate for your business, it can be a great idea to get
a powerful auto responder that will be able to read incoming email
and automatically and instantly send out information files and
answers that are appropriate to the query. That way you can manage
thousands of email inquiries on time without any effort. Find one
at www.web-source.net/links/.
9. Articles
- write a few good articles every so often that are related to
your industry. Contribute these for free publication in various
ezines and web sites (make a list of a few hundred sites and
newsletters that can take your article). This is one of the most
effective tools in your arsenal as it reaches thousands at one go,
grabbing their attention for extended periods of time. The article
should not be blatantly marketing your business, but at the end of
it you should have your signature.
Now let us look at the methods that
build success. Basically it works this way: apply the above tools
to each of these methods frequently, daily where possible. It's
that simple, but remember the key point here - frequently, all the
methods, daily where possible.
Incoming links
88.3% of people find new sites through links on other sites. The
smart way to approach this is to start a good affiliate program
that pays a commission to people linking to your site for sales,
leads or clicks.
So with your affiliate program in
place you can now contact the webmasters and site owners of
heavily trafficked sites in your industry - resource sites, sites
selling complimentary products, directories, newsletters, clients,
even competitors - you will be surprised at what you can get!
Offer them a special affiliate commission package. Give them
banners and promotional text. Maybe even offer a small discount to
their clients - that will help them promote your products. Make a
contact list of as many sites as you can daily and contact them
and follow them up until you get the deal done. Start with a few
hundred. All they would have to do is recommend your products or
site to their customer base by placing your links, banners and
reviews on their site and newsletter or mailing list. It is a very
easy job for them, but one that will earn them a guaranteed
commission of 10 - 20% through an affiliate program that they can
trust.
Considering that some sites have mailing or customer lists in the
tens or hundreds of thousands, plus online visitors, this will
work very well. Again, use your tools here to the maximum effect.
Search engine and directory
positions
84.8% of people find new sites through links on other sites, but
in terms of sheer numbers, this is the leading provider of traffic
to most sites. Note that it says 'position'. A listing on a search
engine or directory doesn't count for much, unless it is
positioned well in the eyes of search engine users. Otherwise a
search engine listing just gets lost among the millions of other
pages on the engines. Only the top 10 to 30 links returned for any
given search count - the rest is almost always ignored.
Positioning is the easiest and most affordable yet most evasive
and misunderstood method you can use. There is a lot to learn
about this, especially if you want to do it manually. For most
sites, the search engine traffic makes or breaks their success and
it is very important to know how to work well with them. Using
software tools, you should be spending some time every day
tracking, improving and managing your positions.
Friends
64.7% of people find new web sites through friends. On your site,
make it easy for people to recommend your site, product, page,
special offer, or article to their friends. Add some scripts that
make it a one-step process at any page for the visitor to enter
their friends' email addresses and send a quick but effective
recommendation. Make a nice letter that will go out with the
recommendation. If you want advanced features in your
recommendation feature, use a customized CGI script. To get many
more recommendations, offer the person making the recommendation a
chance to win something for his or her effort. You can use
www.recommend-it.com or find a script at www.cgi-resources.com.
This is probably the only method that doesn't require your daily
or frequent review and attention.
Printed Media
62.6% of people find new sites commonly through the print media -
advertising, press clips, articles, whatever. Identify magazines,
newsletters and journals around the world that could have an
appropriate audience. Then give them your articles, reports,
blurbs, etc. build a database of journalists that you contribute
these items to. Send out press releases to publications and
writers. Use a press release firm for best effect. Again, this is
a method you should be using frequently. If you have the budget,
you can also do display and classified ads where appropriate.
Newsletters and Mailing Lists
These are really underrated, yet so effective. What you need to do
is find as many lists and newsletters as possible that are related
to your business. Yes, that will get you a lot of email every day
but it is worth it. Read the postings and respond to them when you
can, preferably daily, using your blurbs, signatures, FAQs and
articles. Many lists have thousands of subscribers and by becoming
an active contributor to a number of them you will be getting
exposure to thousands of focused prospects for free - very
powerful yet underrated. Make sure you do not become overtly
commercial in your postings - just let your signature do the work
of directing the reader to you for business. Your actual posting
should be a helpful bit of information, not advertising. You can
find lists at www.listz.com and Yahoo.com's categories.
Newsgroups and Forums
Newsgroups are under-estimated by most. Yet over 20% of Internet
users use them at least once a week. Forums are like newsgroups,
the most popular being the forums on AOL and CompuServe. Subscribe
to all the newsgroups and forums that are related to your
industry. You can find them at www.deja.com, www.listz.com/news,
and by joining AOL and CompuServe. Read new messages regularly,
daily when possible, and reply to them using your arsenal of
signatures, blurbs, reports and FAQs. Just don't be overtly
commercial in your postings.
Other Things You Can Do
There are obviously many other ways you can promote your online
business. You can learn a lot of tricks by visiting successful
sites and seeing what little gimmicks and techniques they are
using and copying them. Depending on your budget, industry and
audience, you can get into banner advertising, offline
advertising, promotions and contests, coupons, selling through
auction sites like eBay, classified ads on AOL and CompuServe,
sponsorships, and much more. You might want to buy some good books
at Amazon.com on online marketing for a thorough look at many of
these techniques.
The Bottom Line
The Internet is a complex place and concentrating on just one
marketing idea will not get you any long term, huge gains. Your
best bet is to follow the time-proven strategies we have talked
about in their totality, daily. And this marketing should consume
80% of your daily work time (or get someone to spend 80% of their
time marketing for you). I guarantee you that if you spend this
time daily enjoying yourself as you get into the things we have
talked about, your traffic and online success will grow to amazing
proportions! It is a time-proven 'secret' success formula.
Article by
David Gikandi
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