Website promotion doesn’t have to be as difficult as some people make it out to be. Here are three website promotion strategies to help you get started.
Directories.
Directories are essentially libraries of websites. They’re generally organized by broad category like sports and then by more specific categories like baseball which is then broken down into micro categories like amateur, youth, video games, instruction, movies and so on.
The benefit to listing your website with a directory is they send traffic to your website and they help increase search engine ranking. The caveat is that there are literally thousands of website directories. Best advice, because manually submitting takes time, is to submit to a handful as time permits. For example when your website is up and running submitting to https://www.dmoz.org is a great idea. Additionally, you can submit to a couple more. Then plan on submitting to another five or so the next quarter. By the end of the year, you will have submitted to 20 directories and can reevaluate your plan and how much traffic has come from those directories.
Search engine submission.
One of the first things many people do once they’ve created a business website is to submit it to the search engines. This is a very straight forward process and many website hosts offer this service as part of their hosting package. The obvious search engines to submit your site to are Google, MSN, and Yahoo however there are a number of smaller search engines for which it can benefit your business to become a part of. They include:
o MetaCrawler,
o AltaVista,
o Live Search,
o Ask.com,
o About,
o MIVA,
o LookSmart
There are actually hundreds of search engines however these seven plus the three listed earlier are a great start. To list your website with a search engine manually, that is without a submission service, simply visit the website. Generally they explain the process in their FAQs or in their ‘submit a site’ tab. For Google the process is straight forward, simply visit https://www.google.com/addurl/ and add your URL per the instructions.
Press and publicity.
Press releases are a great way to spread the word about your business and the benefits your company offers. Online press release websites like prweb.com are an excellent resource. They offer tutorials on how to write a press release and also offer various degrees of service ranging from manual and broad scope submission to professional submission to targeted publications, regions, or industries. One well written press release can generate a ton of website traffic, increase awareness of your company and present you and your business with new opportunities.
Website promotion is a continual process and part of an ongoing marketing strategy. As website traffic and awareness build, promotion strategies will naturally evolve. Submitting to directories and search engines will no longer be necessary and press releases and more sophisticated marketing campaigns will take over. However, to attain that level of success, take the time to implement those initial promotion steps; submit to a few major directories and search engines to get the ball rolling.