How To Promote Your Website
The internet has ample amounts of opportunities for everyone no matter your skill level, education level, or financial position. Hundreds of thousands of people start up website projects every year but only a small percentage of them ever reach the level of success the creator was hoping for. This all comes down to marketing mixed with a bit of luck. A well-promoted website can be the difference between a failed project or a life-changing career. We are going to take a look at five key factors in website promotion and why you need to focus on them to obtain the success you desire for your online project be it a blog, forum, shop, or service.
Good Content (SEO)
The biggest defining factor of having online success or failure is all down to content and content management. When it comes to “search engine optimization” or SEO for short, you want to look at both on-page and off-page content. For your on-page SEO, you will want to focus on things like loading speed, having a responsive (and mobile-friendly) design, good meta descriptions, well-optimized pictures and videos, and well-written content with proper keywords. Off-page SEO deals with engagements from your viewers/readers, who is sharing your content and where, as well as how authoritative your overall content is. If you are just starting, even with perfect SEO it can take a few months to see results. It is well worth investing your time to make sure your SEO is on par with the latest trends and search engine preferences because this is where a majority of your traffic will be coming from. Once you have balanced and ideal content, it will only require micromanagement and minimal updates from time to time to keep a steady and upward flow of traffic. Find what works best for your niche and stick with it.
Social Media
Second only to having good content is social media use and presence. The reason for making use of social media is down to it being the best overall way to have organic interactions, links back to your site, and an easy way to interact with other companies as well as customers or users. You have access to not only B2C (business to customer) but B2B (business to business) just by signing up to these platforms. There are dozens of options today when it comes to social media but having a presence on at least two of the big five is ideal. The big five includes Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Having active accounts on at least two of these social media platforms will help you to grow your online presence with real people. You can also branch out to other popular social platforms that are gaining traction or look to social apps such as Snapchat and TikTok to gain even more of an online presence. Ideally, you focus on what will work best for the type of website you are promoting. If your website is offering products or services, you can’t go wrong in using any of these platforms. However, if you are looking to gain members for a forum or readers for a blog, you will have to be more considerate and selective on which social media platforms you sign-up for so you are not wasting any of your time.
Develop An E-mail List
Once your website is up and running and you have all your SEO and social media accounts ready, you can start building an e-mail list. This is one of the tried and true methods of promoting a website as it has worked for nearly two decades now. While some may consider it outdated in 2022, it is still worth investing time in for a variety of niche-specific blogs, forums, and online shops and services. You simply have a pop-up option active on your website that encourages people to sign up for a newsletter. This will give you access to readers without them needing to visit your website. Even having just a few hundred e-mails is enough to see sizable traffic, interactions, and sales.
Paid Advertising
While it certainly is not necessary or even an option early on if you are starting from scratch, it is a good concept to keep on the back-burner. Doing paid advertisements through other websites as well as asocial media sites is a good way to target your audience and bring in traffic and revenue without having to do much of anything. Depending on where you want to place ads for your site will determine the overall cost. On social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you have more niche-specific options for who your ads are targeted at. You can select based on location, gender, topic, and so on. You must know your market and who you are trying to reach before doing this. As mentioned, paid advertisement is not entirely necessary to grow and promote a website but it is a valuable tool if you are looking to promote an online business.
Provide What Others Don’t
This is something not many people consider when it comes to online content. Many will look to competitors, see what works for them, and then replicate it. While this does work, it has no long-term value. Ideally, you want to provide what others do as well as something they don’t. This can work for both blogs and forums as well as online shops and services. You will have to do some research and come up with ideas and concepts that you feel are lacking from your competition. You can offer free products or services, insensitive through sign-up bonuses, as well as combined concepts from two different competitors in one place. The idea behind this is to give someone a reason to not only visit your site but to keep coming back to it.
While the internet is forever advancing and changing with new ideas, concepts and standard models marketing as a whole has stayed the same. You want your content to outshine your competition, you want search engines to find your content reliant and useful for visitors, and you want to reach as many people as possible. With these five useful tips for marketing your website, you will be able to reap the rewards and be one step closer to success.
