Now that you have established an online presence, another important step required, is to promote your business online. Internet Marketing, Website or Blog Promotion, Traffic Building or whatever else you want to call it, are all but just a form of advertising. To make money, you need traffic. To get traffic, you need to promote, period.
When we promote our business online, we are in a way advertising our website, its contents, ourselves (the company/author/blogger) and our products or services. Promoting, is not an easy task, is time consuming and requires a lot of effort from our part. In certain occasions, a small financial investment may be required, although, there are numerous methods that are at our disposal which does not require any but an Investment of our time. Taking advantage of these free methods are strongly recommended as they are effective means of promoting your online business.
Following below is a list of things that we should do in order to promote our online business (not necessarily in this order):
First and foremost: Get your website Indexed on all major search engines. You can do this manually or use the several services available from free search engine site submitters. Needless to say what organic traffic can do for your online business. It is a free service and can generate massive traffic to a website. When people land on your front page, normally they already know what they are looking for. Keep your front page neat, free of errors and uncluttered. If you need to find out more about website construction, you can read an article about how to make a good home page.
Continuing on search engines, another suggestion is to get your website listed on vertical search engines. Vertical search engine are also known as specific search engines. Say, for example that you are selling “Real Estate Property” in Boston. You should list your website on specific directories that is only related to Real Estate.
Free Online Classified Ads: List whatever it is you are promoting. Use local online classified ads if your business is specific to a certain area or location. A restoration or remodelling services offered in Los angeles, is an example.
Blog: Seriously consider on having a blog (if you still don’t have one). Blogging is an excellent opportunity for generating buzz to your online business. They are excellent communication platforms, educational resources and sources of entertainment. It is also a way which you can provide you potential customers to interact with you and take advantage of this to use it as a promotional tool.
Article Marketing: Writing articles and submitting them to article directories gives you exposure and popularity. There are many article directories and submission is free. Some will give you quality backlinks. Just be sure to leave your business card (URL) at the resource or bio box, to let people know where to find you. One good site to write articles and get quality backlinks is EZine.
Social Networking + Bookmarking: I am sure you are all familiar with this. My advice is to join the most popular ones (Technorati, Stumble Upon, Digg and Facebook) and choose one or two social networks and give everything you have to stand out. I do not understand why there are still many out there that underestimate the power of Social Networking.
Forums: – Participate, learn what other people are saying in your niche, help them out if you can and direct them to your website for more. If you have a blog, it is also a good source for writing your next article.
Directories: – Submit, submit, submit. Nothing more to say if you have a blog. Use blog directories as most of them are free and have been proven reliable.
Sponsorship (Contest): There are several bloggers who will recommend for you to hold contests as a means of generating traffic. If you are in to this, yes, it is definitely another way of generating traffic. If you are not, you can offer something to bloggers who like doing this. You can for example, search for sites that promotes contests and send them an email, offering an ad spot on your website or a product which you can give give for free to the winner. If they like what you have to offer, they will take it, mention you as one of their sponsors, and link to your site. This can go viral depending on how it is done.
Feed Syndication and RSS Aggregators: Feedburner, Bloglines and RSS Directories. “Publicize” for free.
Commenting: Make it a point to comment on other blogs as often as you can, specially in areas within your niche. Leave meaningful comments and people who like it (even the owner of the blog) will most likely visit your website. One important issue is when you leave your links in the commenting area. If the owner permits, leave always your name and URL. If you use blogger.com for example, do not use your Google account or openID. What is the use of getting a backlink to your profile anyway? You want that backlink (specially if it is a dofollow blog), to point at your website.
Banner Exchange: Entrecard, 125X125, Spott, Nuacco, etc., are good forms of promoting your site, specially in the beginning of your journey. Before you use this method, consider if this will not hurt your online business (depends really) as it can be seen as unprofessional. If your online business offers services such as Website Building or Graphics Design, maybe.
Twitter: And the buzz goes on. Right now, it is probably one of the best forms of promoting your online business. Follow people with the same interest as you and remember to be polite when using it. There are numerous tutorials and tips about using Twitter online. Use it.
PPC: If you have a little money to spare, PPC is one form of promotion. Adwords, Bidvertiser, etc. are examples of this. You can create your own campaign and set your budget in accordance with your objectives.
SEO: Use of several techniques to optimize your site can be a source of massive traffic. As you all know, SEO is a whole subject in itself and for this reason, I will leave this suggestion as is. Just remember that the higher you rank on search engines, the better.
These are just some suggestions on how to promote your online business. Act on it, as it is absolutely useless if no action is taken on your part. Success.