The internet has ample amounts of opportunities for everyone no matter your skill level, education level, or financial position. Hundreds of thousands of people start up website projects every year but only a small percentage of them ever reach the level of success the creator was hoping for. This all comes down to marketing mixed with a bit of luck. A well-promoted website can be the difference between a failed project or a life-changing career. We are going to take a look at five key factors in website promotion and why you need to focus on them to obtain the success you desire for your online project be it a blog, forum, shop, or service.
Good Content (SEO)
The biggest defining factor of having online success or failure is all down to content and content management. When it comes to “search engine optimization” or SEO for short, you want to look at both on-page and off-page content. For your on-page SEO, you will want to focus on things like loading speed, having a responsive (and mobile-friendly) design, good meta descriptions, well-optimized pictures and videos, and well-written content with proper keywords. Off-page SEO deals with engagements from your viewers/readers, who is sharing your content and where, as well as how authoritative your overall content is. If you are just starting, even with perfect SEO it can take a few months to see results. It is well worth investing your time to make sure your SEO is on par with the latest trends and search engine preferences because this is where a majority of your traffic will be coming from. Once you have balanced and ideal content, it will only require micromanagement and minimal updates from time to time to keep a steady and upward flow of traffic. Find what works best for your niche and stick with it.
Social Media
Second only to having good content is social media use and presence. The reason for making use of social media is down to it being the best overall way to have organic interactions, links back to your site, and an easy way to interact with other companies as well as customers or users. You have access to not only B2C (business to customer) but B2B (business to business) just by signing up to these platforms. There are dozens of options today when it comes to social media but having a presence on at least two of the big five is ideal. The big five includes Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Having active accounts on at least two of these social media platforms will help you to grow your online presence with real people. You can also branch out to other popular social platforms that are gaining traction or look to social apps such as Snapchat and TikTok to gain even more of an online presence. Ideally, you focus on what will work best for the type of website you are promoting. If your website is offering products or services, you can’t go wrong in using any of these platforms. However, if you are looking to gain members for a forum or readers for a blog, you will have to be more considerate and selective on which social media platforms you sign-up for so you are not wasting any of your time.
Develop An E-mail List
Once your website is up and running and you have all your SEO and social media accounts ready, you can start building an e-mail list. This is one of the tried and true methods of promoting a website as it has worked for nearly two decades now. While some may consider it outdated in 2022, it is still worth investing time in for a variety of niche-specific blogs, forums, and online shops and services. You simply have a pop-up option active on your website that encourages people to sign up for a newsletter. This will give you access to readers without them needing to visit your website. Even having just a few hundred e-mails is enough to see sizable traffic, interactions, and sales.
Paid Advertising
While it certainly is not necessary or even an option early on if you are starting from scratch, it is a good concept to keep on the back-burner. Doing paid advertisements through other websites as well as asocial media sites is a good way to target your audience and bring in traffic and revenue without having to do much of anything. Depending on where you want to place ads for your site will determine the overall cost. On social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you have more niche-specific options for who your ads are targeted at. You can select based on location, gender, topic, and so on. You must know your market and who you are trying to reach before doing this. As mentioned, paid advertisement is not entirely necessary to grow and promote a website but it is a valuable tool if you are looking to promote an online business.
Provide What Others Don’t
This is something not many people consider when it comes to online content. Many will look to competitors, see what works for them, and then replicate it. While this does work, it has no long-term value. Ideally, you want to provide what others do as well as something they don’t. This can work for both blogs and forums as well as online shops and services. You will have to do some research and come up with ideas and concepts that you feel are lacking from your competition. You can offer free products or services, insensitive through sign-up bonuses, as well as combined concepts from two different competitors in one place. The idea behind this is to give someone a reason to not only visit your site but to keep coming back to it.
While the internet is forever advancing and changing with new ideas, concepts and standard models marketing as a whole has stayed the same. You want your content to outshine your competition, you want search engines to find your content reliant and useful for visitors, and you want to reach as many people as possible. With these five useful tips for marketing your website, you will be able to reap the rewards and be one step closer to success.
